O Little Town of Bethlehem

Our two readings are from Micah 5, and Tony's gonna read that first for us. And then after him, Joanne will come up to read the Christmas story from Matthew chapter 2. Some familiar words perhaps to some of us from Micah chapter 5. Now muster your troops, oh daughter of troops. Siege is laid against us.

With a rod, they strike the judge of Israel on the cheek. But you, oh Bethlehem, Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me the one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days. Therefore, he shall give them up until the time when she who is in labour has given birth, then the rest of his brothers shall return to the people of Israel. And he shall stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God, and they shall dwell secure. For now he shall be great to the ends of the earth, and he shall be their peace.

This reading is from Matthew 2:1-12. Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men came from the East to Jerusalem, saying, where is he who has been born the king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him. When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. And assembling all the chief priests and the scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born.

They told him, in Bethlehem of Judaea, for so it is written by the prophet. And you, oh Bethlehem, in the land of Judaea, of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah, for from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel. Then Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star had appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, go and search diligently for the child. And when you have found him, bring me word that I may come and worship him.

After listening to the king, they went on their way. And behold, the star that they had seen when it rose went before them until it came to rest over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. And going into the house, they saw the child with Mary, his mother, and they fell down and worshipped him. Then opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh. And being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their own country by another way.

This is the word of the Lord. This morning, we are going to look, obviously, at the Christmas story again, and we will be looking at the amazing connection between these two passages that we've read this morning. You may not know this, but those two passages are separated by about five hundred years. Five hundred years in Micah, Micah 5, we land in the Old Testament, and the events that Micah is talking about, and then the hidden meaning in those words happened five hundred years before the birth of Jesus. We'll see three things from those passages.

Firstly, we will notice the tragic situation that God's people were facing. The tragic situation that the people of God were facing. Secondly, we'll see the solution to these tragic circumstances, and that solution lay with a salvation. And then, thirdly and finally, we will see the result of that salvation.

So firstly, let's have a look at the situation, the tragic situation, and that is that Jerusalem, the city of God, was being conquered. In Micah 5:1, like I said, five hundred years, rather, before the arrival of Jesus, we see the tragic situation of the capital of the nation of Israel, Jerusalem, about to be conquered. If you have your Bibles with you, you can have a look at chapter 4, and just prior to this passage, we see that the prophecy addresses a place, a name Zion. Mount Zion was the highest point in the city of Jerusalem, and on that highest hill in Jerusalem, the temple was built. The Great Temple of Jerusalem.

Anytime you read Zion in the Bible, it's talking about the heart of Jerusalem. And not just the heart of this city, arguably, the heart of the nation of Israel. Zion stands at the core of the sacred capital that is Jerusalem. Now, Jerusalem is told, get your troops ready, oh, you daughter of troops. The translators struggle with the language there, it is a bit awkward and ambiguous.

It can be translated, oh daughter under attack. So muster your troops, oh daughter under attack. And so you get this idea of Jerusalem as a beautiful young maiden about to be defiled by marauders. Siege is laid against us, the prophecy says. The enemy is at the gates.

They have encircled us and there is no escape. Now, we know from history who that enemy was. It was the Babylonian empire. For years, they had been slowly eating away at more and more territory in the Israelite nation, but now, God says through Micah, the prophet, here is the moment of capitulation. Here is the moment where Israel is finally conquered.

The feeling, the mood of the imperative to muster your troops is actually sarcastic. Jerusalem can try and muster all its strength, do its best, but the horse has bolted. There is no way to stop the inevitable. The next line says, with a rod, they strike the judge of Israel on the cheek. That is another way of saying that the Jewish king, the king who sits in the capital, Jerusalem, is about to be struck on the face with a stick.

It's an image of humiliation. The enemies don't kill the king. The king doesn't fall gloriously in battle. He is captured and slapped in the face. Why has this happened?

