HUMBLE BEGINNINGS

“And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed. (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.) And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David) to be taxed with Mary, his espoused wife, being great with child.” [Luke 2:1-5]

Augustus Caesar had ordered the taking of a census in all the provinces of the Empire, and so the carpenter Joseph and his wife Mary were compelled to go on this 80 mile trip from Nazareth to Bethlehem . I say compelled, because Mary was in her ninth month and close to the time when she would give birth, and this would not have been a good time for such a long journey on foot. There were no buses in those days. They may have had a donkey, but the Bible text doesn’t say. In any case the trip would have taken a week. So Joseph would not have started out if he had not been compelled by circumstances.

I say all this to point out that this familiar story, so well-known and so oft-repeated, is absolutely amazing. Here such common folk — a carpenter and his pregnant wife— are privy to becoming the guardians of the future King of Kings! You would think that God would send this son into better circumstances! You would have expected this King to be born in Caesar’s palace. You would have thought that Mary would have been attended by the royal surgeon, the palace midwives, that there would have been pomp and circumstance and the birth of this child would have been the talk of the whole Empire.

So why in the world was this King not born in the line of Caesar? Why was he not born a Roman? Why was this King born a Jew? a peasant? in a stable? in an out-of-the way town like Bethlehem?

A clue to the way God operates is found in the first letter to the Corinthian church: “But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; and base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: that no flesh should glory in his presence.” [1Corinthians 1:27-29]

Where is the Roman Empire today? It collapsed many years ago. And yet the child who came without pomp and circumstance— where is He today?

ONE SOLITARY LIFE

“Here is a man who was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He grew up in another obscure village. He worked in a carpenter shop until he was thirty, and then for three years he was an itinerant preacher.

He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never owned a home. He never had a family. He never went to college. He never travelled 200 miles from the place where he was born. He never did one of the things which usually accompany greatness.

While still a young man, the tide of popular opinion turned against him. His friends ran away. One of them denied him. He was turned over to his enemies. He went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed upon a cross between two thieves. His executioners gambled for the only piece of property he had on earth while he was dying— his coat. When he was dead he was taken down and laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend.

[Twenty] wide centuries have come and gone; today he is the centerpiece of the human race and the Leader of the column of progress. I am far within the mark when I say that all the armies that ever marched, and all the navies that were ever built, and all the parliaments that ever sat, and all the Kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man upon this earth as powerfully as has that one solitary life. ”

―Dr. James A. Francis, July 11 1926

NEXT: THE ESPOUSED WIFE

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HUMBLE BEGINNINGS