Advent Trail December 18th - Luke 2:4-5

So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. (Luke 2:4-5)

Luke has previously only mentioned Joseph in passing, referring to him as Mary’s betrothed and describing him as “a descendant of David” (Luke 1:27). That’s repeated here, with the statement that Joseph was of “the house and line of David”. Although he was not Jesus’s physical father, nevertheless Jesus was raised within that family and people knew him as “the son of Joseph” (John 1:45; 6:42). In this way, the prophecies about the Messiah being the son of David were fulfilled in Jesus.

And it was because Joseph was a descendant of David that another prophecy about the Messiah was fulfilled. Micah had said that Bethlehem would be the Messiah’s birthplace (Mic.5:2; Matt.2:6). If Caesar Augustus hadn’t ordered this census, Jesus would have been born in Nazareth. Unwittingly, the emperor was an instrument in the outworking of God’s purpose in human history.

It’s possible that only Joseph was required to register at Bethlehem in person and that he took Mary with him to spare her from disgrace and ridicule at the baby’s birth. Though perhaps too they both realised the importance of their child being born in David’s town. They had been told that Jesus would be the Messiah (Luke 1:32) and now, amazingly the way had opened up out-of-the-blue for them to go to Bethlehem. Even paying taxes had a place in God’s plan!