The group was headed west again along Route 66.
The Ugly Little Blue Bus was running great, and they were on their way to an Observatory in Flagstaff Arizona where they would get a chance to look through a huge telescope and see things in outer space! There was one problem; it was cloudy, and it was supposed to stay cloudy for the next few days. The Leader decided they would go past Flagstaff and come back when there were no clouds.
Their new destination was Williams Arizona. The Leader told the kids that they would have a special surprise when they got to Williams! The kids could hardly wait!
When they got to Williams Arizona, they stopped at a train station.
The group was going on a train ride! They could hardly wait! They were so excited and when they got on the train, they saw that the name of the train was the ‘Grand Canyon’, they were going to see the Grand Canyon! The journey on the railroad was 64 miles long and they saw beautiful scenery! They saw deserts, prairies, and pine woods.
The view changed constantly, and no one wanted to miss anything. There were things to see inside the train too! Musicians wandered through the train and sang songs from the old wild west, and there were even villains who staged a pretend train robbery!
Eventually, they got to the Grand Canyon and the view was totally awesome, but there was no time to explore the canyon now, it was time to go to a campground for the night!
That night the Leader call all the kids and other leaders to gather around the campfire to learn more about God.
Tonight, they were going to talk about taking an unexpected journey! When they had gotten up this morning, none of the kids had expected that they were going to take a train ride to the Grand Canyon, but that is what they ended up doing! The saw beautiful scenery, got to ride on a comfortable classic train, had great service on the train, got to hear musical entertainment, and even fake robbers tried to rob the train!
In the Bible, in Luke 2:1,3-6 it says:
At that time the Roman emperor, Augustus, decreed that a census should be taken throughout the Roman Empire. All returned to their own ancestral towns to register for this census. And because Joseph was a descendant of King David, he had to go to Bethlehem in Judea, David’s ancient home. He traveled there from the village of Nazareth in Galilee. He took with him Mary, to whom he was engaged, who was now expecting a child. And while they were there, the time came for her baby to be born.
When we compare the train journey the kids took, and the journey that Joseph and Mary took, there are some things that are similar and some things that are very different:
- The kids took a 64-mile trip, Joseph and Mary had to go at least 70 miles (they probably went further because it was common practice to go around Samaria not through it).
- The kids got to sit down and relax on the train, tradition says that Mary rode a donkey, but the Bible never mentions that they had a donkey (and riding a donkey would have been very uncomfortable for a woman who is about to have a baby). Joseph and Mary might have had to walk the whole way.
- The train trip took 2 hours and 15 minutes, Joseph and Mary had to travel for at least a week, probably longer, they had to go slow because Mary’s baby would be born soon.
- The train trip was comfortable and air conditioned, Joseph and Mary were out in the heat during the days and the cold at nights.
- There was a fake train robbery performed by actors. Joseph and Mary would have been in danger from real bandits while they were traveling.
- They were both looking forward to something special at the journey’s end. The kids would get to see the Grand Canyon, Mary’s baby would be born when they reached Bethlehem and the baby would be Jesus!
So why did God make Joseph and Mary go through that hard journey just before baby Jesus was born? The answer is found in the Bible in Micah 5:2 where it says:
But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah (Ephrathah means ‘fruitful’) are only a small village among all the people of Judah. Yet a ruler of Israel, whose origins are in the distant past, will come from you on My behalf.
God put many signs (clues) in the Bible so that the people would be able to recognize Jesus (the Savior) when He came. One of the signs is that Jesus had to be born in Bethlehem. So, God made the mightiest government in world at that time suddenly decide to count all the people and make them go back to the hometown of their ancestors to get counted! How crazy is that? God forced Joseph and Mary to make the 70+ mile trip to Bethlehem so that Jesus would be born in the right place. People who were paying attention to the clues that God put in the Bible would have realized that Jesus fulfilled this clue and all the other clues that God put in the Bible! Jesus is the promised Savior, the Son of God!