NLT
1At that time the Roman emperor, Augustus, decreed that a census should be taken throughout the Roman Empire. 2(This was the first census taken when Quirinius was governor of Syria.) 3All returned to their own ancestral towns to register for this census.
4And because Joseph was a descendant of King David, he had to go to Bethlehem in Judea, David’s ancient home. He traveled there from the village of Nazareth in Galilee. 5He took with him Mary, to whom he was engaged, who was now expecting a child.
6And while they were there, the time came for her baby to be born. 7She gave birth to her firstborn son. She wrapped him snugly in strips of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no lodging available for them.
8That night there were shepherds staying in the fields nearby, guarding their flocks of sheep. 9Suddenly, an angel of the Lord appeared among them, and the radiance of the Lord’s glory surrounded them. They were terrified, 10but the angel reassured them. “Don’t be afraid!” he said. “I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people. 11The Savior—yes, the Messiah, the Lord—has been born today in Bethlehem, the city of David!
12And you will recognize him by this sign: You will find a baby wrapped snugly in strips of cloth, lying in a manger.”
13Suddenly, the angel was joined by a vast host of others—the armies of heaven—
praising God and saying,
14 “Glory to God in highest heaven,
and peace on earth to those with whom God is pleased.”
15When the angels had returned to heaven, the shepherds said to each other, “Let’s go to Bethlehem! Let’s see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”
16They hurried to the village and found Mary and Joseph. And there was the baby, lying in the manger. 17After seeing him, the shepherds told everyone what had happened and what the angel had said to them about this child. 18All who heard the shepherds’ story were astonished, 19but Mary kept all these things in her heart and thought about them often. 20The shepherds went back to their flocks, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen. It was just as the angel had told them.
Well-chosen gifts bring great pleasure. Birthday gifts bring joy to children;
anniversary gifts say, “I love you.” Farewell gifts ease the melancholy of parting, and Christmas gifts bring laughter and fun to the cold, gray-sky
season of winter. But there is nothing more delightful than receiving a surprise gift—an unexpected, tangible expression of love on an otherwise ordinary day.
God is the premier gift-giver, and He specializes in surprise gifts. I believe He glows with pleasure when we stumble upon the gifts He leaves in our path. The surprise of an answered prayer. A sudden healing. An unforeseen romance. An unexpected conception (after the shock has worn off, of course!). A financial windfall, like receiving a rebate check or
finding a wad of money in an old pair of jeans. As the apostle James wrote,
“Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting
shadow” (Jas. 1:17). The Lord showers us with grace at every opportunity, including little surprise gifts, “just because.”
No gift, however, can exceed the surprise gift He delivered to the world in a little hamlet outside Jerusalem twenty centuries ago: a tiny, squirming bundle of joy like every other child ever born, yet utterly unique in one remarkable manner. This boy was undiminished deity and true humanity, two natures perfectly united in one extraordinary person. The apostle Paul described God’s gift of His Son as an “indescribable gift” (2 Cor. 9:15), a gift too wonderful for words.
Luke, under the prompting and guidance of the Holy Spirit, set out to describe God’s indescribable gift in a carefully crafted narrative.
— 2:1-2 —
Luke established the relative time frame, not only for historical purposes, but to establish the social and cultural context of the Messiah’s birth. Luke’s Gospel habitually connects the events of Jesus’ life to the world as a whole.
Luke didn’t tell the story of a local hero, or even a national figure; he chronicled the life of the King of kings.
On the other side of the Mediterranean Sea, nearly 1,500 miles away, a man calling himself Augustus, “supreme ruler,” thought he controlled much of the known world. Luke, however, casts Caesar Gaius Octavian as a pawn
of God’s providence. His order to count the people of Israel merely served to move Joseph and Mary from Nazareth to Bethlehem in order to fulfill Micah’s prophecy:
But as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, Too little to be among the clans of Judah,
From you One will go forth for Me to be ruler in Israel.
His goings forth are from long ago, From the days of eternity. (Mic. 5:2)
Some scholars have debated Luke’s historical accuracy, arguing that Quirinius did not conduct a census as governor of Syria until AD 6 and that Herod the Great died no later than 4 BC. But historical evidence suggests that Quirinius had been in Syria on a military mission for Augustus from 10–7 BC and that, with Herod’s increasing madness, the emperor was poised to bring the region under direct Roman control. Augustus is known to have issued orders for a census in at least three other regions (Syria, Gaul, and Spain), as well as to have maintained the Roman custom of conducting a census every fourteen years. Furthermore, Luke refers to this as the “first”
census, most likely indicating it was a separate census conducted prior to the more well-known census of AD 6.