Bethlehem It Is

From the age of six, until I was about nine or ten years of age, I had the privilege of spending a week or two every year in the farm house of my great aunt and uncle. They lived on a beautiful acreage and worked a successful business that included maple syrup production, a lumber mill and general farming which encompassed the sale of eggs, meat and vegetables. One of my most vivid memories of a visit there in late winter is one of my independent explorations of the farm buildings. I entered the barn that housed the pigs, cows and horses. I cannot describe to you the foul smells and strange noises that emitted from that stable. Despite daily cleaning of the stalls, the stench quite simply took my breath away. The breathing of the animals created visible vapours in the air. The visual sensation and noise of constant movement added to the din and confusion caused by the natural noises made by the animals. The rustling of the mice and feral barn cats was decidedly distracting. The air was dank and cold. In short, it was an uncomfortable and some might say, scary place.

It was in just such a place that the Lord Jesus Christ was born. God actually chose such a place to have His Son make an entry into this world. Given my personal experience as a child, I marvel at that. It is hard to imagine a more humble entry into this world. I marvel even more how our Saviour, who is God come to Earth, came to be born in a foul, smelly and decidedly unsanitary stable in the small town of Bethlehem. The prophet Micah tells us hundreds of years before the birth of Christ that Jesus will be born in Bethlehem, the city of David. We read this prophecy in Micah 5:2

2 "But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, Though you are little among the thousands of Judah, Yet out of you shall come forth to Me The One to be Ruler in Israel, Whose goings forth are from of old, From everlasting."

I am greatly entertained by the fact recorded in Matthew 2: 1-4 that God chose to use the great and powerful, but clueless, Caesar Augustus to call a census of all the inhabitants of the Roman world. By doing so, he unwittingly caused Joseph and Mary to travel to the betrothed male’s ancestral home in order to be recorded in the count. Because so many had travelled there for the same reason, there was no room at the inn and a manger surrounded by domestic animals became the only crib for the baby whose parents had to seek protection from the elements in a dank and smelly stable.

Caesar Augustus, the most powerful man in the world at the right time and the right place, was simply a puppet set in motion by God for his divine purposes. The Bible actually tells us that the census was thought to be world-wide by the Romans. We can be assured that Jesus, in retrospect, the most famous and remembered person in history, was probably of the least importance in Rome’s attempt at calculating its power and wealth. Jesus and his parents can only find shelter in a stable in the small town of Bethlehem. This of course is a preview of how the world was and still does accept its Saviour. God came personally to offer us eternal salvation. He chose to come as a helpless infant in the most humble of situations. His acceptance by the world on that night continues to be replicated with the exception of those of us, who over the last two centuries have realized who he was, still is and will always be, and have professed Him to be the Son of God and have worshiped Him as such.

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