Hello,
Just under a year ago I was in Bethlehem, the city of David, the
Biblical birthplace of Jesus. The
Bible doesn’t give us much of a description of Bethlehem, which in Hebrew means
“house of bread”. Christmas song
writers however have painted a picture with their lyrics of a quiet country
town where cattle “low” (do any cattle tending Bungee readers know what that
means?”) and babies sleep in heavenly peace. Who knows for sure, but my suspicion is that the truth of
life in Bethlehem was not so idyllic. Bethlehem, as was all of Israel,
patrolled by Roman armies who kept the peace by ruthless fear. Also, Bethlehem was under the thumb of
King Herod who seems not to have had any hesitancy to spill the blood of his
people. Was all calm and bright in
Bethlehem at the time of Jesus birth?
I don’t think so.
And neither is all calm and bright in Bethlehem today as we near the
anniversary of that birth.
Jerusalem is a divided city.
Huge 20 foot walls separate people, Jews from non-Jews. These walls have become roadblocks,
cutting family businesses off from their customers. These walls have separated olive farmers from their groves,
and thus their livelihood. The people of Bethlehem have painted artwork and
graffiti on these walls. One such
painting that I saw was of a large purple ribbon, the sort of ribbon one gets
for a prize cow at the fair, and inside the circle at the top which on fair
ribbons might read “Grand Champion”, these words are painted, “With love and
kisses nothing lasts forever”.
Some of you may have heard of the
questioning of the historical accuracy of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem in a book
called The Zealot. This is
not a new question. For centuries
some have spoken of the “unlikelihood” of making people return to the city of
their ancestors for an enrollment, and the lack of extra-Biblical recounting of
such an enrollment in Jesus’ day.
Of course, even these objections do not rule out the possibility of the
historical accuracy of the birth story.
But to me, the preoccupation with asserting or refuting the accuracy of
the Biblical account superimposes a modern understanding of history on the Biblical
story and misses the truth that the story is making. The truth
that Jesus was to have been born in Bethlehem, which he certainly may have
been, has more to do with the revealing of who Jesus was and what Jesus would
be. The Bible tells us that God
made a promise to his people that God would provide for them a King who would
rule over them, a King who would descend from the stem of David (Bethlehem was
the town in which David’s family of origin grew up). Jesus was the fulfillment of that promise…God keeps his
word. Also, by locating Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem, instead of the
palace in Jerusalem, we see the truth that God has come, and will come, into
the ordinary and common places of life….places filled with manure, places
filled with confusion, places filled with danger, places that are not calm,
bright, and peaceful.
In these Advent days, the four weeks before Christmas, if you wonder if
you are important enough that God Almighty, the King of the Universe, would
even have a flicker of a thought of you pass through his mind…remember
Bethlehem. If you wonder if you
life is neat and clean enough that God would want to walk through your life
with you…remember Bethlehem. If
you wonder if your life is together enough that God would want to settle in
there…..remember Bethlehem. If you
look at your life and see the 20 foot walls that you have built to keep others
away and even maybe keep God away…remember Bethlehem. And on Christmas when you sing “O Little Town of
Bethlehem”….remember Bethlehem….and although the picture that the song writer
gives of Bethlehem may be a little inaccurate…the song writer got it absolutely,
historically accurate….”The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee
tonight.”
Have a great week.
God’s grace and peace, (ggap)
Pastor Jerry Nuernberger
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