ChristmasReading2022A - Flipbook - Page 48
DAY Twenty-Three: December 20 - Tuesday
Bethlehem
“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,
whose origins are from of old, from ancient mes.” Micah 5:2
“O Li le town of Bethlehem, how s ll we see thee lie. Above thy deep
and dreamless sleep the silent stars go bye. Yet in they dark streets
shineth, the everlas ng light. The hope and fears of all the years are
met in thee tonight.”
Jesus was born in Bethlehem, the city of David, that is, the city the king
David grew up in. The name Bethlehem means “house of Bread.” It was
a li le village of less than three hundred people a few miles to the
south of Jerusalem. No one saw a king in David. He started life so low
on the totem pole that when Samuel came to the home of Jesse to
anoint the new king of Israel, David somehow became an a erthought.
It slipped Jesse’s mind that he even had a son named David and had to
be reminded. There were, a er all, seven sons older than David and
one can lose count especially with the stress of a famous prophet in
the living room. Or perhaps Jesse just couldn’t see it in his youngest
boy. Whatever the case, David comes in and the Lord says to Samuel:
“Rise and anoint him; this is the one” (1 Samuel 16:12). “This is the
one!” And the rest, as they say, is history.
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About a thousand years later, Bethlehem becomes the center of
a en on again. Joseph’s people are from Bethlehem and he has
returned because the government has ordered a census. He is of the
line of David, but he is so far removed from a royal life that no one
would mistake him for a king or the father of a king. And yet, his and
Mary’s Son is the eternal King Who is the Son of God incarnate. He will
be born in li le Bethlehem, swaddled in cloths and placed in a manger.
This King is born in humble, unpreten ous circumstances. His birth was
as surprising as His death on a cross seemed foolish (1 Corinthians
1:18). It all depends on what you see through the eyes of faith.