I Am Bethlehem

1 “Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, 2 saying, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”… 5 They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet: 6 “‘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 2:1-2, 5-6

The wisemen went first to Jerusalem to find Jesus. After all, Jerusalem was the capitol. It was the “big city” in Israel. If anything was going down in Israel back then, it was probably going down in Jerusalem. Upon arrival, though, the wisemen found out that Jesus, in fact, was in Bethlehem - a small, rural outskirt.

It was in that little town called Bethlehem, with no room in the inn, Joseph and Mary had taken cover in a stable. Surrounded by animals, Mary had given birth to the Son of God and placed Him in a manger.

Clearly, Jesus’ arrival into the world had been anything but glamorous.

But glamour wasn’t His goal…He just wanted a place to start. There wasn’t anything necessarily special about Bethlehem…it was just a place. Christ just needed a place to arrive into the world.
____________________________________________________________________________

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­As Pastor Mike Glenn talked about tonight at Kairos, so often, we look for significant change and work in our lives to occur at a “special place”…literally and/or figuratively. In the literal sense, we may have encountered God in a unique way, maybe, at a retreat or a camp. When we return to the real world and find ourselves defaulting to our old habits, we think, “If I could just go back to __________… maybe then I could recreate the experience I had and, again, have that passion and desire for Christ.”

Figuratively speaking, we tend to tell ourselves, “If I could just fix this issue I have, and stop doing this all the time, and maybe start doing this…then…then I can come back to Christ. Then I will be in a place where I can actually get serious about my relationship with Him.”

The truth is, though, it has nothing to do with where we are, literally or figuratively. It has everything to do with God. It has to do with us opening ourselves up -heart and mind- accepting Him, and allowing God to do a work in us.

He just needs a place to start. He doesn’t care where we are or what our lives look like. He just wants to come.

We are Bethlehem. We are the stable out back, filled with animals. We are the manger. We are nothing special. But God isn’t concerned; He just needs a place to start.