Please be seated. Let us pray.
Lord, we thank you for the joy that is within us. We thank you for the opportunities to gather together and celebrate and worship you and all that you have done. We ask now that you continue to be with us, to open our hearts and open our minds to receive and understand what you have given for us to hear. That you may expand us, that you may strengthen us in faith, in joy, in hope, and in love for you. Amen.
Now, the apostle Paul hasn’t been mentioned yet this evening, but he wrote in his letter to the Ephesians words about Jesus which may best summarize our Christian faith and feelings concerning our Christmas holiday remembrance. He wrote, ‘In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of his grace which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of his will according to his purpose which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.’
The birth of Jesus, the incarnation of Christ, the occasion of God the Son taking on flesh, is that moment, or at least the beginning of that fullness of time moment. The fullness of time is best understood as being the whole of Jesus’s earthly life from his conception to his ascension and heavenly enthronement, his humiliation to his exaltation. Because in Jesus, all of the promises of God were and are being fulfilled. This truly is an amazing thing, the most undeserved gift for sinful humanity: salvation in Christ.
But the wonder and miracle of the incarnation itself is not the Christmas miracle which draws our attention this evening. Tonight, we’re drawn to the miracle of the timing of the planning of the fullness of time and how it came to be—the whys of the whos, the where’s, and the winds.
First, we consider the begats of Matthew 1 and Luke 3. Matthew’s gospel lineage of Joseph, Jesus’s father under the law, describes Jesus as being the heir to both David and Abraham, heir to the eternal throne of God’s people and heir to the promised grace which the Lord covenanted to give Abraham and his descendants. Thus, Jesus was afforded the title Son of David and membership in the ethnic Jewish race.
Now, while Matthew’s lineage offered the legal parentage and ancestry of Jesus, Luke’s account is different in two distinct ways. One, Luke traces Jesus’s ancestry all the way back to Adam, emphasizing the humanity of his flesh and his right to reclaim the spiritual headship which our first ancestor forsook and accord himself the title Son of Man. Two, Luke traces Jesus’s natural or biological parentage, proving him as the natural son of Mary to be the prophesied offspring of the woman from Genesis 3:15 who would crush the head of the serpent, Satan.
So, Jesus was born as the heir to and consequence of some 3,000 years of prophetic preparation to be the Son of Man, the Son of David, a child of Abraham, and the Son of God—all united together within his unique person. This is the why of the who Jesus is.
Secondly, Luke’s gospel goes into some very specific and ordinarily verifiable details concerning the circumstances of Jesus’s birth. ‘In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria, and all went to be registered, each to his own town.’
Now, unfortunately, we do not have a sure date or verified and certain historical records for this particular census. Various records point to some time between a span of about 10 years, but regardless of the when, Scripture declares that this event, which was prompted by the Roman authorities and still remembered by the gospel’s initial audience, caused Joseph to leave his place of residence and employment up in Nazareth and make the three-day journey to Bethlehem with his betrothed at a very inconvenient time during her pregnancy.
The village of Bethlehem, to which they traveled, known also as Ephrathah, features heavily in the biblical narrative of Ruth—she who married Boaz, the father of Obed, the father of Jesse, the father of King David—therefore making it David’s hometown. So, Joseph and Mary needed to travel there because they were of the house and lineage of David. This is the why of the where for Jesus’s birth.
But the question is begged: why wasn’t Joseph living there any longer? If the town of Bethlehem still had such a tight grip on him under the promises which God had given to the Israelite people through Moses, each tribe received property in the promised land. This property was then divided by clans and then by families to be their hereditary possession. And if an Israelite ever sold their property, it was valued based upon the length of time between the next year of Jubilee because in that year, the property got returned back to their hereditary owners.
Yet by the time of Joseph and Mary, the kingdom of Israel had been divided and dissolved. Judah was carried off into exile in distant Babylon until years later when the people were allowed to return home to a land that was now strange to them to start again. At the time of their return, Zerubbabel, the governor of Judea and a common ancestor to both Joseph and Mary, had power and authority over the whole land.
