In Luke's account of Jesus' birth we read of a man named Augustus Caesar, a ruthless and ambitious man who rose to greatness, becoming the first Emperor of Rome and proclaimed to be a living God. In contrast is Jesus, God made flesh, who put aside His greatness in order to become our servant.
Around 500 years after the birth of Christ Dionysus did a detailed study to try and work out exactly when Jesus was born. He then used that as Year 1 in a new calendar, with every year afterward being known as Anno Domini – the year of our Lord. The years before Christ’s birth were counted backward, and we know them as BC – Before Christ.
I want us to spend a couple of minutes getting to know these two powerful men.
Luke 2:1-7
19/12/2010
Introduction:
Who or what has centre stage in your life?
Who or what is your life all about?
In the play we have just seen there were a bunch of characters all competing for prominence in a story that should have been all about Jesus.
We’re going to spend a bit of time looking at some of the events surrounding the Christmas story and ask ourselves whether it’s possible that we too may have lost sight of the real star of Christmas.
In those days...
What days?
Our Dating system – Introducing Dionysus Exiguus (Dennis the Small)
Despite his diligence Dionysus didn’t have all the information that we have available to us today, and he probably missed the actual date of Jesus’ birth by 4 to 6 years, but we’ll get to that later on.
At Luke’s time in history there wasn’t a globally recognised calendar. The two most common ways of designating what year it was were:
· The number of years since the founding of Rome
· The number of years since some powerful person took office.
Luke uses the latter method and identifies the time in history by who the powerful people were at that place and time: Caesar Augustus and a guy named Quirinius.
...Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. 2 (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria
I want us to spend a couple of minutes getting to know these two powerful men.1. Who was Caesar Augustus?
• Real name “Octavius/Octavian”
Great-nephew and heir of Julius Caesar
Great-nephew and heir of Julius Caesar
Not a particularly wealthy or powerful person by birth, but in Julius Caesar’s will was named as heir.
• Ambitious, ruthless, calculated & cunning
Being Caesar’s heir put him in a minefield of political intrigue, but he made a series of daring moves to increase his military power, until he was eventually the most powerful man in the known world. His last real rivals were Marc Antony and Cleopatra, who both committed suicide facing defeat and capture.
• First Emperor of the Roman Empire
He used a mixture of diplomacy and military bullying to reform the Roman republic which had been torn apart by decades of civil war. Octavian was the ruler who brought in the period of “Pax Romana”, the peace of Rome
• Worshipped as a God (Given the title “Augustus”)
In 27 BC the Roman Senate awarded Octavian the title “Augustus”, which means “venerable” or “The Illustrious One”, and signifies his authority over humanity and even over nature. The month of August is named after him (it used to be called “Sextilis”).
In ancient Rome there was a practice of taking a census where all the male citizens had to report to a particular building in Rome
Under Augustus the practice was revived, and for the first time was spread to the provinces of Rome , not just Rome
In what we now refer to as 8BC, Augustus commanded a census to be taken across the Roman Empire . From his records we know that there were 4,233,000 citizens counted. Not everyone in the Empire was a citizen, in fact it’s estimated that there were from 45 to 65 million people in the Roman Empire at that time.[1]
So does that give you a reasonable idea of how powerful Caesar Augustus was? He was top dog in an empire of let’s say 50 million people, and he has one of the months of the year named in his honour.
2. Quirinius – say what?
Quirinius is a pretty notable historical character. He was what the Romans called a “new man” – someone who was not born into the aristocracy but worked his way up from nothing. He was a very capable military and political leader.
He was governor in Syria
Luke includes a little side note here for the benefit of his readers, so they’d be able to tell which census he is referring to: (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria
The problem is that the census referred to in verse 1 is the one Caesar commanded in 8BC. We know that Caesar and King Herod were having a bit of a disagreement during that time so it was probably not until around 5 or 6BC that the census was actually carried out in Judea. We know that it must have been done by 4BC, because that’s when Herod died.
We know that Luke was always very careful to provide good historical information and he was thorough in his research. Not only that, we believe that the Spirit of God actually moved within him to make sure that what he wrote was trustworthy.
So what do we do about this apparent discrepancy?
There have been many good suggestions based on the archaeological information that we have available to us, but perhaps the most widely accepted view is to do with the word “first” that Luke uses here.
It’s all Greek to me!
protos – can mean “first” or “former”
Eg: Acts 1:1
“In my former book….”
It’s possible that a better rendering of the sentence is “This was the one before the census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria
The census that took place in 6AD under Quirinius was perhaps the one that was best remembered in Israel
But whether it’s to do with the particular Greek word used or whether Quirinius did oversee the first census as well on behalf of Caesar as some have suggested, what this demonstrates is that we don’t need to jump to the conclusion that Luke got this wrong. We just need to admit that not everyone agrees on exactly what he meant!
