2022-0123

ST. PAUL’S

PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

SUNDAY 19th December 2021

Prelude https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9ORdDGgzu8 - Christmas Hallelujah (length 5:20)

Welcome

Carol Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus

Scripture portion from the psalms

Carol https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQWKjTvPgiM - What child is this

Luke 2:1-52

Pre Sermon Prayer

Luke 2 - Jesus’ Birth and Boyhood

A. The world Jesus was born into.

1. (1) A decree from Rome reaches the whole Mediterranean world.

And it came to pass in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered.

a. It came to pass in those days: Luke clearly tells us that he recorded actual history and real events. This is not “once upon a time.” These are not fanciful stories of Zeus and Apollo on Mount Olympus. This is real.

b. A decree went out from Caesar Augustus: The story of Jesus’ birth began during the reign of one of the most remarkable men of ancient history.

i. He was born with the name Octavian, named after his father. His grandmother was the sister of Julius Caesar, and being a talented young man, Octavian came to the attention of his great uncle. Julius Caesar eventually adopted Octavian as his son, and he was made his official heir in 45 B.C. Within a year Caesar was murdered, and Octavian joined with two others – Mark Antony and Lepidus – in splitting the domination of Rome three ways. For decades, the whole Mediterranean world was filled with wars and violence; now, under the Triumvirate, it became far worse. There were years of bloody, brutal fighting for power and money in Rome and the provinces.

ii. Octavian and Antony soon pushed Lepidus out of the picture. Even though his sister married Antony, for thirteen years Octavian and Antony existed together as rivals, until 31 B.C. For a year, their huge armies assembled and positioned themselves. Antony, with the help of Cleopatra, brought 500 warships, 100,000 foot soldiers, and 12,000 cavalry. Octavian answered with 400 warships, 80,000 infantry and 12,000 horsemen. Octavian had the better strategy and the more mobile ships, and he defeated the combined forces of Antony and Queen Cleopatra of Egypt at the battle of Actium. Now Octavian was the sole ruler of the Roman world and took the title Caesar Augustus.

c. That all the world: For decades, the world Augustus lived in and Jesus would be born into, the world of the Mediterranean basin, was wrecked by war, destruction, brutality, and immorality.

i. “The lusty peninsula was worn out with twenty years of civil war. Its farms had been neglected, its towns had been sacked or besieged, much of its wealth had been stolen or destroyed. Administration and protection had broken down; robbers made every street unsafe at night; highwaymen roamed the roads, kidnapped travelers, and sold them into slavery. Trade diminished, investment stood still, interest rates soared, property values fell. Morals, which had been loosened by riches and luxury, had not been improved by destitution and chaos, for few conditions are more demoralizing than poverty that comes after wealth. Rome was full of men who had lost their economic footing and then their moral stability: soldiers who had tasted adventure and had learned to kill; citizens who had seen their savings consumed in the taxes and inflation of war and waited vacuously for some returning tide to lift them back to affluence; women dizzy with freedom, multiplying divorces, abortions, and adulteries.” (Durant)

d. A decree went out from Caesar Augustus: It seemed that the authority of this man changed the chaos of that time in a dramatic way. He brought three things that turned the tide miraculously. First, he brought peace because he had defeated all his rivals. Second, he brought political and administrative skill, perhaps even brilliance. Third, he brought vast sums of money from Egypt to pay the soldiers and to help the Roman economy.

i. “Jesus was born in the reign of Augustus. After a long period of wars which had racked the Mediterranean and its shores, political unity had been achieved and the Roman Empire had become roughly coterminous with the Mediterranean Basin. Here and there it was soon to spread beyond it. Augustus was the first Emperor. Building on the foundations laid by his uncle, Julius Caesar, he brought peace and under the guise of the chief citizen of a restored republic ruled the realm which for several generations Rome had been building. The internal peace and order which Augustus achieved endured, with occasional interruptions, for about two centuries. Never before had all the shores of the Mediterranean been under one rule and never had they enjoyed such prosperity. The pax Romana made for the spread of ideas and religions over the area where it prevailed.” (Latourette)

ii. But as great a man as Caesar Augustus was, he was only a man. And the man who brought the answers also took a dear price. He demanded absolute power over the Roman Empire. For hundreds and hundreds of years, Rome prided itself on being a republic – a nation governed by laws, not by any man. The idea that no man was above the law, and the Roman Senate and the army and various political leaders lived together in a sometimes difficult arrangement. Now, Octavius would change all that. In 27 B.C. he arranged for the Roman Senate to give him the title Augustus, which means “exalted” and “sacred.” Now Rome wasn’t a republic, governed by laws; it was an empire governed by an emperor. The first Emperor of Rome was this same Caesar Augustus.

