Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
The text that serves as the foundation for our sermon for today are these words that Matthew of the chief priests and scribes telling Herod and the kings where the baby Jesus would be found saying, “And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel” (Matthew 2:6).
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, Jesus,
If I were to say that I were quoting someone, but then I made a significant change in the quotation, that would not be a good thing. Journalists have gotten fired for doing such a thing. But if you're quoting yourself and you make a change to what you say, well then that's okay because you're quoting yourself. Here in Matthew it is recorded, “And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah” (Matthew 2:6) But then, if we flip back a few pages and several hundred years to the prophet Micah, we hear this recorded, “But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days” (Micah 5:2). Did God forget what He had said? Did God forget His words when He told Matthew what to write down? By no means! So what changed? What changed to make Bethlehem go from “too little”, to being said, “are by no means least among the rulers of Judah”. You know! The baby Jesus was born there. The infant Jesus came to that place. And guess what? The same thing that is true of Bethlehem and the land of Judah is true about each and every one of us. Tonight in our readings we learn that to those of us to whom God has come and made his dwelling place, we are called great in God's kingdom.
Let us pray: Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, Your Son came into the flesh and the Gentiles came and worshiped him. May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer that we may always have the sure and certain hope that since You have come to us and have given us salvation, we are great in Your sight. It is through your son's name we pray, Amen.
There is much that the world likes to say about us Christians. There's much that it likes to say to try to get us and beat us down. There's much that it will try to throw at us to diminish us. “Oh, you're just old fashioned. You just follow some preconceived myths. Don't you know all of that is just a load of malarkey? It's all been disproved anyway.” But not only the world, but even sometimes ourselves. Since we live in a fallen world and we live in bodies diseased by sin, even though we have been made new through the waters of holy baptism, we are still plagued by sin and the effects of sin. We're plagued by sin that causes us to thinks “Oh, you, you're nothing. You're unimportant. You're insignificant. If you were to just disappear today, well then, no one would notice. If you were to just fall off the face of the planet, there's not anyone who would miss you.” Certainly that's what was thought about Bethlehem. It was a little insignificant town. Yeah, sure, once it had been the hometown of David, who many hundred years ago had been a great king, but otherwise, there's nothing to write home about. It was a small backwater town that not many people gave much thought to. On our own we feel insignificant. We feel worthless. We feel beaten down. Mary might have felt that way. I mean, she knew she was the mother of the Lord, the mother of God. She knew, Joseph knew who was in her, the baby that they were carrying, the baby that they were caring for. Elizabeth knew, Zechariah knew, John knew. But to the rest of the world? She was just a woman who had gotten pregnant out of wedlock. Yet God came to her. God dwelt in her for nine months. Therefore, she is called the most blessed of women.
Christ came into this world, and He came to this backwater town of Bethlehem, and therefore it is no longer called “least among the tribes of Judah, too small to even be counted”, but is indeed said it is “by no means least”. For there the Christ was born. There the Christ was born. There the Christ came forth. There the Christ took His first breaths. The Holy Son of God. Breathing in our air. There he grew. Not far from Bethlehem, He would be arrested, falsely tried, stricken, beaten, condemned, nailed to the cross, suffer, die. There on the cross, He would be charged as being nothing, as being a sinner just like those who were hanging next to Him, the two thieves. There He would be mocked and ridiculed as if He were just a common thief, and yet He was not just a common criminal. He was the perfect, blameless Son of God, the very Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. And yet as He hung there, He also hung there not only as the spotless lamb of God, but as the scapegoat, upon whom the sins of the entire world were laid. Upon whom your sins, my sins, the sins of all creation were rested upon. As there He was completely cut off from His Father. As there He suffered and died, completely cut off from God so that you and I would never have to be. On the third day we know the rest of the story. On the third day we know He rose from the dead. Forty days later ascended into heaven and then the apostles were sent out empowered by the Holy Spirit. They had seen the risen Lord and yet there were many who called them fools, who called them drunk. There were many who called them liars, made fun of them, mocked them, tried to stone them, tried to kill them. Some were stoned, killed for the faith. And yet they knew what they had. They knew that they had the truth. They had Christ in them, with them. That made them not liars, not cheats, not deceivers, but proclaimers of the true message.
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus, the same is true for each and every one of you. Scripture says, “Do you not know that all of you who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death nor that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:3-4). You have been baptized into Christ. God now comes and He dwells in you and you dwell in Him. And guess what that means! It means the same thing that it meant for Bethlehem. You are no longer least. You are no longer unworthy. You are no longer worthless. Instead, you are now a temple of God. You are now His holy and beloved child. You are precious in Hs sight. No matter what the devil, the world, or our sinful nature would try to tell you about yourself. No matter how much they would try to discredit you, no matter how much they would try to break you down, to try to get you to feel like you're worthless, don't listen to that temptation. Listen to the truth. If God can change Bethlehem from being leased in the tribes of Judah to being the greatest because His Son was present there, God can change you, has changed you, from being a worthless sinner to being His holy temple, precious and beloved in his sight, because He dwells in you today and every day. So continue to hope, continue to trust in that. No matter what may come, continue to know with full certainty that you are great, not because of anything that you have done, but because Christ dwells in you. Amen.
May the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
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