Dec 5 - Luke 2:1-2

In those days a decree went out

from Caesar Augustus that

all the world should be enrolled.

This was the first enrollment, when

Quirinius was governor of Syria.

Luke 2:1-2

Did you ever love hearing the words, “Once upon a time …”? Those words signaled the beginning of an unbelievable adventure!

Luke begins the Christmas story in the exact opposite way. Although Christmas is as fantastic as any fairy tale, Luke took great care to let us know that this wasn’t “once upon a time.” He wanted us to know that this was a real adventure that took place at a real time and in a real place.

Each of the Gospel writers had a different audience to whom they were writing. Thus, each told the exact same story with an emphasis on slightly different details. Matthew, for example, wrote to Jews; therefore, he focused on more Jewish matters. He loved to talk, for example, about the repeated fulfillment of prophecy through the coming of Jesus, the Messiah. Thus, in Matthew’s telling of the Christmas story, he would frequently say things like, “this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet …”

Luke was different. He had a different audience, at least originally. He wrote more to Gentiles. A medical scientist and a historian, the first thing Luke did was set the scene. Yes, the nativity was a fantastic story, but it took place in a real time and in a real place. “Go look it up,” he was challenging his original readers, in an age when Jesus’ contemporaries were still alive.

In Christ’s Love,

a real guy who’s found

that the more I “look it up,”

the more I simply look up