About that time Caesar Augustus ordered a census to be taken throughout the Empire. This was the first census when Quirinius was governor of Syria. Everyone had to travel to his own ancestral hometown to be accounted for. So Joseph went from the Galilean town of Nazareth up to Bethlehem in Judah, David's town, for the census. As a descendant of David, he had to go there. He went with Mary, his fiancée, who was pregnant.
(Luke 2:1-5, The Message)
When Joseph and Mary set out from Nazareth, they can have no idea how long they will be away – first in Bethlehem, and then as political refugees in Egypt. Prized free from familiar surroundings, familiar faces, familiar Ways Of Doing Things…a teenage visionary and a man whose sleep is disturbed by angels.
What would you take with you, if you became a Displaced Person? What could you not leave behind?
When we went to Australia for 3 months last year, not knowing where we would be beyond Christmas ’05, we got it down to:
4x cases of clothes
1x case of books
1x laptop
1x digital camera
(We weren’t refugees, of course. But I guess the heart of my question is this: what things tie us down, hindering our ability to respond quickly to God?)
Advent
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