It couldn't have been a happy prospect for a woman expecting her first child. The emperor, Caesar Augustus, had ordered a census. And that meant Mary, with her fiance Joseph, would have to make the approximately 80-mile journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem, Joseph's ancestral home, in order to be put on the tax rolls.
The Gospel of Luke, the only one of the Gospels to record this episode, See Luke 2:1-19 . doesn't say whether Mary was distressed by the prospect of a long and uncomfortable road trip in the latter part of pregnancy.
But if her reaction to news of the pregnancy itself is any indication, she probably accepted this further development with quiet grace. This, after all, was a young woman who responded to an angelic announcement that she, a virgin, would bear "the Son of the Highest," with the modest pronouncement: "Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word." Luke 1:32, 38.
