FIRST READING Micah 5:2-5a
2 But you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah, who are one of the little clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to rule in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days. 3 Therefore he shall give them up until the time when she who is in labor has brought forth; then the rest of his kindred shall return to the people of Israel. 4 And he shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of the LORD, in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God. And they shall live secure, for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth; 5a and he shall be the one of peace.
PSALM Psalm 80:1-7
1 Hear, O Shepherd of Israel, leading Joseph like a flock; shine forth, you that are enthroned upon the cherubim. 2 In the presence of Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasseh, stir up your strength and come to help us. 3 Restore us, O God; let your face shine upon us, and we shall be saved. 4 O Lord God of hosts, how long will your anger fume when your people pray? 5 You have fed them with the bread of tears; you have given them bowls of tears to drink. 6 You have made us the derision of our neighbors, and our enemies laugh us to scorn. 7 Restore us, O God of hosts; let your face shine upon us, and we shall be saved.
SECOND READING Hebrews 10:5-10
5 Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said,
“Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me; 6 in burnt
offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure.
7 Then I said, ‘See, God, I have come to do your will, O God’ (in the scroll of the book it is written of me).” 8 When he said above, “You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings” (these are offered according to the law), 9 then he added,
“See, I have come to do your will.”
He abolishes the first in order to establish the second. 10 And it is by God’s will that we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
GOSPEL Luke 1:39-56
39 In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, 40 where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. 41 When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit 42 and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. 43 And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? 44 For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. 45 And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.” 46 And Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord, 47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, 48 for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; 49 for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. 50 His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. 51 He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. 52 He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; 53 he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. 54 He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, 55 according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.” 56 And Mary remained with her about three months and then returned to her home.
A SMALL TOWN IS BLESSED
Many of you, like me, grew up in either a small town or in a rural area, so you can identify with some of those lists that begin with “You know you live in a small town when . . .” For example, “You know you live in a small town when . . .” The City limits signs are on opposite sides of the same post. Your car breaks down outside of town and news of it gets back to town before you do. Or, one that I appreciate, you know you’re from small town American, when without thinking, you wave to all oncoming traffic.
And what about these; you know you live in a small town when the New Year’s baby is born in October. A “Night on the Town” takes only 11 minutes. The local phone book has only one yellow page. And you know you live in the sticks, when you call a wrong number and they give you the correct one. Or, your destination is clear across town and it still takes 30 seconds to get there. There’s plenty more of these of course. It seems that small towns don’t get the respect they deserve.
It’s like a joke one pastor told on the city of Fresno, California. He says, “People go to Hollywood because they want to get famous. People go to Silicon Valley because they want to get rich. People go to Fresno because they get bad directions.” Fresno is a town of respectable size, but it isn’t Hollywood and can’t compete with Silicon Valley. Small towns simply don’t get much respect. And yet some of the best folks who ever lived came from small towns.
Abraham Lincoln, generally acknowledged as one of our greatest president, hailed from Knob Creek, Kentucky which was so small it no longer exists. President Jimmy Carter, of course, still calls Plains, Georgia home. Plains has a grand population of 611. My mother, a woman among the greatest, comes from the tiny town of Long Dove, Oklahoma, current population, zippo. I guess the town couldn’t handle my maternal grandparents leaving back during the Dust Bowl days! You don’t have to be a big city to produce a big person. Of course, the greatest person who ever lived came from a small town in one of the unlikeliest places on Earth.
In our Old Testament lesson for today we read these beautiful words, “But you, Bethlehem of Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel . . .” (Micah 5:2) These words were written 700 years before Caesar Augustus issued his decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world . . . a census that required Joseph and Mary, his young bride-to-be, to travel from their home in Nazareth to Bethlehem because Joseph belonged to the house and lineage of David. It’s a story most all of us know by heart.
Joseph goes to Bethlehem to register for the census with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped Him in bands of cloth and placed Him in a manger, because there was nothing available for them in the inn. And we can’t forget about the rest of the cast.
Out in the fields nearby were shepherds, tending to their flocks that night. Then suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord illuminated the surrounding area which terrified them. But the angel said to them, be calm my friends; I bring you good news that will be a source of great joy for all the people. Earlier, in Bethlehem, a Savior was born; He is the Messiah, the Lord. This is the proof: You will find a baby wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.” The angel was then joined by a host of other angels all praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom His favor rests.”
