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Tuesday, December 10, 2013

The Most Important Person in the World

This is the message given in the Wheatland Parish Sunday, December 8, 2013.  The Bible verses used are Micah 4:1-5:3 and Matthew 2:1-8.

            One thing that most people know about the birth of Jesus is that it took place in Bethlehem.  Even most people who don’t believe in Jesus know that.  You ask people on the street where Jesus was born, and most of them would be able to come up with “Bethlehem”.  We sing about it, like we just did with “O Little Town of Bethlehem”.  Jesus’ birth is Bethlehem’s big claim to fame.
            The thing is that it was not just an accident or a coincidence that Jesus was born in Bethlehem.  As we just heard, this was something that was predicted in the Old Testament.  The prophet Micah had said that the King would be born in Bethlehem.
            The book of Micah was written, to the best of our knowledge, around 700 B.C.  That would be about a hundred years after the prophecy of Isaiah that we talked about last week, but still a long time before Jesus was born.  
            It was written at a time when the nations of Israel and Judah were in big trouble.  Israel and Judah was still technically independent countries, but they was basically under the control of Assyria.  It was sort of like how countries like Yugoslavia or Czechoslovakia were in the days of the Soviet Union.  They were considered independent countries, but they were only independent to the extent that they were allowed to be.  Israel and Judah could do nothing that Assyria did not allow them to do, and they had to pay Assyria to keep them from just invading and taking over.
Micah says this happened because the people of Israel and Judah had abandoned God.  But, he says, it will not always be this way.  God has a plan.  Eventually, things are going to be the way they were always supposed to be.
It’s not going to happen right away.  In fact, Micah says that for a while, things are going to get even worse.  But eventually, God is going to bring the nations of Israel and Judah back together, and they’re going to be strong again.  And God, speaking through Micah, says the one through whom this is going to happen, the ruler over Israel, is going to come from Bethlehem.  And, as we heard in our reading from Matthew, Bethlehem is where Jesus was, in fact, born.
Why Bethlehem?  Well, we don’t really know, of course.  God, speaking through Micah, says the King is to be born in Bethlehem, but God does not say why.  I’ll bet the people Micah was speaking to wondered about it, though.  Why Bethlehem?
People knew where Bethlehem was, of course.  They’d heard of it.  It was not too far from Jerusalem.  It was the hometown of King David, so people knew it for that reason.  The Savior was supposed to be a descendant of David, and we’ll talk about that later in this sermon series, but that did not mean he had to born in Bethlehem.  There was nothing special about the town.  David had never made a big deal about being born in Bethlehem.  When we read the book of Micah, we’re not told of anyone questioning Micah about it, but the question had to have occurred to them.  Why Bethlehem?  Why there?
The one thing Micah said about it, the one clue we’re given, is that Bethlehem is the home of the Ephrathites.  We’re then told that the Ephrathites are small among the clans of Judah.
Why is that important?  Well, again, we don’t know.  But we do know that one of the reasons Micah told people this was so when the Savior came, they’d know about it.  They’d be able to pick him out.  There had already been false Messiahs and false prophets, and Micah knew that was going to continue.  It was important that people be able to pick out the true Messiah when he came.  
One of the ways people would know whether someone was actually a true Messiah was if they knew whether he’d been born in Bethlehem.  And since Bethlehem was small, that’d cut down the number of people who could claim to be the Messiah.  If the Messiah had been born in a big city like Jerusalem, there might’ve been all sorts of false Messiahs who could make that claim.  But not that many people were born in Bethlehem, and the people there would know if someone had been born there or not.  It was a much more effective sign for God to have the Savior born in a little town like Bethlehem.
I think there’s more to it than that, though.  I think the fact that the Savior was born in Bethlehem fits in with the way God looks at this world.  As we’ve talked before, God does not look at the world the way we do.  God does not necessarily honor the same things we honor.  God does not see as important the same things we see as important.  God simply has different and better priorities than we do.
Who are some births that have been celebrated in recent years?  When one of Britain’s royal family has a son or daughter, that’s a big deal, right?  When Kim Kardashian and Kanye West had a baby recently, that was a huge deal.  Not to some of us, necessarily, but in the news it was.  Google it and you’ll see all kinds of stories.
On the other hand, when a baby is born to people who live in Gettysburg, or Onida, or Agar, it’s not a big deal.  I mean, it is to their family, and to their friends, but the world does not really notice.  Those of you who’ve had children, I’m guessing they did not put you on the national news when you did.  USA Today probably did not send a reporter out to talk to you and a photographer to take pictures.  The world looked at it as just another baby, just one more kid out of all the thousands and millions of kids who are born all the time.
That’s how the world looked at it when Jesus was born, too.  I mean, yeah, there were the shepherds and the wise men, but shepherds were considered pretty low-class people at the time.  Nobody paid a whole lot of attention to them.  And despite the way we show it in our nativity scenes, the wise men did not actually show up on the night of Jesus’ birth.  It was sometime later, maybe up to two years later, when they met Jesus with their gifts.  On the night of Jesus’ birth, very few people even noticed, and to most of those who did, it was just one more Jewish kid born in the world.
But of course, Jesus was not just one more Jewish kid born.  But because he was born in Bethlehem, in a stable, of all places, almost nobody knew about it at the time.  Mary and Joseph knew, of course.  The shepherds knew, and the wise men.  And eventually, everybody else would come to find out, too.  Jesus was not just one more Jewish kid born.  He was someone special.  He was someone important.  In fact, he was someone unique.  He was the Messiah.  But hardly anybody saw it at the time.
God saw it, though.  And God saw it when your children were born, too.  And God also saw it when you were born.  God never, ever sees a baby as “just another kid being born”.  God sees each one of us as special, and important, and unique.  God sees us that way when we’re born, and God continues to see us that way throughout our lives.
God could’ve had Jesus be born in a big city, in a palace, to parents who were rich and famous.  God could’ve had Jesus be born with lots of publicity and a big show.  But instead, God had Jesus born in the little town of Bethlehem, in a stable, with no fanfare except a few shepherds, to parents who were just common people, people like you and me.  And, as far as we know, Jesus grew up as just a common person, too.
God does not see things the way humans tend to see them.  God does not judge a person’s importance based on their fame.  God does not judge a person’s importance based on their money.  God does not judge a person’s importance based on their power.  To God, each one of us is important.  And we always will be, no matter what we do, no matter where we go.  Each of us will be important, and special, and unique.
Micah told the people that God had a plan to bring the nation together.  That plan involved a baby being born in Bethlehem.  The most important person in the history of the world was to be born in a small town to common, ordinary people. 
And the most important person in the history of the world is still being born to common, ordinary people.  Because to God, each one of us is the most important person in the history of the world.

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