Be Still And Know

Luke 2:6-7 When Mary and Joseph arrived in Bethlehem, they found that it was heaving with people who had arrived for the census, which the Romans had demanded. In the Jewish law, censuses were forbidden and so the holding of a census was a further reason for the people to resent the occupying power. However, Joseph was a law-abiding man and, if required to go to his family’s ancestral home, he was willing to comply. The fact that there were no lodgings available when they finally arrived in Bethlehem must have been a horrible surprise for the young couple. We are told nothing about the exact location of Jesus’ birth. All we know is that he was placed in an animal feeding trough, a manger, when he was born. That makes it clear that he was in a place where animals were kept and, in Bethlehem, that usually happened in caves. The fact that there was no room for Jesus at his birth serves as an agonising summary of the lack of welcome that Jesus received throughout his life. In his Gospel John summed up the