When the angels had left and returned to heaven, the shepherds looked at each other and said, we gotta go and check this out. So they took off and found Mary, Joseph and the baby, who was lying in the manger. “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened . . .” they said. The world didn’t know it, but all the truly important people on earth were huddled in a stable that night in the tiny town of Bethlehem, just six miles outside of Jerusalem.
In the world’s estimation, the important people were in Rome–Augustus Caesar, his household and the Roman senate–but you and I know better. The truly important people that night consisted of some humble shepherds and a young couple with their newborn son who had been forced to take shelter in a stable because there was no room for them in the local boarding house. There are many in this world who wouldn’t agree with that statement, that all the important people were in that Bethlehem cave that night, but you and I and Christians everywhere, know that the babe born that night would forever change the world, as well as humanity’s relationship with God. And all this took place in a small town called Bethlehem.
In August, 1865, shortly after the Civil war, the parishioners of Holy Trinity Church in Philadelphia sent their rector, Phillips Brooks, abroad for a year. His travels took him through Europe, and in December to the Holy Land. There he traced the footsteps of Jesus southward and visited the scenes of the Bible narrative. After two weeks in Jerusalem, Christmas Eve found him in Bethlehem at the birthplace of Jesus. Of his stirring emotions on that “Holy Night,” he later wrote to his Sunday school back in Philadelphia. He said, “I remember standing in the old church in Bethlehem, close to the spot where Jesus was born. The whole church was ringing, hour after hour, with splendid hymns of praise to God. It was as if I could hear angelic voices telling each other of the Wonderful Night of our dear Savior’s birth.”
Two years later, in 1867, Brooks put his pen to paper and wrote these immortal words: “O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie! Above thy deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go by. Yet in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting Light; The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.” The prophet Micah, who first announced where Christ would be born, was a contemporary of the prophet Isaiah. In those days, 700 years before Christ’s birth, God was speaking to both men of the One who was to come.
Not as well-known as Isaiah, Micah still helped shape Israel’s national character. His inspired preaching against injustice eventually brought Hezekiah the king to repentance and, in doing so, saved Israel (Jeremiah 26:17-19). During this time there was a shocking contrast within both Judah and Israel between the extremely rich and the oppressed poor. Sounds familiar doesn’t it? Such oppression gained support from corrupt political and religious leaders of that day. This failed leadership caused the nation to become morally bankrupt and therefore ripe for judgment.
God through Micah, foretold that there would come a ruler who will “shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God. And they will live securely, for then His greatness will reach to the ends of the earth. And He will be our peace . . .” The place where this ruler would be born, said Micah, is Bethlehem. The word Bethlehem in Hebrew means house of bread. “Sounds more like a home for the Pillsbury Dough Boy,” says one author, “than it does the birthplace of a king.” It’s profound, don’t you think, that God would raise the One who would be the “bread of life” from the so-called “house of bread?”
As someone else wrote: “Bread is one of life’s most common things. God wanted His Son available to all. His birth was announced to shepherds, the common man, but not to the religious elite nor to those with political clout. His cradle was a manger, a common animal’s feeding trough in a lowly stable. You don’t have to be rich to know Him. You don’t have to be well-known or popular to be acquainted with Him. The good news is, you can just be you. Jesus didn’t specifically come to the religious elite, the rich or the ruling party or for the ones who thought they were all right. Jesus came for all who were aware of their needs. That Christ was born in ‘The House of Bread’ gives us confidence that God does indeed want us to be His children, no matter how insignificant we may seem to ourselves or to those around us.” So this is how God came to us, as a small baby, born in a small town.
Jesus wasn’t born in a power center of the world. He didn’t arrive with the pomp and circumstance of earthly kings. He came to an average couple, staying that night in a stable, populated by animals and furnished with straw. Another pastor writes, “When a new king is born you can hear the shots of artillery in a 41-gun salute. When a new king is born, flags billow and chapel bells peal loud clanging music into the night. When a new king is born, champagne corks stream through the air by the thousands. When a new king is born, people stand together and sing choruses in the street. When a new king is born, clouds of euphoria make millions of people feel like they’re members of one harmonious family. “At least that’s the way one newspaper article says it was on June 21, 1982 when at 9:03 p.m. the future King of England came into the world.