But some time during the intervening ten generations and five hundred-ish years, Joseph’s family seems to have lost their property rights. It may have been recent; it may have been in a more distant past. Scripture does not say, and our speculation does not help. But what is likely is that these were the efforts of the world trying to keep the members of the messianic line from being where they were supposed to be.
What Scripture teaches us here is that despite the challenges and problems of life in the world which we, God’s people, all face, the Lord God will always work his will and way to achieve his intended purposes against all satanic opposition, even turning the world’s efforts against itself.
Scripture tells us nothing about the particulars of Joseph’s situation in Nazareth at the time of Jesus’s birth—whether he was prosperous or poor, whether he was a widower or previously unmarried, or whether he was even yet a professional carpenter or merely still an apprentice. But what we know is that the man who would become the Messiah’s adoptive father was not yet in the locale where God wanted him to be when God wanted him to be there.
Cue Caesar’s census and Roman taxes. It pleased God to allow his servant Caesar and his human desire to raise funds and increase his military might to further the Lord’s divine plan. Caesar’s command to register drove Joseph back down to the ancestral homeland in Bethlehem of Judea at the fullness of time, so that the Messiah, God the Son, Jesus, was born exactly as the Lord purposed him to be.
Where, when, how, and why—have y’all ever tried to gather your family together for the holidays? Kids, grandkids, aunts and uncles, cousins and siblings—to get everybody all together in the same place at the same time just for one meal against all of the many distractions, all the other options or opportunities or events which try to pull each one of us in so many different directions? It feels almost impossible for us.
But God did it better, across the lengthy span of history, across all the occupied world, to have his only begotten Son, Jesus the Messiah, be born in just the where, at the when, and as who he needed to be—all so that he would be the one perfect acceptable sacrifice of atonement for all of our sins and the Redeemer of his chosen people.
This is the beauty of God’s eternal plan. Circumstances which we could not reasonably expect to occur by simple chance happened just so through the ordering and divine will of God according to his eternal plan. There was no infringing upon the free will of men, no forcing of anyone’s steps onto a certain path. God uses the desires of men—all our free will—to accomplish everything which he has ordained and decreed must come to pass, including our past redemption in Christ as well as his impending return.
God decrees the end result and we all work together to achieve it. Caesar Augustus commanded his census for his own tax and military purposes; Joseph dutifully traveled several days to his ancestral hometown to register for this tax and responsibly perform his civic duty. And so, Jesus was born in that little town of Bethlehem, too little to be among the clans of Judah, fulfilling three thousand years’ worth of biblical prophecy and sending out the ruler in Israel whose coming forth is from old, from ancient days—all as part of God’s plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.
Then, at the cross, it again pleased God to permit and allow the will of wicked men to be the vehicle for completing this Christmas miracle, satisfying justice and granting mercy to his chosen people. Jesus Christ paid the price on that cross which he was born to pay, redeeming all of his elect across history—past, present, and future—hanging from a Roman tree in the fullness of time.
And no effort of man, the world, or Satan can change this or thwart the decree of the Lord. Isn’t it wonderful how God truly works all things together for the good of those who love him, for those who are called by his name and for his purposes?
This—that is the miracle of Christmas. So while we gather here to celebrate Christmas, in truth we are remembering and celebrating the fullness of time and God’s plan for our redemption in Christ Jesus. We remember and celebrate inseparably the incarnation of God the Son and the true reason for the season: his death, resurrection, and enthronement for our eternal salvation.
So, whenever life throws you those strange and unusual twists, when the curveballs of life come your way, when unexpected taxes come due, don’t worry about it. Instead, go with the flow of life in faith. God has an eternal plan, and it is good. God has everything under control—just wait and see where the Lord is taking you, and one day you may understand just what your part in his plan has been.
Against all the evil intent in the world, God will transform it; he will turn it for good, for the salvation of many, for all of his chosen people, for all those who trust in him alone. Amen and Merry Christmas.
Let us pray.
Jesus, light of the world, prince of peace, king of kings, lord of lords, we thank you that you have established and decreed your plan, and truly we love it when your plan comes together. We ask that you continue to sustain us, that you build us up, and that you use us as you will to further your plan and to hasten your return until we are all together gathered, singing around your throne. In your name we pray and worship. Amen.