"In the days of Caesar Augustus..."

IN THE DAYS OF CAESAR AUGUSTUS--these words frame the Nativity story in Luke, chapter two. In the days of the powerful, famous, intimidating emperor-for-life Augustus sitting at the epicenter of political control in Rome the days of peasant Mary's pregnancy finished while she and Joseph were in the hamlet of Bethlehem for Augustus' mandatory census.

Augustus (birth name Octavian) ascribed to himself many things including titles, privileges and characteristics. After brutally defeating his rivals and then seizing power from his once ally now enemy Mark Antony, Octavian became the sole despot over the entire Roman Republic--east and west--formed the Roman Empire, assumed the name Augustus, the title Emperor, and received/demanded the laud from his subjects as "the son of god," which was derived from his familial connection to Julius, whom the Senate declared divine a handful of years earlier. Caesar Augustus, son of god--it was even minted on the coins. The often mentioned pax romana "Roman peace" of Augustus was really the mass murder of all of Rome's enemies under the boot of Augustus' superior army. But for all of his grandstanding, Augustus is nothing more than a backdrop for the Infant King, Jesus Christ. Christ--the true and only Son of God--born under the foot of Rome, in reality has all things under His control.

This Infant, poor and unwelcomed by the world, upstages the greatest of all political examples--yet without writing a single word, building a single bridge, commissioning a single aqueduct, or amassing a single army. Jesus is the One we worship this Christmas, and forevermore.