“His name was William, Prince of Wales, born to Prince Charles and his young wife Diana. This boy was a legitimate heir to the throne. He was of royal ancestry. Born to be king. “But that wasn’t the way it was when Jesus came into the world. It’s difficult to imagine a more humble or lowly birth than the birth of Jesus . . . Douglas Connelly says, ‘Imagine coming upon a young woman giving birth to a baby in an abandoned car in some urban alleyway, and you come closer to the way it really was.’” That was the way it was when Jesus was born.
It was in a small town, that a small baby was born and miraculously an entire world was saved. Frederick Buechner, in his book Listening to Your Life, wrote: “When [this] child was born, the whole course of human history was changed. That’s a truth that is as unassailable as any truth. Art, music, literature, western culture itself, with all its institutions and western man’s whole understanding of himself and his world. It’s impossible to conceive how differently things would have turned out if that birth had not happened, whenever, wherever, however it did. And there’s a truth beyond that for millions of people who have believed since. The birth of Jesus made possible not just a new way of understanding life, but a new way of living it. The truth of this incarnation should never cease to amaze us. The mystery of the eternal, cradled in a manger, elicits awesome wonder and grateful praise.”
Notice what Buechner said here: “The birth of Jesus made possible not just a new way of understanding life, but a new way of living it.” And both these statements are worth taking a few moments to consider. First, the birth of Jesus made possible a new way of understanding life.
As someone has noted, “you can listen to a cricket singing in his field and consider that he has no knowledge of other crickets in other fields, some far away, some nearby. He has no knowledge even of the cricket in the field across the road. His world is one patch of weeds, and his lifetime, a single summer. “You can think of ancient man, with no knowledge of countries and continents across the seas. His own little community is his world. He knows no other. “You can think of the worlds unknown to us, of the outer limits of the universe about which we know next to nothing. This little ball of mud, our whole universe, and our whole lifetime, these few years. God has kept some greater knowledge in reserve for us for the future. “But once in a while, God opens a window in that larger eternal, heavenly world.
God opened such a window at Bethlehem when angels appeared to shepherds. We learn this much: it’s a world of heavenly messengers who do God’s bidding, a world of peace, and a world where all glory is given to God.” All of that we can learn from what happened that night in the small town of Bethlehem. The birth of Jesus made possible a new way of understanding life. And second, the birth of Jesus also made possible a new way of living.
We hear people ask, why can’t we keep the Christmas spirit all year long? The answer is, of course, we can, that’s why Christ came. He came that we might keep His spirit all year long. The Christmas spirit is nothing more than the way the follower of Jesus is to live each and every day of their life–showing kindness to strangers; treating all people regardless of their station in life with respect; being generous with the poor and compassionate with the wayward; in short loving God with all your heart, soul and mind and then loving others as yourself. That’s not an aberration. That’s simply living the Christ life.
Helmut Nausner, a well-known Methodist pastor in Austria, tells of a Christmas Eve during the Nazi occupation when he was quite young. His father was away, so his mother gathered the children around her to read the Christmas story and to pray. As they did they could hear the soldiers outside their windows, marching the streets, patrolling the curfew, and enforcing the orders forbidding religious celebration. They were very quiet.
During the reading and praying, young Helmut kept wondering what his mother would do about the music. Poor as they were, they had a piano that was used for house services where his Papa preached and his Mama played the hymns. Mama, he said, loved the Christmas music, but surely the soldiers would hear if they sang. “What would they do to Mama and to us?” he wondered.
When they finished their reading and prayers, Helmut’s youngest sister asked, “Mama, aren’t we going to sing?” With only a moment’s hesitation, his mother answered, “Tonight we celebrate the coming of the Christ Child into our world. He came that we might never be afraid any more. Of course we are going to sing.” So she gathered her children about her and they sang, “O come, all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant. Come ye, O come ye, to Bethlehem.”
You and I don’t have to sing in fear this Christmas season or any season for that matter–all fear has been taken away. Fear is removed because it all began in a small town called Bethlehem, “the house of bread.” And because the love of God came and changed the world forever, we can boldly and loudly proclaim, unto us a child is born, unto us a Savior is given. This is the good news we share this season.
Amen