Why Go to Bethlehem? (Luke 2:1-20)

This sermon was preached on 23/12/2012

According to reports in the press, over 100,000 people have travelled to Bethlehem this month in order to participate in the celebrations taking place there in connection with Christmas. For some, it will be their first visit whereas others have made the journey many times. Some may be there out of curiosity, others may be there to celebrate, and others may be there to contemplate the fact that the Saviour was born there almost two thousand years ago.

Of course, travellers have been journeying to Bethlehem for a long time and we read of some of them in Luke 2.  I want us to think of some of the reasons why they made the journey. We begin with Joseph and Mary and their journey is detailed in verses 1-6.

Joseph and Mary

A few months previous to making this journey, the angel Gabriel was sent separately to Mary and Joseph informing each of them that she would be the mother of the Messiah. Both of them knew that the Old Testament predicted that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem and would therefore have been wondering how and when they should move there.

In order to ensure that Joseph and Mary would be in Bethlehem, the Lord arranged for the most powerful man in the world, the Roman Emperor Caesar Augustus, to enact a law that would cause Joseph and Mary to be in Bethlehem at the right moment. Of course, the emperor was unaware of the role he was playing in ensuring they travelled to Bethlehem. But his contribution is important because he is an example of how the Lord can use even the most important and most powerful person, and can do so without that person realizing it. After all, Caesar Augustus went to many places, but he never went to Bethlehem.

So Joseph and Mary fulfilled their desire that the Scriptures should be fulfilled. It looks as if the door to travel there only opened almost at the last moment. After all, it is unlikely that they would have wanted to travel when the birth was imminent. And is this not often the way that the Lord opens doors. He can make us wait and we may wonder why he does not do something sooner.

Further, when the Lord does open the door all the details may not be to our liking. When Joseph and Mary reached Bethlehem they could find nowhere to stay, and no-one was prepared to help them. We can imagine them saying to one another, ‘God has arranged for us to be the parents of the Messiah, he has opened the door for us to get to Bethlehem in fulfillment of the prophecies of his Word, we have travelled all the way here from Nazareth, and now that we are here there is no-one who cares about us.’ Does the Lord not do something similar in our lives? When he opens a door, it can lead to other problems that we have to go through.

According to some scholars, Mary gave birth to her first-born son in the open air. Their opinion is based on the likelihood that the manger, in which the food for the animals was placed, was outside. Whether she gave birth outside or not, her journey to Bethlehem led her to the place where the Lord kept his personal promise to her, because there she as a virgin gave birth. Bethlehem reminds us that God is the Lord of the impossible.

So the journey of Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem lets us see that our God is in control, that he can use the decisions of pagan politicians to bring about his will for his people, that he can leave things until the last minute before he opens doors, that he can continue to test our commitment even after he has opened the door, and yet he keeps his promises to us.

The angels come to Bethlehem

Joseph and Mary no doubt thought they had waited a long time and travelled a long way before coming to Bethlehem. Yet in comparison the time the angels had waited and the distance they had travelled was far greater. Why did they come to Bethlehem? They came to Bethlehem to sing praises to God.

The Bible tells us about other times and places where the angels sing. In the Book of Job, there is a lengthy section in which the Lord addresses his suffering servant and instructs him about his limited understanding of things. The method the Lord uses is to ask Job a series of questions and one of them concerns the angels and their singing. He asks Job, ‘Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth... when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?’ (Job 38:4-7). It must have been a wonderful sound that echoed through the universe as the heavenly host praised their Creator and his incredible abilities. Perhaps they imagined that they could sing about nothing greater.

We can move on several thousand years to this night near Bethlehem. The angels are still singing about their Creator. But where is he? Well, he has become a baby without ceasing to be God. It is the same choir, in a sense, but now they have a greater song. The Creator whom they admired so much and delighted in so much has given them further insight into his abilities. Bethlehem showed them things about their God that they had not even seen in heaven. How long they had known about the way he would travel cannot be discovered by us? They may have been waiting since the day that Adam fell. Certainly Gabriel knew that somehow the Son of God would be born in the womb of Mary, and he had also been sent to tell Joseph about what was happening. Whatever the length of time, they came to Bethlehem to sing about the coming of the Saviour. And the One they came to sing about would give them plenty other reasons to sing, as the Book of Revelation makes clear.

