Remember the telescoping spyglass that Jack Sparrow used in The Pirates of the Cairbbean? There is a wide cylinder in which a narrower cylinder rests, in which a yet narrower cylinder rests, and perhaps a couple more. I think our view of reality is likewise telescoping. We live in the narrow end and view our world through the lens of immediate experience. But we and our experiences are contained within a family circle, and our family circle exists within a community, and our community exists within a nation, and our nation exists within a world.

Most of our attention is given to the nearest circles of reality: ourselves, our family, and our immediate community; and that is normal and good. But it is important to remember that we are part of something bigger, and that something bigger is part of something bigger still.

Think again of the telescoping spyglass and how its widest cylinder contains all the others in their entirety. It is that way with us, where the widest circle is not our nation, our world, or even our cosmos. The widest circle, containing all others, is our God. He is, in the language of the apostle, “All in all” (1 Cor. 15:29).

We do ourselves injury when we fail to see that all things exist within the rule and love of our God. This includes the good and beautiful things we enjoy, the hard things we endure, and even the grievous things we must bear. Though we live within all these things, they exist within the encompassing scope of the gracious God’s good intent.

When we fail to believe this, many things disturb our peace and cast doubt on our security. Instead of being an opportunity to know God, life becomes an irritation and a threat. We question whether God loves us, whether we’ll be okay, whether we are enough. We fill our vision with the enemies that threaten us and the griefs that might overtake us, but we do not pan out wide enough to see the heavenly Father within whose will these things exist and must serve our good.

In Luke’s Christmas story, we read that “Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world.” Did the emperor’s decree, one wonders, disturb St. Joseph’s peace? Things were already so difficult. Before he got married, his betrothed had become pregnant under mysterious circumstances and had remained long away from home. And now this accursed international census, instituted by the Emperor Augustus, had come to Israel.

There are various purposes for a census, but one is universal: effective taxation. Apparently, the Divine Caesar needed to do something about his cash flow. Posting troops around the world was expensive then, just as it is now. It is hard to plan a budget when you don’t know how much revenue to expect. And you won’t know how much to expect unless you identify your sources of revenue; hence, the census.

In Israel, unlike in the provinces, people were required to return to their ancestral homes to be registered in the census. Had I been Joseph, I fear I would have complained: complained about the emperor, the situation, the time off work, and pretty much everything else.

Perhaps Joseph, good man that he was, did not complain. Perhaps he saw that he, and his circumstances, and his work, and even his loathsome emperor were within the good God’s good intent. Whatever may be the case, Joseph traveled to his ancestral home; he went to Bethlehem. Luke tells us that he did this because he belonged to the house and line of David. And he took Mary with him.

Why he took Mary is not exactly clear. In other regions of the Empire, only landowners were required to register. Perhaps Mary, who was also from David’s line, was an only child and had inherited property from her parents. Or perhaps Joseph took her along to get her out of Nazareth because of what people there were saying about her. Whatever his reasons, Joseph took Mary with him, though she was “expecting a” (or, as the King James translated, was “great with”) “child.”

When they arrived in Bethlehem, they could not find housing. Whether this was because there were no vacancies or because family members, who were expected – obliged, really – to take them in, had heard that Mary was carrying someone else’s baby and refused, we do not know. But poor Joseph was forced to house his family in a stable, which in all probability was a cave that shepherds used for shelter in inclement weather.

But all these immediate realities were contained in the larger reality of God’s good will, like the telescoping brass cylinders in Jack Sparrow’s spyglass. In other words, even the most difficult experiences fit into and serve God’s loving purpose. This is wonderfully exemplified in the Christmas story.

Joseph and Mary, wracked by gossip and forced to make a long and expensive trip, find their way to Bethlehem. They arrive in “the town of David” before the baby is born, and so fulfill a 700-year-old prophecy: “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times” (Micah 5:2).

Because they can find no lodging, they must resort to a place that Bethlehem’s shepherds know well. And so, the shepherds to whom the angel announced the birth of Israel’s savior know where to look for a “baby wrapped in strips of cloth and lying in a manger.”

Joseph, living in the narrow end of our telescoping reality and viewing the world through his immediate experiences, probably could not see these things. But God could see perfectly how all these things would work together to advance the salvation of the world.

An hour or two ago, I left the hospital after reading the Christmas story to a man and his wife and praying with them. The man has been in the hospital for 18 days. Each time that it looks like he will be able to leave, something happens to extend his stay. Yesterday or the day before, he developed a pulmonary embolism. His wife has grown discouraged.

Why read the Christmas story to people in that situation? Because they too are living in the narrow end of our telescoping reality and viewing the world through their immediate experiences. But their experiences, just like those of Mary, Joseph, and Jesus, are contained within the good and perfect will of God. And that is also where our experiences, good and bad, easy and hard, are located.