Well, you only need to read the other prophetic books of the Old Testament and you realise that Israel had turned their backs on God. They had stopped worshipping Him. You can put it colloquially, they stopped going to church. They chose their own lifestyles. They chased after their own thoughts.

And in doing so, the Bible says, they sinned against the Holy God of all creation. They wilfully chose anything other than God. And here, God in turn, hands them over to their political enemies as a sign of their punishment and of His abandonment of them. So what's the situation? What's the tragedy here?

It is that Jerusalem will fall and with it, Mount Zion, the Temple Mount. It's like someone reaching into the chest of Israel as a nation and ripping out its heart. That's the tragic situation that Micah 5 begins with. But in the next few verses, we are told of a solution to this tragedy, and that is that a powerful saviour will come from the unlikeliest of places. We jump forward five hundred years and for centuries, this prophecy stood there for all to see.

Anyone who had a small amount of knowledge of the Bible could have told you so. So when these foreign three wise men come into the land of Judaea, they go to the Jewish king, Herod the Great, and they ask about a new king who was to be born in the land of Judaea. They go to the most logical place to go and find a king, to the palace. But Herod is as surprised as they were to discover that he wasn't expecting a son at the time. But Herod somehow vaguely remembers the story of a mysterious anointed one, the Messiah, who would usher in a new kingdom.

And so he goes to his religious advisers, and he asked them about where this Messiah is prophesied to be born, and they returned to him very quickly. They say, Bethlehem in Judaea. How do they know this? From Micah 5. Now, Herod, as the impostor king and he was not a good man, has no intention of celebrating and ushering in this new king.

Although he pretends to say that and he says that to the wise men, go and find him please, so that I may come and worship him as well, we know that his intention was always to kill him, to protect his own rule. But it was in the history of Israel, the worst kept secret. For five hundred years, eyes must have been on Bethlehem for a great king to arrive. A saviour, a shepherd, a conqueror who would restore Israel to its former glory. And so you can imagine, someone at least had their eyes on Bethlehem.

Not one of them, however, thought that it could be Jesus, the son of Mary and Joseph. There is an amazing hiddenness in the Christmas story. No one suspects Mary and Joseph. Why? Well, because they were out of towners.

They didn't live in Bethlehem. They had grown up in Nazareth over a hundred kilometres away. That's where they lived. That's where they worked. And yet, at the perfect time, something amazing happens.

The gospel writer Luke begins his Christmas time account with these words: and it came to pass that in those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. At the perfect time, a census is ordered and everyone is told to travel back to where their families originated from. Presumably, that's to be counted for the Roman Empire's tax obligations, but everyone has to travel back to their hometowns where their tribal origins were. And so you can imagine, while everyone's eyes are searching high and low in all the noble families of Bethlehem for a son to be born to fulfil the prophecy of Micah at just the right time, God uses a Roman emperor's law to move Mary and Joseph, the carpenter of family, from Nazareth to Bethlehem at the exact time that she had to give birth. It's a powerful reminder of how God works in the affairs of humanity.

People don't even have to be Christians and they are used by God for His purposes. He always surprises us. He always surprises us. Back five hundred years before Jesus, Micah, through the work of the Holy Spirit, prophesied that a great king is coming for the people of God, but he will come from the unlikeliest of places. Of all the places that the Messiah could be born, Micah 5 says that it will be the little town of Bethlehem.

Have a look in those words of verse 2. God addresses Bethlehem as though they were a person. It's Bethlehem personified, and he says to Bethlehem, you who are too little to be among the clans of Judah. As you may know, the history of Israel is that they were divided into 12 great tribes. Each tribe across the whole territory of Israel were given a portion of land in which their families could settle and live. The town of Bethlehem, which also had the more ancient name Ephrata, which is what is also mentioned there, is located in the region belonging to the tribe of Judah.

But the crown jewel of the tribe of Judah is Jerusalem. In fact, amazingly, Bethlehem is a stone's throw away from Jerusalem. Quite literally, Bethlehem lies in the shadow of Jerusalem. Today, Bethlehem still exists, Jerusalem still exists. You can drive your car fifteen, twenty minutes and you get to Bethlehem from Jerusalem.

