This holiday season is unlike any before it. Then again, depending on your age, there are only so many that you’ve experienced. For two millennia we’ve been celebrating events that were unremarkable in their day yet changed the world forever.

Sometimes the Bible includes details that we gloss over or don’t think are important, but other times the details leave us wanting to know more. For example, it’s approximately 90 miles from Nazareth to Bethlehem and walking that journey took about a week. It would have been dangerous for the couple to walk that far by themselves. Most movies would have you think they were the only ones traveling for the census. However, if both Joseph & Mary were from the line of David, wouldn’t their relatives in Nazareth also need to travel to Bethlehem? Even if Joseph and Mary had no other immediate relatives who were making the journey, they probably joined up with a caravan of others making the trip, if not to Bethlehem, then to other towns in that direction. 

In this age of data, we want to know the facts by the numbers. Just how far along was Mary in her pregnancy when she had to travel? Was she in her last month? Or was earlier than that? According to The Data Administration Newsletter, the census was taken on one specific day throughout the empire for accuracy. We don’t know if the census process had already occurred and Mary was too late into her pregnancy for the arduous trip back to Nazareth or if Jesus’ birth occurred before the day of the census. But in the grand scheme of things, the only thing that matters about the census & the trip is the result of the Savior’s birth in the city of David. 

We don’t know if Mary knew that her Son would be born in Bethlehem. Perhaps they anticipated they would be back in Nazareth in plenty of time beforehand. Or was that journey a giant question mark of what was going to happen next? While Mary & Joseph knew their destination, the events of that journey may not have been what they expected, if they even had expectations. Mary believed in God and His promises. She also trusted Joseph. And Joseph allowed God to lead him. Perhaps as we enter into this season of Advent, we ask Mary & Joseph to increase our belief in God and trust Him to lead us into the future filled with the unknown.