With Jesus in the city of Bethlehem
These next few months we will be learning the basic principles that will enable us to successfully live in our city by examining those principles in the city ministries of Jesus. Each city He visited, He deeply touched and left an example of how we today might better live in our city. We start with the city of His birth, Bethlehem.
The first mention of Bethlehem is not in the Bible, but in letters discovered one hundred years ago in Tell Amarna. This incredible supply of documents, letters, and the like dating from the 14th century B.C., includes a complaint that the city of Bethlehem (Bit lahmi) has gone over to the people of the piru (Hebrew).
Bethlehem is mentioned about 17 times in scripture. The first reference concerns Jacob who returned to Bethlehem from Mesopotamia. On the way through Canaan his wife Rachel died, and she was buried near the town in a place revered to this day. (Genesis 35:19; 48:7). You can visit her tomb, which is still there, as tens of thousands of visitors do each year.
That is why later, when Herod had the baby boys of Bethlehem murdered, people said Rachel (the buried mother of the tribe) was “weeping for her children” (Matt 2:16 18).
This city was also the home of Naomi and Elimelech (Ruth 1:19), and later their daughter in law Ruth and her second husband Boaz. It was their son who became the grandfather of King David. The Book of Ruth ends with the indication that King David was the great grandson of Ruth and Boaz (4:17).
King David gave the city of Bethlehem its fame. He was born there, chosen and anointed there by Samuel, and from there he went to the camp of King Saul while they were being challenged by Goliath (1 Sam 16:4; 17:15). David fled from the murderous threats of Saul who became jealous of him, and as a young man hid in the caves of the Judean Hills about Bethlehem (1 Sam 20:6,28, 23:16).
It was an insignificant city, and in the days of Judah’s decline, the prophet Micah prophesied (5:2), that a King and leader of the people would be born in Bethlehem to redeem the people. That was the prophecy that the court rabbi’s remembered when wise men came to Herod saying they had seen a star which was signalling the birth of a new King. When they asked where the new King would be born the Rabbi’s explained it would be in Bethlehem.
They were not to know that Joseph and his fiancée, Mary, were already in Bethlehem because Joseph was a descendent of King David. He had had to return to the city of his forefathers because at the centre of the Empire Caesar Augustus had decreed an empire wide census. This census took a number of years to complete, but eventually it was responsible for Mary and Joseph having to visit Bethlehem from his home city of Nazareth. And so Jesus was born in Bethlehem.
One hundred and fifty years afterwards, Justin Martyr, an early historian of the church who came from Palestine, wrote that there was no room for them to stay in Bethlehem, so Mary and Joseph had stayed in a cave in the shepherds’ field near to the city. That was most appropriate, as in these fields the shepherds cared for lambs without spot or blemish, that were destined to be sacrifices in the Temple, 3 miles away in Jerusalem. Jesus was born, as the Lamb of God who would take away the sin of the world.
Later, Origen of Alexandria was to spend the last twenty three years of his life at near by Caesarea. In 231 A.D. he wrote that, “At Bethlehem, there is shown a cave where Jesus was born, and the manger in which He lay wrapped in swaddling bands. Indeed this sight is much mentioned in the places around, even among the enemies of the faith: “In this place”, they say, “Jesus was born, He who is worshipped and reverenced by Christians.”
St Jerome, who translated the Bible into Latin here, lived in a grotto beneath the Church of the Holy Nativity and wrote about all the pilgrims who used to come to Bethlehem “singing hymns of praise in every imaginable language.”(F.F.Bruce)
The New Testament records the birth of Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel (2:1, 5, 6 8, 16) and Luke’s Gospel (2:4,15). John has an interesting insight: some believers in Jerusalem said they believed that Jesus was the Messiah, but others disputed this because it was well known that Jesus came from Galilee, when “the scriptures say that the Messiah will be a descendant of King David and will be born in Bethlehem, the town where David lived.” (John 7:42)
Christians revered the small city of Bethlehem. Because Jesus was born in the city of Bethlehem it became one of the first Christian shrines. In the second century the Roman Emperor Hadrian tried to defame the cave by building a Temple to Adonis over it. By doing this, however, the unbelieving Emperor marked forever the site of the birth of Jesus.
The first Christian Emperor, Constantine, in 339 A.D. built the first Church of the Nativity over the grotto or cave where Jesus was born. The Emperor Justinian built a second church, 66 metres by 30 metres, over the same site 200 years later. Now 48 massive brown Bethlehem stone Corinthian pillars still hold up the roof.
Underneath the altar is the cave, measuring 4 metres wide and twelve metres long. The rock walls are covered by ancient tapestries, and the roof is blackened with lamp smoke from the 32 lamps. There is a silver star on the floor with these words in Latin, “Here Jesus Christ was born to the Virgin Mary”. The removal of this star in 1853 led to a quarrel between France and Russia, which joined with other causes to commence the Crimean War.