Now, God says, a great king will be born not in Jerusalem, but in Bethlehem. And someone could have easily expected the Messiah to be born at the sacred capital of the nation, yet God chooses Bethlehem, the ugly sister. The little footnote, the little kid in the shadow. Yet for those who know God, those who have come to know His ways, it's hardly surprising. God once again said in Isaiah 57 that I dwell in the high and holy place, but also with him who has a contrite and humble spirit.

Bethlehem reminds us that the small shall be great, that the last shall be first, that God often brings strength from weakness. And according to God's eternal plan, unmistakably laid out hundreds of years before, but astonishingly and invisibly delivered, Bethlehem indeed becomes the birthplace of the great king. What a privilege for the personified town of Bethlehem to have been handpicked to cradle the Son of God. Out of all the towns in the world, it was Bethlehem. Little old Bethlehem.

Why not Jerusalem? It was the seat of sacred power. Why not Rome? It was the centre of political power. Why not Athens?

It was the seat of intellectual progress. Out of all the places in the world, it was little Bethlehem. Why? To show the world that its hope does not lie in religious organisations nor does it lie with political power nor with intellectual progress. The hope of the world lies with an overlooked saviour.

But the next question is, how will this saviour save? What would be the purpose of this special child born in little old Bethlehem? Well, short, he would bring the lost sheep home. When the three wise men find Mary and Joseph and Jesus, verse 11 in Matthew 2 tells us, they fell down and worshipped Him. They worshipped Him.

Now, it probably doesn't mean that they understood that this is God incarnate and they fall down in reverent holy worship of God. It probably means they honoured the one who was to be king. But who in their right mind would do that? Even that. Picture the scene.

They walk into a stable and they find a freshly born helpless baby lying among hay and manure. Born into a carpenter's family, born not in the royal city of Jerusalem, born in Bethlehem, and they are out of towners, they don't belong there. For anyone, that would be sufficient evidence to think this is not the child we're looking for. Here was no royalty. Here was no nobility.

It scarcely could qualify for dignity. You could find no greater scene of abject humiliation than what these men saw when they saw that freshly born baby, yet somehow, they fall down and worship Him. And then they give gifts worthy of a king, gold, frankincense and myrrh. Frankincense and myrrh were both rare fragrances that were used for all sorts of things, perfumes, medicines, candles for incense, and so on. Extremely expensive and hard to find, gifts suitable for the very rich, and yet the setting couldn't be further from the idea of wealth, let alone kingship.

But the wise men sensed from the supernatural spectacle of that star's guidance, perhaps from Herod's religious experts themselves confirming Bethlehem as the place of the prophecy, that they have found someone profound. And all the while, as the people only realise afterwards, as Matthew and Luke remember the momentous occasion, they realise Micah's prophecy is being fulfilled. The boy is a king, but he's not just any king. This boy would grow into the mould of Israel's greatest king, King David. You see, before Micah, five hundred years before this moment, King David was born.

So that's a total of a thousand years before Jesus and where was he born? Bethlehem. Bethlehem. He's born from the tribe of Judah and King David becomes the king over Israel and its golden age. David leads the people in faithfulness to God.

He keeps Israel on the straight and the narrow. He protects them from their enemies and drives their enemies back. But he also comes from nothing. He's a little shepherd boy, the youngest of ten kids, looking after the sheep while his brothers fight Israel's battles. And this little runt of the litter found only after all other nine brothers had been checked.

This little shepherd boy goes on to slay the Goliath, giant Goliath with a sling and a pebble. David the great is born not in the great city of Jerusalem, but in the town of Bethlehem. And here, God says, a king like David is coming again. But look carefully at those words in Micah and you realise that this king is not simply David two point o, but that he is greater than Israel's greatest king. Verse 3, when she who is in labour has given birth, then the rest of his brothers shall return to the people of Israel.

