The Characters of Christmas by Darling Daniel

Author:Darling, Daniel [Darling, Daniel]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
ISBN: 9780802419293
Publisher: Moody Publishers
Published: 2019-09-30T16:00:00+00:00

A Most Humble Entrance

During this time, a lot was happening on the world stage. The great-nephew of Julius Caesar, Octavian, had just been crowned the new Caesar. We know Octavian by the name “Augustus,” given to him by the Roman Senate as a way to confer godlike status.1

Augustus was one of the first Roman monarchs to demand worship, and his people were not hesitant to offer it. After all, this was the ruler who had achieved peace.

To most of the world, Caesar was god, life would forever be Roman, and for the Jewish people, the dream of a Messiah King was all but dead, except to the minority who actually read and studied and believed the ancient prophets.

Luke’s narrative begins with a call by Caesar for a census and a tax. Little did this now-forgotten ruler understand that his demand for a census was used by God to set in motion events that would ultimately lead to the birth of a King who, unlike Caesar, would have a throne that would never end. Caesar’s declaration forced a common village carpenter and his pregnant, teenage bride to make the journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem, a journey that undoubtedly taxed the strength of this young woman.

What Caesar didn’t know was that the baby in the womb of this peasant woman was the very Messiah the Jewish people had longed for, the One whose birth would change the world forever.

The most significant life in the history of the world was in Mary’s womb.

This baby inside Mary was not a Caesar, who fashioned himself as a god, but He was the very God of the universe, God in the flesh. I love what the late pastor J. Vernon McGee had to say about the events of that night in Bethlehem:

Everything that happened was arranged by God. If anyone had said to Caesar, “Wait a minute; women about to give birth are going to have to be moved in order for you to get your taxes,” I think he would have replied, “I do not care about babies or their mothers; I am only interested in taxes, armies, money and luxury.” Well, that is all gone now, including Caesar.2

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