This is the season for major events to transpire through many of our leaders on Capital Hill. The President and the House have to come to a long-term agreement on taxes, the deficit and trying to figure which group of Americans is going to pay for it all.
Supreme Court Justices are ruling on cases that will shape the world in which our children will grow up in: The Definition of Marriage, Race Considered in Collegiate Admissions, etc.
Yet, this morning as I look at Luke 2, I see the Providence of God through unlikely sources.
Luke 2:1 says, “In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world.” Nothing major. Rome is in charge. They want to count and tax people. Census time!
We don’t know why Caesar called for the census. Maybe it was his pride. He wanted to see how big the Roman world was. Maybe it was Roman policy. With Rome’s size always increasing, perhaps the census was needed to ensure the amount of tax money coming in was comparable to the amount of people in Rome’s influence. Whether it was pride or policy, we know it was God’s Providence. If not for the census being called for at that time, Joseph and Mary would have stayed in Nazareth and the prophecy of Micah 2 wouldn’t have been fulfilled (which spoke of the Savior being born in the city of David in Bethlehem).
Why were Joseph and Mary in Nazareth? Didn’t they know the Savior was to be born in Bethlehem? Maybe they didn’t know the OT prophecy. Maybe they had doubts. Maybe they just forgot (we do forget what God tells us sometimes). Maybe they were afraid to move Mary at this stage in the pregnancy.
For whatever the reasons, the was the Providence of God that led to the fulfillment of God’s decree long before Caesar’s. It was Caesar’s decree that led Joseph and Mary to travel to Nazareth to Bethlehem right around the time Jesus was to be born. The decree didn’t come to early, as to fall during Elizabeth’s birth of John the Baptist. It didn’t come late after Jesus had already been born. It came during the third trimester of Mary’s pregnancy…A confluence of events making the time right for God’s word to be fulfilled.
May it be an encouragement to us, no matter what our political, cultural, spiritual, parental, academic or any type of leader we have that brings us worry or concern–godly or not–God is truly and ultimately the one calling the shots.
Proverbs 16:9 says, “In his heart a man plans his course, but it is The Lord that determines his steps.”
Step in peace today. God and His Providence has us all.
Sean M. Watkins 