You can only enter the church through a very low door in a front wall, built small so no infidel could ride in on horseback to attack the believers, and no man could enter without bowing his head. Excavations in this church in 1934 revealed the mosaic floor and foundations built by Constantine 1600 years before.
There is no archaeological evidence from the first century in the caves under the church, however, nor would any be expected in caves in the middle of shepherds’ fields.
Bethlehem today is inhabited by about 25,000 people , many of whom are Christian Arabs, but their number is dwindling rapidly as they leave due to fighting between Jews and Palestinians; they as Christians are caught in the middle. It is not regarded as a Jewish city.
During my visit to the Mayor of Bethlehem (1972-1997) Elias Mitri Freij spoke with pride of its Arab University, dynamic tourist industry, international broadcast each Christmas Eve, and with bitterness of the discrimination the Israeli Government shows in the allocation of funds to cities in Israel, with the Arab cities receiving too little money for water reticulation, sewerage and proper municipal management. A huge Muslim mosque is being built alongside the Church, and the anti-Christian activities by Hamas are driving them rapidly away.
What is the insight we gain from the life of Jesus from His time in this small city as a small infant? Is there something of significance that helps us in our living in our city? The significance of the life of Jesus in Bethlehem to our mission to the city today lies in His incarnation. That is the key foundational principle for any effective city living and ministry.
In Bethlehem, “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:18). When God wanted to redeem us, He did not throw a bolt of lightning from heaven as men pictured Zeus doing to frighten hell out of them. He did not put a woofer on Mars and a tweeter on Venus and seduce us like a celestial siren. He did not order, demand, and, from a pinnacle of power, exact obedience. Instead, “He gave up all he had, and took the nature of a servant and appeared in human likeness. He was humble and walked the path of obedience all the way to death His death upon the cross.” (Phil 2:7).
Any successful living in the city must start with Christian people taking flesh amid the city streets, and being the Word of God within the city, walking humbly among people. Not talking at them from positions of authority, or paternalistically from political pedestals. But being alongside them as servants.
That is why people in need along the streets of Sydney spurn the statements of politicians and bureaucrats, but accept the words of the Christians who show practical care for the needy. For they are God taking flesh and dwelling among them, full of grace and truth.
That is The Bethlehem Principle: the principle of incarnation, of humbly being among people. We must be Christ’s hands and feet, His words and deeds, His presence among them. We preach a message and perform a deed alongside people: word become flesh. Successful living requires the incarnation of the believer in the community.
As in the Biblical message, incarnation becomes the means of salvation. This Bethlehem Principle means: Christian people must belong to the city we must live alongside the people. We cannot be like the boss’s sons, and live in wealthy houses outside the area and commute to the factory. Successful living in the city must have people who are willing to live within the city.
Successful people are identified with their local area wherever it is. I have known Christians to leave their comfortable homes in a leafy Bible belt area to shift into the inner city so they can serve the people there. The Church needs people to become incarnate within the inner city.
That is why fifty years ago my new bride and I moved into the slums of Melbourne, so we could live successfully there among the people of the inner city.
This Bethlehem Principle means: the successful Christian lives alongside people, especially the poor Christ was not born in a palace, but “with the poor and mean and lowly, came to earth the Saviour holy.”
The Holy Family possessed nothing except what they wore and carried. The poor ever since in every city have related to Jesus Christ, for He too was like them.
The poverty of Bethlehem gives Jesus the right to be heard. Successful Christian living in the city demands that we come beside people, especially the poor.
I know a successful Christian when I see a believer providing food, meals, and clothing for the poor. The pregnant teenage girl with nowhere to live and no family around her, holding all her possessions in a plastic bag, is closer to Mary’s position in Bethlehem than any of us.
This Bethlehem Principle means: the church must be supporting the suffering. Jesus was threatened by the mad Herod, whose persecution brought wailing and sorrow among the citizens.
I know a successful Christian when I see a believer supporting the suffering by being there with them. So when you enter the hospitals and sick rooms to support people, to share in their pain and illness and to pray for them, you are demonstrating successful Christian living.
This Bethlehem Principle means: the Christian becomes Christ to the city. No one else is there to be Christ to the homeless, the poor, the suffering, if not us. We are His hands of helpfulness, His voice of caring, His eyes of compassion, His words of healing and hope. We must become Christ who treads our city’s streets.
We need people who understand this Bethlehem Principle to commit themselves in seeking to save and serve our city.
When I stop and talk to a bag lady searching for aluminium cans in the garbage bins, talk to some businessmen in my Rotary Club, visit the sick in the hospital ward, ring round trying to find a room for the night for some homeless stranger, speak to a hungry man having a meal from a soup kitchen behind my office in the Domain I realise the tremendous privilege of being Christ to the people of our city.
Christ is with us and through us serves the people of this city. You do not need to go to Israel as a tourist to visit Bethlehem, for as you serve on these city streets, you can walk alongside your Saviour.
Rev the Hon. Dr Gordon Moyes AC MLC