Bethlehem

“But you, Bethlehem-Ephrathah, least among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel; whose origin is from of old, from ancient times.” Micah 5:1

For much of human history, some form of primogeniture – preferred inheritance for the firstborn son over his brothers and sisters – has been assumed. This elder son would receive the land, inherit the title, and bear the family name. When Isaac goes to bless his sons, Esau is assumed to be the inheritor. In the Exodus, we see that when Pharaoh's heart was at its hardest, the only plague which caused him to relent was the death of these heirs of Egypt. Deuteronomic law even entitles the firstborn son to two shares worth of his father’s possessions.

The story of Bethlehem, and the whole of salvation history, is a continual rejection of this primacy. The Lord’s favor is granted to Abel, not to Cain; His love is for Jacob, not for Esau; His liberation comes through Moses, not through Aaron. We see this in His steadfast love for the Israelites, while they were enslaved in Egypt or captives in Babylon or occupied by Rome. We see it in many of the mothers throughout the Old Testament, inverting the usual order of things; to the elderly Sarah is born Israel, by the prayers of the barren Hanna does she conceive the prophet Samuel, and to the poor virgin Mary is born the King of Kings. When Jesus proclaims that the last will be first and the first will be last, He only reiterates what God has shown time and time again throughout revelation. As Mary herself sings, “God has thrown down the rulers from their throne, but lifted up the lowly. The hungry he has filled with good things; the rich he has sent away empty.” The lowly – Israel, Sarah, Hanna, Mary, and little Bethlehem herself – are the means by which God enacts his plans.

This is not the first time God has chosen to raise Bethlehem to prominence. When Rachel dies giving birth to Benjamin, the last of Israel’s 12 sons, she is in Bethlehem, and is buried there. The consequences of Genesis 3 are played out between Bethlehem’s hills, both the pain of the world from the suffering of sin, and the hopeful proclamation that through this strife Eve’s seed would come to crush the head of the serpent. When Ruth and Naomi sought a new home, it was to Bethlehem that they turned, collecting the last of the scraps of food they could scourge from the fields. The kindness of Naomi and Boaz welcomed Ruth, a widow and a foreigner, poor and hungry, into the fold of Israel and the lineage of her kings, David and Jesus. When Samuel sought the new king who would succeed the haughty Saul, it was Bethlehem where he called upon a small shepherd, not the first or even second born, but the eighth son of his father. This boy David was marked as God’s anointed and placed at the head of the house that would reign into eternity. Birth and death; poverty and charity; kingship and humility – these are the stories of Bethlehem.

But Bethlehem’s ultimate exaltation comes on that first Christmas night, as Christ begins His ultimate act of inversion. The Firstborn of creation, born of the Father before all ages, Who Is and Was and Is To Come, enters fully into the world authored by His Word and takes His first breath of the air which He created. He does so in little Bethlehem, in flesh and blood, in straw and dirt, in cold and darkness, and in so doing, invites us onto a path to become like Him. In His birth, Christ rends apart primogeniture, pouring His eternal inheritance out onto all the world so that we may be made co-heirs to this glory, and true Children of God. Thus the love of the Lord, the inheritance of Abraham, and Isaac, and Israel, is revealed to all the nations, so they might be made His pure bride. History moves towards its ultimate, glorious culmination in the unassuming humility of this city, through the simple miracle of this childbirth, and by the unanswerable mystery of this incarnation.

Bethlehem was – and remains to this day – a tiny town, with no more than 30,000 people today and likely fewer than 3,000 when Christ was born. But it was here that the family of Israel reached its fullness. It was among these hills where the prophet anointed David as God’s chosen king. It was in this city that the foreigner Ruth was taken into Israel’s embrace and entered into the line of the Messiah. And it was here, the least among the clans of Judah, in a dark stable on that first Christmas night, where one came forth from God who is and was and ever shall be ruler in Israel.