Daily devotion – Bethlehem
Bethlehem
Luke 2:7 And she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.
Luke in his Gospel gives us the details of Jesus birth, and how the Son of David came to be born in the City of David (Bethlehem).
The catalysts for where Jesus was born are found on two areas: a decree of Augustus, the emperor of Rome, and the behaviour of an unnamed innkeeper in the small town of Bethlehem. Both were instruments used of God fulfilling His divine purpose.
Augustus reigned over the Roman Empire from 30 B.C. to A.D. 14, and he issued a decree that a census be taken of the whole population and that people must return to their own town in order to register. From Rome’s viewpoint it was all about taxation. As a result, Joseph and Mary travelled from Nazareth to Bethlehem.
After the long difficult journey especially for a very pregnant young Mary, as they arrived in Bethlehem, Joseph would have been heartbroken when advised by the Bethlehem innkeeper that he had no room for them to stay. But there was a stable…
When Jesus was born, Mary laid her newborn in a manger, a feed trough for animals. It would be a striking symbol of the rejection that Jesus was later to experience.
The emperor and the innkeeper both played their part in God’s amazing plan without knowing it. Augustus brought Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem in fulfillment of prophecy – Micah 5:2; Matthew 2:5-6.
The anonymous innkeeper, by reason of overcrowding in the town of Bethlehem, ensured that the Saviour of the world was born appropriately – not in a palace but in a stable, not in splendour but in obscurity and poverty.
What a birth for the Creator of the world?