And he shall stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord His God and the people shall dwell secure for now, he shall be great to the ends of the earth. Here is the purpose, Micah says. To a people who have had their hearts ripped out as Jerusalem falls, the sacred temple is defiled and ransacked. To a people who visibly see God's presence leave their nation, and to a people who have physically felt the punishment of their sin against God, the purpose of this new king, this coming king, is to bring lost people back to God. He's not a warrior.

He's a shepherd and he will do so in the strength and the majesty of God. He will ensure that the people dwell secure in the kingdom, and all of this shall extend to the ends of the earth. In other words, this is a kingdom that has no boundaries. Now friends, the gospel writer Matthew, five hundred years after this prophecy claims Micah 5 has been fulfilled by Jesus in his birth in Bethlehem. But you may know, whether you are a Christian here or not, that Jesus lived an earthly life that never looked anything like a king in a kingdom.

The closest thing he had to a crown was a crown of thorns that was crushed onto his skull at the cross. It confused people back then and it still confuses people today. What happened to that boy king from Bethlehem? Did Matthew and the wise men get it wrong? Perhaps, they misunderstood.

Well, the morning before his crucifixion and death, Jesus was asked by the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate. Pilate said, the people accuse you of claiming to be a king, are you? For a long time, Jesus had remained silent to those lines of questioning, but finally, he gives them these words: my kingdom is not of this world. My kingdom is not of this world. You see, it was exactly for the same claim of being a king that the people rejected Jesus.

And Pilate couldn't see anything kingly about Jesus and so he washed his hands of his execution and simply concluded that Jesus is a madman. For that very reason, people reject Jesus today. I saw the celebrity journalist Joe Hildebrand wrote an article that came out yesterday on news.com saying how ridiculous it is to believe that Jesus is all who the Bible claimed him to be. People reject Jesus for the same exact reason as they did back then. Jesus is not a king.

But read your Bibles again. Read Micah 5, read Matthew 2 and all the places that talk about Jesus and you'll understand why Jesus did remain silent before his accusers. Because he doesn't need to persuade anyone that he is king. He is king. Everything points towards that.

If you have the eyes willing to see, you will know he is king. He doesn't need to persuade you or Joe Hildebrand that he is king. We must persuade him that we are willing subjects under his kingship. God works through surprises. You could put it this way, the only thing that shouldn't surprise us is that God surprises us.

It was a surprise that Bethlehem, not Jerusalem, would bear the Messiah. It was a surprise that the king was born in a stable, not a palace. It was a surprise that the carpenter's son from Nazareth would be God incarnate. And that is why faith is so profound. Ask yourself, why is faith something that only God himself can give us directly?

Because faith in Jesus is hidden. Faith in his kingship is hidden. His kingdom is amongst us and yet it is hidden. But this morning, as you hear these words, God is speaking to you and he is telling you today that there is a kingdom and you may enter it. How do you do that?

Through allegiance. Through placing your trust in the fact that Jesus is king. He doesn't owe you an explanation. You owe him your obedience. You owe him your everything if you come to know Him.

And this is why Jesus also stays silent when Pilate presents him the offer to be protected from execution. Pilate says, I have the power to save you. Jesus says, you don't know what you're talking about. Pilate doesn't have any authority to spare Christ's life because the eternal plan laid out in Micah 5 already was to send Jesus to die on the cross, to bear the sin of Israel, so that they could be reconciled back to God. And yet, Micah 5 is saying that this death goes wider than Israel because his kingdom will extend to the ends of the earth and this is where you and I come in.

Because of your sin and mine and because he is the true and righteous king, he offered his life for spiritual exiles like us. Rebels against God in our disobedience. Exiles far from a holy and righteous God. But because of the cross, we can be reconciled back to God. Don't you see?

Only a true king would die for his kingdom. The impostor king of Micah 5 gets smacked on the cheek. He doesn't die in glorious battle because he's not the true king. A king dies for his kingdom. My kingdom is not of this world.

