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How many of you have had to make at least one change of plans for your Christmas holiday season?

It seems like Christmas becomes more and more busy every year and there seems to be no end to the holiday to do list. There seems to be more parties to attend, more gifts to buy, more cards to send and more of an unstopping Christmas pace. You know what I mean, there seems to be more to do and less just enjoying the season.

It seems like we make room for more and more things and less and less room for the things that really matter. How much time will you spend this year wrapping gifts? How much time will you at parties and celebrations? How much time will you spend getting ready for Christmas?

Let's think about Christmas from a different perspective for a few minutes shall we?

God uses history to complete His divine plan
Luke is extremely detailed in his historical setting for the birth of Jesus. He gives us the name of the Roman emperor who called the census and the name of the governor of Syria with the fact that this was the first census taken while he was governor. Is this reality necessary? Is it really important to include these names that are hard to pronounce and never appear again? Absolutely. God was using the fabric of history to forever change history. God was braking into history in a whole new way and Luke wanted to get it just right.

Luke understood something that we sometimes forget; the first Christmas was an act of God from beginning to end. God was at work in a pagan emperor to pave the way to get Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem. A Roman census was not a common event because it was a counting of every man in the empire. The time consumed was enormous and so it was only done every 14 years.

The census sent every man back to the town of his family origin to ease the registration process. The Romans collected occupation information, property holdings and family size from each man to get an accurate understanding of the empire. This information was used to formulate taxation and was also used for military support purposes.

Luke includes all of this information because it would have given extra credibility to his gospel as being accurate. Even today, Luke has been found accurate when placed under historical scrutiny.

God uses humanity to consecrate His divine grace
The census forces Joseph to travel from his home in Nazareth south to Bethlehem for registration in the census. Bethlehem literally means house of bread and this was the home of David. Since Joseph was

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