Cairo: Jesus in Egypt & God's Unusual Leaning
God seldom gives us all we need to understand, but He always gives us what we need in order to obey. The story of Jesus in Egypt as a boy offers a...
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Dec 11, 2016 9:00:30 PM
Christmas cards and carols venerate Bethlehem as an idyllic, quiet place with “silent stars” above it and “deep and dreamless sleep” within its walls. A pleasant picture, for sure. But it wasn’t always so.
(Photo: Today’s little town of Bethlehem, courtesy of the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands)
Scripture’s introduction to Bethlehem isn’t pretty.
Not a great beginning for the little town of Bethlehem.
But then, the scene shifts.
The book of Ruth ushers in the noble characters of Ruth and Boaz. Like lights in the dark days of the judges, this couple honors God with their lives—and makes their home in Bethlehem.
Their great-grandson, David, became Israel’s greatest king (Ruth 4:11, 22). Bethlehem became David’s backyard.
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(All pics courtesy of the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands)
Modern Bethlehem enjoys a tourist boom each December as thousands flock to the city in celebration of Christmas. The pilgrims congregate at the Church of the Nativity—the oldest standing church in Israel.
In the second century, when the Emperor Hadrian imposed his polytheistic—and overtly anti-Judeo-Christian—changes to Israel, he desecrated a particular cave in Bethlehem by including it in a grove dedicated to the pagan god Tammuz.
(Photo: Jerome’s statue at Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity, courtesy of the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands)
As early as the second century, this cave was venerated as the birthplace of Jesus of Nazareth.
Destroyed by Samaritans in 529, the church was immediately rebuilt and enlarged by the Emperor Justinian. This structure remains in its essence today.
(Photo: Bethlehem Church of Nativity interior. Courtesy of the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands)
Bethlehem had a sordid beginning. But it is immortalized forever as the birthplace of Messiah. As with our own lives, God transformed Bethlehem from insignificant to meaningful because Jesus was born there.
The Prophet Micah predicted the city where the Messiah would be born seven centuries before it happened. Micah’s words do little to hide Bethlehem’s ignoble status:
As for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you One will go forth for Me to be ruler in Israel. His goings forth are from long ago, from the days of eternity. —Micah 5:2
Everybody wanted the Second Coming of Christ at the first Advent. They wanted the political deliver—not the spiritual deliverer. The present age is no different.
For those of us trapped in the confines of time, we suffer from time’s limited perspective. We may not admit it, but we see our greatest needs from God as physical. Our prayers betray our priorities:
All fine prayers and all legitimate—just shortsighted.
Jesus came first in humility—born in ignoble Bethlehem and died an ignoble death in Jerusalem—because our greatest need before God is spiritual, not physical. We needed a Savior before we needed a King (see Hebrews 9:28).
Christmas reminds us that our greatest need before God is a heart that loves Him and follows Him.
If Jesus were born one thousand times in Bethlehem and not in me, then I would still be lost. —Corrie ten Boom
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