My kingdom is far greater than Israel. It extends to the ends of the earth. And so it's no wonder that the next section of Micah, which Tony thankfully also read for us, the start of verse 5 begins with the words, and he shall be their peace. Friends, are you searching for peace? Have you come to realise that you desire peace with God?

Jesus will be your peace. Born in Bethlehem into the royal family of King David to a virgin mother, an origin that is of old, of ancient times as Micah said, the divine origin untainted by Adam's sin. This baby is born to grow into a man, to take on the responsibility of a king and that responsibility is to rescue a kingdom. To guide and to shepherd lost sheep back home and that is what you and I were, sheep that were lost. Wayward, confused in our own thinking, pretending to know something when really, we realise deep down, we know nothing.

He is the one who brings exiles home and that is what we are, pretenders who constantly wander looking for that lifestyle, for that philosophy, for that world view that gives stability and meaning to our endless wandering. We search for a home we've never seen yet desperately miss. Even Joe Hildebrand in his article reveals it unknowingly and you can go and read it. In his final sentence, after claiming that Christianity is the greatest myth ever perpetuated in human history. This is what he writes.

For me, Christianity isn't so much a celebration of God, but a celebration of humanity. I believe that there can be more to life than what we experience and that we can be better people than what we are. Mister Hildebrand doesn't realise what he's saying. Even as he tries to neutralise the transcendence of God, he hopes for something transcendent himself, a life better than he is experiencing. A morality better than the one that he can possibly live.

I wanna tell you this morning, God is the home you've been looking for and Jesus is your shepherd king. Someone once reflected on the Christmas story in this way, if our greatest need had been information, God would have sent us an educator. If our greatest need had been technology, God would have sent us a scientist. If our greatest need had been money, God would have sent us an economist. And if our greatest need had been entertainment, God would have sent us an entertainer.

But our greatest need was forgiveness and that is why God sent us a saviour. The greatest tragedy of life would be to celebrate seventy, eighty, ninety Christmases in good health, but never receive the true gift that Christmas gives us. The Lord Jesus who came to be our king by dying to be our saviour. Jesus Christ is not simply the promise of Christmas, he is the promise of God that came true. Christ is king and his kingdom is indeed growing and growing across all the world so that as we speak, the prophecy of Micah 5 is still being fulfilled.

Christ will be king to the ends of the earth. And all the while, the offer remains the same for all those who are willing to hear it. His people shall dwell secure in the kingdom of God and he shall be our peace. Let's pray. Lord, we have no gold, frankincense or myrrh to bring You.

We come with the scraps of our lives. We come with the ragged pieces of our obedience. Sometimes, noble. Sometimes, nice to look at but often, so weak, so fragile, so tainted. Today, we need to receive the king who has come to win back a kingdom.

We have been lost exiles wandering far away from God, searching for a home that we've always longed for and yet we've never seen. Help us this morning, perhaps for the first time to realise that You are that home. So Lord, for some of us here, we bring our lives before You and we have to say sorry for the sin of our lives and our pride and our rejection of You. Our unwillingness to bow the knee, our unwillingness to believe that Jesus Christ is the king who was sent, that he is the beloved Son that God would give us out of His great love for the world. And so Father, we ask that You will forgive us.

We repent this morning of our rebellion against You and we turn towards You to receive Your grace and Your forgiveness. Have mercy on us and cause us to believe. And for the rest of us who have known this for a long time, who rejoice gladly and exceedingly like the wise men when they found Jesus. Lord, for those of us, help us to rejoice again with a profound and a renewed sense of joy that we have the king and that our lives are radically different to what they were and continue to transform us and mature us and to grow us into citizens that belong to this kingdom. Citizens who reflect the image of their king.

Thank you for today. Thank you for the many good things that we celebrate today, but help us to remember the greatest thing that you've given us in Jesus Christ. Amen.