What were they singing about in Bethlehem? They praised God for sending peace. Now those angels would not have been ignorant of all the troubles that were taking place throughout the world. It is generally accepted that Jesus was born in the year 4BC. While we don’t know what time of year it was, we do know that a rebellion against the Roman authorities occurred in 4BC in the area of Israel, which was crushed with severe force and thousands of Jews were put to death. Whether Jesus was born before, during or after those rebellions, what is the case is that there was no peace. Yet here is the heavenly army singing about a peace that was very different from the kind of peace that the Roman armies imposed on the people.

In a sense, not much has changed. The world is still looking for peace and the only peace it has is imposed and maintained by force. One of the ironic things about the news is to watch the UN peacemaking troops doing their job often unsuccessfully. There are other causes of dispeace as well, including personal ones. Can we have peace, the peace that the angels sang about, in the midst of the storms of life that we are facing? The answer is yes, because the Saviour has come, and almost as soon as he arrived, he brought peace to another group who travelled to Bethlehem, the shepherds.

The shepherds come to Bethlehem

A shepherd was not a welcome sight in the towns and villages of Israel. They were often rough characters, and not always trustworthy. Apparently their testimony was not accepted in a court of law. People did not usually have anything good to say about them or to them. Yet while the angel may not have anything good to say about them, he had something good to say to them.

I suppose the shepherds were used to the authorities checking up on them. Whether they were or not, it is certain that they never had a visitor like the one who appeared to them that night. The angel’s presence was so bright that the darkness disappeared. Luke tells us that the glory of the Lord was shining around this angel and it enveloped all of them. He had a message for the shepherds and we can summarise it by saying, ‘Go to Bethlehem and see the Saviour.’

Of course, the angel, great though he was in comparison to the shepherds, was only a messenger. Yet he was a messenger of God, so his message was very important. He sensed that the shepherds were afraid, so he reassures them. Then he tells them that he has something to tell them that will bring them great joy. What will bring them joy is the fact that a Saviour has been born for them. He tells them how to identify the Saviour – he will be wearing poor garments and lying in the trough from which the animals fed.

What did the shepherds do? They went to Bethlehem. And they went there quickly because, after all, they wanted to have what the Lord had promised. Imagine if they had hummed and hawed and dithered. Imagine if they started to worry about the sheep. There was something more important than their sheep and that was their souls. What would it have profited the shepherds if they had kept their sheep and lost their souls?

They went to Bethlehem and found the Saviour easily because they followed the instructions that were given to them. There may have been other babies in Bethlehem that night, but the One that mattered was lying in a manger. Similarly, if we follow the Bible’s instructions, we will find the Saviour easily. The gospel tells us to trust in Jesus, to commit ourselves to him, to ask him for mercy. Sometimes we try and adjust or add to the requirements. The message of the shepherds to us is that the Saviour is not hard to find.

They went to Bethlehem and spoke about Jesus to those who were there. Their experience added something to the experience of Mary, even although she had been given the great privilege of giving birth to the Saviour. People saw the change in these shepherds and wondered about it. Responding to the message about Jesus creates a difference. That is what the shepherds discovered when they came to Bethlehem.

Jesus

So far we have considered the parents, the angels and the shepherds who came to Bethlehem that night. There is a fourth to consider and he is Jesus. Of course, he was newly born and his human nature would have been unaware of what was happening. Yet we can see features of why he had to come.

He came to a place where people were enslaved. That was the reason why so many were in Bethlehem. They were there because an emperor faraway could dictate how they would live. People like them, and there were millions, longed for true freedom, even if they did not have a clue what it was. Without them realising it, the One who could give them liberty had come.

He came to a place where human sin had made people selfish and indifferent to the needs of others. No-one would give up their space for a pregnant woman to give birth. Sin was the disease that made them such undignified and rotten characters. Yet the One had come who was going to deal with sin, pay its penalty, and provide forgiveness for sinners like them.

He came to a place where people could see that the worst of sinners were welcome to his presence. The shepherds could come, the locals who heard their testimony could come. Only a few hours old, he is the Saviour who had come to seek and to save the lost. And what he began in Bethlehem, he has been doing wherever he has been. He has come to us. But have we come to him?