Why then? The timing seemed odd, after all, since Augustus ruled most of the known world with an iron fist. Why did Mary and Joseph have to travel when she was pregnant? Couldn’t this have waited a few months?
Why there? Bethlehem…seriously? A Podunk town that no one outside of the “house and lineage” of David even knew existed. Wouldn’t a metropolitan area, a crossroads of culture like Jerusalem have been a much more appropriate and effective setting? And a manger? The King of Kings was coming to earth not in a palace but in a slobbery feed trough?
Why them? Joseph? He was a mere blue-collar, calloused carpenter. Why would God choose to use him in such a plan? And Mary? Such a young girl that no one would notice her, or even believe her story. Shepherds? The lowest of the low. Foul-mouthed. Dirty. Smelly. Ostracized. In many cases, criminal. They were the first to hear the good news?
If there is one truth demonstrated in the Christmas story, it is the sovereignty of God. He knew what He was doing, through whom He was doing, and where it was all taking place. In fact, in Galatians 4:4 Paul refers to God’s timing in bringing Jesus into the world as “the fullness of time.” When the chronology was just right, when earth’s clock hit the exactly perfect beat, with impeccable timing God acted with a perfect when, where, and whom.
Augustus thought he was in charged when he called for the tax registration, but God was using him to bring Mary and Joseph to the little town the prophet had indicated years before would bring forth the Messiah. Bethlehem was the perfect setting, a town too small to handle the large crowd who would come so that the Jesus would lay in a manger, making Him easily identifiable to short-witted shepherds who may not have found Him otherwise. Speaking of shepherds, can you think of a group who needed more to hear a message of hope than they? They were the perfect testimony to the redeeming work God was doing through His Son.
Yes, God was sovereignly at work in the when, where, and whom that first Christmas night. The Christmas story also reminds me that God is sovereignly at work in the whens, wheres, and whoms, of my life. I do not experience accidental circumstances, blind luck, or strange coincidences.
My life is part of a bigger story. God is working His plan for His creation. This is all HIS stage, I am just a small part and He will accomplish what He has begun in me. Friend, if things aren’t going the way you think they should in your life, remember that our all-wise, all-knowing, all-powerful God will never fail in His purposes. In the fullness of time for you, He will come through and make His glory known. Celebrate the Sovereign Lord this Christmas season.