THE CHRISTMAS STORY The characters: The characters of the Christmas story are many and varied. Good guys and bad guys, heroes and villains, the weak and the powerful, the righteous and the self-righteous. At the time of Christs birth the doors of the Temple of Janus had been closed for more than a decade, and they remained closed for a total of thirty years. Closed doors meant no war, when Rome was at war the doors were flung wide open. Closed doors. No wars for thirty years. Beautiful? No. The world had been bludgeoned into submission and crushed under the heel of a merciless tyrannical ruler. All power was vested in one man. Hegemony. World mastery. Total control by one who sought his own pleasures So Augustus Caesar, in all of his pomp and arrogance, decided to poll his people. Note Lukes words: all the world. The ruler issued a decree that ordered all people to go their home city to register. Lukes statement that all of the world was under one mans domination and totally at his mercy in all matters is significant. Certainly there were scatterings of humanity that Rome did not directly rule, but they were small and without political clout or power. Rome felt no concern for such little clusters of people. The Roman coffers must have been low - or lower than usual - and Augustus wanted to be certain that he was missing no ones tax dollars. There was no appeal, no excuse, no proxy allowed. And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, Luke wrote. But 650 years earlier another decree had been written, But thou Bethlehem - out of thee shall come the Ruler of Israel (Micah 5:2). As it turned out, the really insignificant person in the drama was the puppet in the city on the seven hills - Augustus Caesar - and the really important personalities - the most important persons in the entire universe at the time - were the lowly peasant woman who was carrying Gods Son and the man who was guarding her. They went to Bethlehem because Caesar had issued a decree. Caesar issued a decree - why? Not because he was brilliant, powerful, or in total control of the then-known world. Augustus Caesar was not the god that he saw himself to be, God saw that it was time - time for the true ruler of the world to make His earthly appearance. And Bethlehem had already been established as the place where the Messiah would be born. Though Caesar was oblivious to the fact, God had chosen to use him - worldly and power-driven though he was - to accomplish His divine purpose. Caesar had no more say in the matter than the lowly Joseph had about paying the hated tax. What irony! Did God smile just a bit as He watched the blustering, pompous dictator gloat in his false sense of power?
Posted on: Mon, 02 Dec 2013 10:39:57 +0000
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