The Place

Second Advent Wednesday

December 12, 2007

Micah 5:1-5

"But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel . . ."

God simply refuses to play by man’s rules.

Imagine: you are invited to meet a very important person. You are in the capital city, which is big and impressive. You are put into the back seat of a luxurious limousine. The driver proceeds through the city until he leaves it.

You wonder what is going on. He drives for six miles, until he comes upon the next town—a village, actually—a place with no more than a post office, a gas station, and a collection of houses. Think: Port Hope.

Completely unimpressive. Totally not where important people live.

Now, this village is not without its nice homes. You turn off the highway and head down Main Street, and you begin to wonder which of these lovely, turn-of-the-twentieth-century houses is home to this important person, whom you are getting anxious to meet.

But, almost as quickly as you started down Main Street, it has come to an end. Well, it continues, but now it is a rural, gravel road. The lovely, turn-of-the-twentieth-century houses have been replaced by standard, less-than-splendid Midwestern farms. You wonder: What’s going on?

The limo turns into one of the farms—and passes right by the house. It heads to the barn, to the milking parlor, and comes to a stop. The driver gets out, opens your door, and says, "Come with me." He leads you through the door of the milking parlor, where there is a man, wearing coveralls and manure soaked boots, stooped under a cow. You are not impressed.

God simply refuses to play by man’s rules. God doesn’t care if you are not impressed. Therefore, He doesn’t come into this world, into the capital city of Jerusalem, where He would be expected. He doesn’t come into a big, majestic mansion, where He would be expected. He doesn’t comes as an ornately dressed and decorated king of a man, as He would be expected.

God never has been concerned about impressing anyone, so He doesn’t do things the way you and I like to do them. When we want attention, we dress up our house, and we dress up our body, and we dress up our everything about ourselves in the manner of a pompous-looking peacock, so that people will notice us.

God doesn’t care if He is noticed. God cares if He is loved and feared, in the proper manner of understanding the word fear. So, God plays by His own rules, and His rules are ruled by love.

And so, He has a prophet—Micah, who wasn’t an impressive prophet, on the order of an Elijah or an Isaiah—He has this minor mouthpiece of His prophesy a tiny town as the place in which He would begin the work of the miracle of His salvation—where, truly, the most impressive act in the history of the world would be born on the outskirts of town, on the outskirts of a home, on the outskirts of anyone’s radar.

It’s not that God didn’t want anyone to know, mind you. Indeed, when His Son was born, He was the quintessential proud papa, sending His angels to sing the good news—angels singing, mind you, not just phone calls and cigars and chocolate bars—sending angels to sing the good news of God’s peace on earth and goodwill toward men in the person of His Son born of a woman, born in a barn, laid in a manger—the food bowl of the animals.

Bethlehem was small, but God made it huge. A thousand years earlier, He had set up the scene, having once taken a king from this village. David—the last born, runt-of-a-man, at whom no one was looking to wear God’s crown—David was made king, and Bethlehem was David’s home town.

And, about Bethlehem, and about David, God made promises. And, if God is not a God to keep promises, then He cannot be trusted.

But, God is love, and love does what is right and keeps its promises. So, God sent His Son to be born where no one expected.

Then, Jesus was moved back to Joseph and Mary’s town—Nazareth—from which no one looked for a king. Then, Jesus left home, roaming the countryside for over three years, in a manner in which no one would look for a king.

Then, following perfectly in the footsteps mapped out by His Father, Jesus did the least expected thing of all: He let man play by its rules, finding Him guilty of blasphemy, of lying against God.

He took up His life in a manger. He lay down His life on a cross. Not the way to get noticed—not the way to impress anyone. Only the way to do as your Father directed, and what the world needed.

In His Father’s footsteps, Jesus simply refuses to play by man’s rules. Silver and gold mean nothing to Him. Lofty thrones and noble titles don’t get His attention. Banquet feasts, He leaves on the table.

He uses a word, some water, and a bite of bread with a sip of wine—items that every peasant can afford, Jesus turns into kingly gifts. These most common items—completely unimpressive to a world which loves to have its head turned with the awe-inspiring—these most common items, He uses to create faith, and strengthen faith, and sustain faith to life everlasting.

These most common things, He has used to do His uncommon work in you—to save you by His grace, through His gift of faith, so that you cannot boast about a thing that you do, but only trust Him at His Word, and in His baptism, and at His altar.

Now, having been granted the gift of faith in Jesus, you find the completely unimpressive Bethlehem so very impressive that you sing songs about it. You find the yawn-inspiring barn-birth of a baby to be so grand that you set up scenes of its nativity.

And, you rejoice that God does not play by man’s rules, for man always rules with an iron fist—we people always place the burden of law upon each other’s shoulders, expecting others to do for us what we rarely want to do for them.

God flips the rule on its ear. Knowing that we humans will rarely return the favor, yet, for the sake of saving His creation, God does for the world what it cannot do for itself. He saves the world in a hundred acts of Jesus’ obedience, which would never be expected, being finished at the cross of a despised criminal, after having begun in the borrowed barn of a stranger farmer, in a tiny village that was off the beaten path.

God foretold Bethlehem. God fulfilled Bethlehem. Therefore, you know that this birthplace is the beginning of something big, and that Jesus is the One toward whom you should look for your eternal life—for the forgiveness of all of your sins—for the salvation of your soul. Amen.