Today's Sermon - God's Mercy - 4th Sunday of Advent 12/23/18

God’s Mercy

(based on Micah 5:2-5)

Turn in your hymnal to page 44/250.

At the top/bottom of the page you see the name Philip Brooks. Brooks was an Episcopal Priest in Philadelphia in the 1800’s.  He made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 1865.  It was Christmas Eve and he was headed to the Church of the Nativity located in Bethlehem for a worship service.  While heading there he stopped to watch dusk envelope the town. He was inspired by the view of Bethlehem from the hills of Palestine especially at night.

Interestingly, Brooks kept these memories to himself for three years. Later he was motivated to share his memories with a church gathering and what he did was write a four-stanza poem and he gave it to the church organist, Lewis Redner, who gave the poem its musical background.  The song was born and heard for the first time on December 27, 1868.

Let’s look at our Old Testament reading this morning from Micah.

Micah lived about 750 years before the time of Christ, about the same time as the prophet Isaiah, who wrote many of the scripture passages that we often read as prophecy regarding the coming Messiah.  But Micah also contributed to this.  Micah lived in a time in which the people of God had pretty much turned away from Him, and were serving false gods, living in all kinds of sin.  The Northern Kingdom had been captured by Assyria who took the ten tribes of Israel into captivity.  The Hebrew people were beginning to ask God questions like; “Has God rejected his people?  Is God finished with them or is there a future for them with God?” because the prophets were preaching judgment upon them.

But amidst all of the darkness, there was some good news: a Messiah was about to be born to come and save them; someone who would make everything right with God again.

In Micah’s word of good news in the prophesy a specific city is given for the birthplace of that Messiah - Bethlehem.  “But as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you One will go forth to be ruler in Israel.”

The name “Bethlehem” means “house of bread”.  And “Ephrathah” means “fruit fields”.  Ephrathah was formerly the name of Bethlehem.  Israel had been divided up into various wards or precincts for clearer organization known as clans.  But Bethlehem was so small, it didn’t register as significant enough to be considered its own precinct or clan.

Despite the fact that Bethlehem Ephrathah was not big enough or prestigious enough to be considered it’s own area, God decided to consider it worthy and graced this town with the privilege of first, being the birthplace for King David – as it is often referred to as the “City of David” but now God was also saying that someone even more important than David was going to be born there – the Messiah, Emmanuel, God with Us.

Devout Jews knew this promise of where the Messiah would be born, even the advisors to King Herod knew that the Messiah would come from Bethlehem, as they told the Wise Men this when they came seeking to pay him homage and inquired about his birth. 

But this prophecy had come 750 years ago, who paid attention to that anymore?  No one was expecting that prophecy to be fulfilled now.  The people of Israel had already waited so long.  They had seen worse times.  Now they were simply occupied by Roman rule, much like the rest of the world at the time, but they had not been banished from their land like in previous times when conquerors had come.  A great resurgence in building and architecture had recently allowed them to rebuild the temple and was even now expanding to be even greater.  The religious leaders were very religious and the people were…..well, let’s just say that they simply went about their day; not terribly religious, but not necessarily hostile toward religion either.  They paid their sacrifices to the temple priests when necessary with as little as they could get away with, but was a Savior absolutely necessary, now?  They weren’t in slavery like during the time of Pharaoh and Moses.  They weren’t exiled in Babylon like the time of King Neberkenezer and Daniel.  Or the second time they were captured by Babylon and exiled, the destruction of the first temple in Jerusalem during Jeremiah’s time.

All things considered, it was a rough time period under Roman rule, but it wasn’t horrible.  They’d been through worse times before, they’d waited for a Messiah before and one hadn’t come.  The hopes and dreams of a Messiah had been stored for so long.  The anticipation was overwhelming, perhaps so much so that they couldn’t think about it too much anymore.  Countless generations had come and gone and no Messiah had come.

But hasn’t God told us time and time again, that he will come when we least expect it.  Hasn’t God, in our own lives, shown up “out of the blue”, not usually in our time frame, but often when we look back, at exactly when we needed him?

Let’s look at the song O Little Town of Bethlehem, itself.

1. The first two lines are part of the setting for the song.  Remember Philip Brooks was out on the Judean hillside looking down on the village from afternoon until dark.  The last line of the first stanza is particularly striking to me, “the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight”.  

Since the author of this poem is on the other side of Christ’s birth, we may have trouble understanding the emotion people of that day must have felt as they looked forward to the coming of the Messiah.  The hopes of this special night had finally come to be.  To help you try to conjure up the emotions of this anticipation, for those of you with children, you have nine months to anticipate the birth of your child.  You dream about what will she/he look like… what color hair … eyes … what will he/she do for a life’s vocation … all kinds of hopes and feelings of anticipation.  Try to imagine the emotion of that promise fulfilled?  Sometimes it is so strong, you can’t even put it into words or think about it too long, afraid that something will come along and dash the dream or take it away, or not allow it to happen, at all – “the hopes” of all the years.

But the line in the song also says “the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight”.  Fears?  What kind of fears?

Fears - that the very promise of a Savior would never come to fulfillment.  Fears that all those sacrifices and the religion that they weren’t particularly attentive too, were after all, a waste of time or hadn’t been enough.

But in the birth of Jesus all the hopes were fulfilled and all the fears were laid to rest.

2. “For Christ is born of Mary” makes it crystal clear this is a song about the birth of Jesus.   In Jesus we have the birth of Christ.  He is the Messiah – the Savior, the Emmanuel among us.

3. “How silently the wondrous gift is given.”  I think that’s what I love most about the celebration of Christmas.  Even now, there’s all this anticipation, all this excitement.  And yet, on Christmas day, even with children up at the crack of dawn, racing to open gifts under the tree, there is a silence and quiet in the celebration.  It has never mattered how chaotic the season or the day has been, there has always been, for me, a long pause of rest and of stillness as the message of God’s gift to the world sinks in on that morning.

He came without parades, without the news media shining bright lights into the stall, the King did not visit, and other dignitaries in town did not make room for him in their homes.  He came quietly, silently, in the hush of a cows lowing, and the cooing of the doves in the rafters.  God’s gift was simply given, silently and quietly.  In fact, if it were not for the angels inviting the shepherds, no one would have attended the birth.

Both the song O Little Town and the prophet Micah say that this gift is God’s message of peace to the world.  That is God’s mercy to us, that God gives us peace.  A peace that ought to fill our souls with such joy, with such wonder that we live our lives differently, that we share that message with others. 

God gave us a gift and that gift will be our peace.