Bible Study Notes: St Luke’s Gospel
Session 7 - Chapter 2 vv 1-7
About that time Caesar Augustus ordered a census to be
taken throughout the Empire. This was the first census when Quirinius
was governor of Syria. Everyone had to travel to his own ancestral hometown
to be accounted for. So Joseph went from the Galilean town of Nazareth
up to Bethlehem in Judah, David's town, for the census. As a descendant
of David, he had to go there. He went with Mary, his fiancée, who
was pregnant.
While they were there, the time came for her to give birth. She gave birth
to a son, her firstborn. She wrapped him in a blanket and laid him in
a manger, because there was no room in the hostel.
© The
Message
We move just a little after Christmas to the Nativity story itself. St Luke begins his narrative on a majestic note of world significance. He asks us to consider the birth of Jesus in the light of the view from the throne of the emperor Caesar Augustus, great nephew of Julius Caesar.
The emperor has ordered a census for tax purposes. Mary and Joseph must tail off to Bethlehem. This is as you will recall is David’s royal city and Joseph is a descendant of David.
So thus doing so Luke connects Jesus’ birth with a world ruler. The spiritual ruler born at Bethlehem will affect the secular ruler of the known world. Luke will do this again in the following chapter when he links world rulers with the Baptism of Jesus at the river Jordan. It is this event that Christ’s immersion in the Jordan will send ripples out to change the course of world events. In other words, the birth and Baptism of Jesus Christ will have world significance.
There may also be a second reason for invoking the name of Augustus in Christ’s birth story. Any thoughts? Well, Caesar Augustus was also known as the “Peace Emperor”. It was Augustus who ended the civil wars that raged after the assassination of Julius Caesar and imposed a Pax Romana (Roman Peace) on the world. He closed the doors of the Janus shrine and promoted the cause of a world without war His birthday was celebrated as the Greek New Year and they called him ‘The Saviour of the World’.
Augustus imposed peace by force. Jesus initiated peace through freedom based on love and forgiveness. The greater peace was the Pax Christi because it affected the ‘Inner Self’ as well as the outer society. The origin of profound peace was occurring in Bethlehem, not in Rome.
There is an interesting juxtaposition here between Luke’s two books, his Gospel and the Book of the Acts of the Apostles. In Acts we see the Christian mission going from Judea to Syria to Rome. In the birth story we witness a reversal of geography, as the movement from Rome to Syria, where Quirinius is the governor, to Judea’s Bethlehem. Acts ends with Paul preaching Christ in Rome. His gospel begins with the birth of a baby in Bethlehem, a birth that will one day affect Rome. The least of the cities of Judea, the most inconsequential village in history so far will touch and completely transform the most powerful one – Rome.
Now Joseph and Mary came to Bethlehem and looked for a place to stay. The public inn was one large room where the lodgers would have all slept on cots raised above the floor on a sort of platform. The animals would have been with them as well, but on the floor.
Joseph and Mary are left to find some shelter as a matter of urgency. Christian tradition has identified a cave as the site of Jesus’ birth and as early as the year 325 a basilica was built over the spot to commemorate this event.
There is a teaching that has grown up around this whole ‘homelessness’ situation and put simply says that each time we refuse to open our hearts to Jesus and refuse to welcome Him into out lives we play out again the sad story of those who physically turned away Mary and Joseph.
Then Mary gave birth to Jesus and wrapped Him in swaddling clothes laying Him in a manger – a food bin. St Francis of Assisi, the creator of the Nativity scene, pictured the manger as a cradle, and that is how we have thought about it ever since. Is there an ironic symbolism that strikes you here?
That His first cradle was a food container? Jesus would of course, one day, call Himself the Bread of Life. Manger food nourished the animals; Christ-Bread will nourish our human souls. There is an added symbolism her, can you think what that might be? The name Bethlehem means ‘House of Bread”! Here at the beginning of Luke’s Gospel, shepherds will recognise Jesus the Bread of Life in Bethlehem. At the end of Luke’s Gospel, two disciples recognise Jesus in the breaking of the Bread at Emmaus.
© Fr Michael Fuller: January 2008