We know that there was a census carried out in the next few years from 8BC, and we know there was a later one around 6AD. Luke is trying to identify for us that it is the first one that he is describing in this story, but whether it’s because we don’t understand his grammar well enough or because we don’t know as much about Quirinius as Luke and the people of his time did, it’s become not-so-clear what he was saying. God in His wisdom however made sure that we had enough information, supplied through Matthew’s gospel, to clarify this for us.
Why bother going into this?
I believe it’s important for you to know you can trust the bible, and this is one of those places that some people jump up and down and say “See, the Bible’s got it wrong! These stories about Jesus are all made up!”
I hope that by bringing it up it won’t surprise you when someone else does, and that you will be confident enough to say “Yep, that’s a hard one to properly understand at first glance, but there are a lot of good scholars who believe that there’s no reason to think that the Bible is wrong here”.
Some people might yawn and say “Is it really that important?”, but I believe it is. When we think about our faith, it’s vital to know that it isn’t a collection of fairy tales. It’s not a bunch of stories that just teach good morals. It’s not wishful thinking about life after death or anything like that.
Our faith is based on the real revelation of a real God who really entered our world in order to reconcile us to Himself.
We live in a world which is increasingly saying that it’s OK to believe whatever you want to believe as long as it works for you.
I’m here to tell you either something is true or it isn’t. Believing something with all your heart doesn’t help you if you’re believing a lie. I want you to know that you can rely on the Bible to tell you the truth. I want you to know that I won’t hide any information from you in order to make it easier for you to believe. I will give you the truth, because I believe the Bible can stand up to any honest questions.
So now that we’ve got that out of the way, why was there a census happening anyway, and why did they have to travel all the way to Bethlehem
Why Bethlehem
There were two main reasons for this particular census.
1. Caesar Augustus loved to count his subjects! He even made laws to encourage Roman citizens to have large families to grow the empire. However this didn’t really affect non-citizens like Joseph and Mary.
2. Taxes!
We know from archaeological records that a large number of people from the area around Bethlehem migrated to Nazareth
Nevertheless in Old Testament law there was provision to make sure that traditional family lands stayed in the family. Every 50 years the title would revert back to the original family line who inherited the land from their forefathers. Joseph was descended from David, whose family owned land around Bethlehem
The Romans taxed both land value and property inheritance, so Joseph would have needed to register as someone who either still owned property around Bethlehem
3 And everyone went to his own town to register.
4 So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David
5 He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. 6 While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, 7 and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.[2]
What does Luke want us to know about the Birth of Jesus as he tells this part of the story?
1. He wants to affirm that Jesus was born in Bethlehem
2. He wants to remind us that Jesus was of the line of David just as God promised
3. He wants to point out that Joseph and Mary did not have any sexual intimacy prior to the birth of Jesus.
4. He wants to point out the humble circumstances of Jesus’ entry into our world. In contrast to the greatness of men like Caesar Augustus who could command millions to travel in order to put their names on a list and pay taxes for the upkeep of his empire, Jesus could not even displace His relatives from the guest room when the time came for his birth.
I find it pretty humorous that today most people in the world know of the month named after Augustus, but we count the years from Jesus Christ (granted, they got it a little wrong when they tried to work it out!)
Unlike so many politicians, generals, sports stars and celebrities who chase after greatness, Jesus hid His greatness. Unlike Augustus, a man who aspired to be worshipped as a god, Jesus is God who aspired to be a servant to all.
Philippians 2:5-11
5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
7 but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
When we look back at history now, we see that Augustus was actually the pawn in God’s hand.
Was it a coincidence that after decades of civil war an emperor arose who brought peace and stability to the Roman world, just in time for Jesus to be born and for His followers to be able to travel throughout the world in relative safety?
Was it a coincidence that a census was called at just the right time to insure that Jesus was born in Bethlehem
Augustus was a man who took the title of a god but was only ever a tool in God’s hands. Don’t be intimidated or overawed by powerful people. If God is for us, who can be against us? (Rom 8:31)
Conclusion: Who’s the Real Star?
Jesus is the name that is above every name.
He occupies the highest place.
Is that true in your life?
Is He the star of the show to you?
As you put thought into celebrating Christmas, I hope you are putting thought into how you will celebrate Christ!
He was born humbly, lived humbly and died horribly – and this was all because of His love for you and I.
But praise God He did not stay dead, he rose again and now holds the place that He deserves. One day everyone shall all see Him, bow before Him and acknowledge that He is Lord. Until that day, those of us who know Him by faith live with that same attitude. Jesus is Lord. He is my King. He is the Star of the Show to me.
[1] http://www.unrv.com/empire/roman-population.php, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_demography#Demography_of_the_Roman_Empire
[2]All Scriptures from The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 Grand Rapids
