2 Cents

In Luke's account of the birth of Jesus we read in chapter 2, verse 1:

In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered.

In other words it was a giant census.

Now at this point Mary had already conceived and was pregnant with the promised Messiah and future Savior of the world, Jesus.  And because of the way census' were done in that day Joseph was required to return to his home town with his fiancé Mary to be registered.  So they made the journey, which was likely very hard on Mary seeing that she was pregnant and likely had to ride a horse.

The interesting thing about this event is that in the OT it was prophesied that the Messiah would come from Bethlehem (See Micah 5:1-2).  Joseph and Mary were from Nazareth.  But Joseph's home town was Bethlehem.

You see, when Caesar Augustus issued his decree that a census would be taken he was probably thinking something like we need the revenue from the taxes this census will provide or I need to show the rest of the world how large and powerful my empire of Rome actually is.

But in all actuality God was directing the mind and the hand of Caesar to produce a hurricane for the sole purpose of moving a pebble.

This census of the entire Roman Empire at the time required over 50 million people to migrate to their home towns to be counted.  This was roughly one-fifth of the world's population at that time.  It was a massive undertaking with far-reaching affects.

And yet the Bible reveals to us that God's purpose in the entire undertaking was simply to temporarily move Mary to Bethlehem to ensure the OT prophecy of the Messiah's birthplace would be fulfilled and thus accurate.

We serve a great God with great and mysterious purposes, and sometimes that God may do something that seems extraordinarily large for the sole purpose of changing something extraordinarily small - except it's really not small at all, is it?