Advent24 - Day 17

Tuesday – December 17

Read: In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. And all went to be registered, each to his own town. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. (Luke 2:1–5)

Reflect
For God’s Little People
by John Piper
Have you ever thought what an amazing thing it is that God ordained beforehand that the Messiah be born in Bethlehem (as the prophecy in Micah 5:2 shows)? And are you amazed that he so ordained things that when the time came, the Messiah’s mother and legal father were living not in Bethlehem but in Nazareth, and that in order to fulfill his word and bring two unheard-of, insignificant, little people to Bethlehem that first Christmas, God put it in the heart of Caesar Augustus that all the Roman world should be enrolled each in his own town? A decree for the entire world in order to move two people seventy miles!

Have you ever felt, like me, little and insignificant in a world of seven billion people, where all the news is about big political and economic and social movements and outstanding people with global significance and lots of power and prestige? If you have, don’t let that make you disheartened or unhappy. For it is implicit in Scripture that all the mammoth political forces and all the giant industrial complexes, without their even knowing it, are being guided by God, not for their own sake, but for the sake of God’s little people—the little Mary and the little Joseph who have to go from Nazareth to Bethlehem. God wields an empire to fulfill his word and bless his children.

Do not think that because you experience adversity in your little world of experience, the hand of the Lord is shortened. It is not our prosperity or our fame but our holiness that he seeks with all his heart. And to that end, he rules the whole world. As Proverbs 21:1 says, “The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; / he turns it wherever he will.” And he is always turning it for his saving and sanctifying and eternal purposes among his people.

He is a big God for little people, and we have great cause to rejoice that, unbeknownst to them, all the kings and presidents and premiers and chancellors and chiefs of the world follow the sovereign decrees of our Father in heaven, that we, the children, might be conformed to the image of his Son, Jesus Christ—and then enter his eternal glory.
Piper, J. (2021) Good News of Great Joy: 25 Devotional Readings for Advent. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, pp. 33–34.
 
Respond
Jesus was the king of the universe before the cradle and in the cradle. He came for us, the poor and weak and lowly to raise us up with himself. Trust him as the true King of kings at all times and in every place.
 
Rejoice
O Little Town of Bethlehem
O little town of Bethlehem
 How still we see thee lie
 Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
 The silent stars go by

 Yet in thy dark streets shineth
 The everlasting Light
 The hopes and fears of all the years
 Are met in thee tonight

For Christ is born of Mary
 And gathered all above
 While mortals sleep, the angels keep
 Their watch of wondering love

O morning stars together
 Proclaim the holy birth
 And praises sing to God the King
 And peace to men on earth

O holy Child of Bethlehem
 Descend to us, we pray;
 Cast out our sin, and enter in,
 Be born in us today.

We hear the Christmas angels
 the great glad tidings tell;
 Oh, come to us, abide with us,
 Our Lord Emmanuel