In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world … And everyone went to his own town to register.
So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David.
(verses 1, 3-4)
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I’ve been reflecting lately on the delays of God, those seasons when answers to prayer and fulfilment of promises seem so drawn out – agonizingly so.
Undoubtedly the event celebrated in this chapter had been anticipated by yearning hearts for centuries. “To us a Child is born,” the prophet had promised. “The virgin will be with child and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel” (Isaiah 9:6, 7:14). Those prophecies were given some 700 years prior to the events of Luke 2 – other prophecies had followed, and still others had come centuries earlier, the earliest being given in Eden, immediately after humankind’s fall (Genesis 3:15). The delay was painstaking.
But the orchestration of fulfilment was exquisite. A king – David by name – had ruled over God’s people, enthroned in Jerusalem, yet born in Bethlehem. His songs filled the ancient scriptures, and his reign (though imperfect) established the gold-standard for God’s kingdom rule. It was to be within his lineage that the promised Child would come. “He will reign on David’s throne and over this kingdom … forever” (Isaiah 9:7). The pieces of fulfilment were falling into place. Among his descendants a family would one day see the birth of the Promised One.
But David’s kingdom was divided, both portions ultimately over-run by the armies of empire. Kings and kingdoms fell. God’s people were taken into exile, ruled successively by foreigners (Assyrians, Babylonians, Medes, Persians), extracted from the land of promise.
Yet the promise endured.
Later, the people were restored to the land, Jerusalem was re-established, and its temple rebuilt. Ancient promises were being fulfilled. Yet, the dream of the promised deliverer – the Child, the Messiah – lingered, unrealized. Delay persisted. Yearning intensified.
Israel’s eventual conquest by the iron-fisted Romans only made the wait more agonizing yet. Could anything be further from the promise?
But in fact, the promise was right at the door. Caesar Augustus, sovereign ruler of the whole empire, determined by his own whim “that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world.” Think of all the movement, of all the multitudes, that occurred on every road and byway throughout that vast empire. All of it, as it turns out, happening simply so that one lone couple would be moved to an ancient town, far away. All of it happening not primarily by the whim of a Roman emperor, but rather by the choice of the Sovereign Lord, who was fulfilling his promise.
For while empires were shuffling and shifting, the long line of David’s descendants had been flowing downward, generation by generation, to a young man and his bride living in Israel’s north, in the land of Galilee. That young woman had been divinely chosen, indeed before time began, to bear a child. Her lineage had been prepared, but so had her heart. We don’t know the paths of that preparation, but the Lord had worked in her a willingness to be his servant, submitted to his will.
And so prepared, this couple was compelled by Augustus’ edict to do what they would not have chosen to do otherwise. They left home in Galilee and traveled south by wearying roads to their ancestral town of Bethlehem. David’s town.
And there the woman, Mary, already at full-term, gave birth to her firstborn.
A Son. A Child. Messiah. Our Saviour. At last!
Oh, the delays of God. Oh, the wonder of his orchestrations. Oh, the goodness of fulfilment.
My soul glorifies the Lord.
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Praise your name, O Sovereign Lord. Your promises are sure. Your purposes are always accomplished. Your salvation has come. Your Son is given. Praise your name.
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Reflect:
Are you experiencing a “delay” in any of God’s promises? How does Luke 2 reframe your own wait?
Give Thanks:
Before Luke 2, people waited. We have seen the fulfilment. Pause to give thanks for the Son, the Child – and the gift of salvation.
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Image by falco from Pixabay
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