November 30, 2025

Bit-Players at the Nativity: #1 – The Census Taker

This year, during Advent, I’ve decided to take a look with you at some of the characters in the story of Christ’s birth who are out of the spotlight – “bit-players,” if you will, in the drama of the Nativity. The characters that I intend to examine in these weeks have such unassuming roles that they are, in fact, not even mentioned in the Bible. Their existence is at best inferred, or in some cases just a flight of fancy.
Now, to begin with, I don’t want to spoil anyone’s Christmas, but I feel a responsibility to point out a problem with Luke’s account of the Birth of Jesus. The story begins, “In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. All went to their own towns to be registered.” Here’s the problem: Caesar Augustus ruled from 27 B.C. to 14 A.D. There is no evidence during this time of any census being taken of, as Luke says, “all the world” (which would have meant the entire Roman Empire). It is curious that the “first registration . . . taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria,” in Luke’s words, was a local census taken in A.D. 6 or 7 for the purpose of imposing a tax on the people – one, incidentally, that led to rioting in the streets. Additionally, Luke tells us earlier in the book that John the Baptist, and therefore Jesus also, were born during the reign of Herod the Great in Judea. The problem being that Quirinius was never governor during the reign of Herod, who died in 4 B.C.
But, all that having been said, let’s forgive Luke his little historical inaccuracies, and for convenience’s sake, think of this as the tax census taken by Quirinius in 6 A.D. Indeed, what matters about the story is not its fidelity to historical facts but its fidelity to timeless meaning. In that spirit, I’d like for us to consider for a time the role of that unnamed person in the account who was, on the day in question, simply going about his job, setting up shop to take the census.
When a road-weary man with the slightly harried look of an expectant father appeared before him and announced, “Joseph of Nazareth, in Galilee,” how could he have known who this was? How could he have known that standing there at his registration table was a central figure in perhaps the greatest drama in human history? Inscribing the name, and the names of his family in the role, I suspect our census taker glanced out the window at the sun to see how late in the day it was getting, and how much longer he would have to endure this tedious tallying, and the ceaseless stream of people, each one starting to look exactly like that last.
“Next,” he said with the indifferent air of one who sees no further than the tip of his pen. And that was that. A difficult journey with a bride nine months pregnant to a town with no vacancies. And not so much as a “How do you do?” Just a cold question, and a curt, “Next.”
It’s hard to blame the census taker. He’s so much like us. Life is, after all, mostly about getting by, doing our job, meeting our responsibilities, getting dinner ready, or any of the thousand things with which we fill our days – or, at least, it seems to us that’s what life is about. And how much time do we spend looking out the window, or glancing at our watch, wishing away the present moment, looking for something different, anticipating whatever on our agenda might be the next experience of any real interest?
There is a common malady loose in our world. It is the persistent desire to be someone we are not, to be somewhere or some-when we are not. We suffer from this disease frequently at Christmas time. I don’t know about you, but I find the burden of all the preparations for this holiday to be about as tedious as, say, writing down an endless list of names of people standing in line for a census. The gifts I have yet to think of, let alone buy, the notes and cards to be written – when am I going to find time to do those? To a large degree, I find myself just looking forward to getting it all over with, so all this won’t be hanging over my head any more. The radio and television tell us we are supposed to be happy and busy little shoppers, out there doing our best to keep the engine of the economy going, but instead I find myself with head down looking at the list of those for whom I need to buy gifts, and wanting to check another off so I can say, “Next.” Won’t it be nice when it’s January, and all this is over for another year? How’s that for a fine attitude about Christmas from a preacher?
In my better moments I know this is not what Christmas is all about. But I have to say the piped in “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” in the shopping malls, and the four page holiday ads in the newspaper do seem to conspire to keep me from maintaining a good perspective on the season.
I think that what I need is to watch A Christmas Carol for the fifty sixth time. I think there is a certain Zen in the reborn Scrooge that is particularly important in this season. Integral to Scrooge’s Christmas morning transformation is his newly acquired ability to see deeply and appreciatively into every moment and everything that’s happening around him. He can’t get enough of each precious encounter, each treasured sight or sound or smell. He’s filled with joy at every little thing that comes his way. No longer is his face buried in the ledger, dispassionately waiting for the next opportunity to make a nickel. Now he is always looking, always laughing, always taking in and savoring the sweet moments of life with which he is blessed.
That’s what I need a heavy helping of this Christmas. I need someone to slap me in the face and say, pick up your head and look at the face of the person standing in front of you, look at the last leaf from the old oak tree floating to the ground, look at the list of names of people you are privileged to care about and to whom you want to express your love by remembering them at Christmas time. That’s what I need.
I think it’s what that census taker needed too. I don’t know if he ever found it. I’d like to think maybe he did. I like to imagine him finishing his day’s work and heading back to his room, head down, eyes weary, when suddenly, as he passes near the inn, he hears an odd sound – the cry of a baby, coming from out back, from the stables. I like to imagine him picking his head up, and turning aside to investigate, approaching the stable, and seeing something wondrous – a newborn baby, a common, lower-class family having a baby in a cow stall. I like to think of him picking his head up and looking into the face of the father, a warm, strong face, and recognizing him as a man who’d been at his census table earlier in the day. I like to think that he had something of an epiphany in that moment, that he suddenly knew that every star in the sky was announcing good tidings of great joy, every manger was filled with abundant new life, every face was an image of the face of God.
I love the sentiment of that great philosopher, John Lenin, who wrote, “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” You and I have a lot of options this Christmas season: we can drag ourselves through the ordeal for yet another year, wishing away our moments, waiting for an easier time; we can occupy our minds with big plans and preparations for grand celebrations; we can bury our faces in the ledger, or the newspaper, or the report the boss is expecting tomorrow – the Good Lord of this Universe, I suspect, will be busy delivering a baby.