iii. Durant on the title Augustus: “Hitherto the word had been applied only to holy objects and places, and to certain creative or augmenting divinities; applied to Octavian it clothed him with a halo of sanctity, and the protection of religion and the gods.”

iv. One of his early titles was imperator, the commander in chief of all the armed forces of the state. But he came to make the title mean emperor.

v. This says something important about the world Jesus was born into. It was a world hungry for a savior, and a world that was living in the reign of a political savior – Caesar Augustus – but that wasn’t enough.

vi. “In the century before Christ was born the evidences of disintegration were so palpable in wars, in the passing of the old order, and in moral corruption, that the thoughtful feared early collapse. From this disaster the Mediterranean Basin was saved by Julius Caesar and Augustus Caesar…[but] we must note that the principate devised by Augustus did not cure but only temporarily halted the course of the disease from which Graeco-Roman culture was suffering.” (Latourette)

vii. “Augustus and his successors had not solved the basic problems of the Mediterranean world. They had obscured them. For what appeared to be a failure in government they had substituted more government, and government was not the answer.” (Latourette)

2. (2) The governor of the Roman administrative region near Galilee.

This census first took place while Quirinius was governing Syria.

a. This census: The registration and census described wasn’t for simple record-keeping or statistics. It was to efficiently and effectively tax everyone in the Roman Empire.

i. According to Leon Morris, Justin Martyr, writing in the middle of the second century, said that in his own day (more than a hundred years after the time of Jesus) you could look up the record of the same census Luke mentioned.

b. First took place: The idea in the original language is that this was “the first enrollment.” Using a census for taxation was common in ancient Rome, so Luke called this one “the first enrollment” to distinguish it from the well-known enrollment in A.D. 6 that he later mentioned in Act_5:37.

c. While Quirinius was governing Syria: This is another historical anchor, securing Luke’s account with the reign of known, verifiable historical people.

3. (3) The world responds to the command of Caesar Augustus.

So all went to be registered, everyone to his own city.

a. So all went to be registered: It is an impressive thought; one man, in the ivory palaces of Rome, gave a command – and the whole world responded. It may well be that up to that point there had never been a man with power over more lives than Caesar Augustus.

i. Overall, Caesar Augustus was a good ruler. He expanded the territory of the Roman Empire and he did much for his people. The greatest sorrows of his life came from his home, because he had an out-of-control daughter, no son, and all of his nephews, grandsons, and his favorite stepson died young. But like most every man of such ambition and authority, he thought a lot of himself. It is easy to imagine how invincible he felt when he made a decree… that all the world should be registered for taxation. It’s pretty heady to think, “I make the command and the whole Roman world has to obey it.”

ii. But Augustus wasn’t really powerful at all. In Joh_19:10-11, Jesus confronted another Roman who believed he was powerful. Then Pilate said to Him, “Are You not speaking to me? Do You not know that I have power to crucify You, and power to release You?” Jesus answered, “You could have no power at all against Me unless it had been given you from above.” The same principle applied towards Caesar Augustus; whatever power he had was given power, given from God.

iii. As he sat in his palace and made his decree, he thought it was the supreme exercise of his will, the ultimate flexing of his muscle. But he was just a tool in God’s hand. God had promised that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem (Mic_5:2), and that promised would be fulfilled. So how does one get a young couple from Nazareth down to Bethlehem when they might not be inclined to travel? Simple. Just work through the political “savior of the world,” and use him as a pawn in your plan.

iv. We also see that Augustus, for all his accomplishments, couldn’t really be the answer. God allowed Caesar Augustus to rise to unheard of human power for many reasons; in some ways, he was like a Roman John the Baptist preparing the way for Jesus. At the end of the story, what is important is Jesus. Who does the world know more today – Jesus or Caesar Augustus? Who has a more lasting legacy?

b. Everyone to his own city: There is no record in secular history that Augustus decreed this census and commanded it be performed in this manner, but it was consistent with what we do know of him from history. Augustus was known to be very sensitive to the nationalistic feelings of his subjects, and so he commanded them to return to their cities of family origin for the census. Bruce: Picture I sent you in whats app here please

i. Barclay and others cite a government edict from a Roman census commanded in Egypt in the same era, that each person had to go to their own city for the census enrollment.

ii. In this way, Augustus softened the blow for many. They had to travel, they had to pay taxes – but they would also gather together with family and see relatives that they perhaps had not seen for a long time.

Amen

Notices Mr John Oberholzer

Collection

Praise God from whom all blessings flow

Prayer of consecraion

Carol Once in Royal David’s city - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjF4jNKrdZA (duration 2:09)

Benediction https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwyyN86Z3fc Benediction Hymn

Now unto HIm