Carols of Christmas - O Little Town of Bethlehem

A cursory reading of scripture reinforces one clear point:  God thinks and acts in ways very different than we mortals.  God always seems to act contrary to the ways that are obvious and intuitive to us.  The Christmas story illustrates this principle.   Phillips Brooks’ carol, “O Little Town of Bethlehem” explores the unusual ways of God. 

If you were God, sending the Savior to earth, how might you do it?  A press release to all the media outlets.  A promotional campaign, a press conference, advertising to let everyone know exactly what is going on?  God chose another path.  He did not send Jesus into the political center of the empire, Rome.  He did not choose Alexandria, an academic hotspot, or the cultural hub of Athens.  He sent his son to Bethlehem, a sleepy little town in a sleepy little country in a sleepy part of the world.  Israel was hardly the focus of world attention in those days.  God just doesn’t understand the importance of marketing.  He shined his “everlasting light” in the “dark streets” of downtown nowhere. 

“For Christ is born of Mary.”  His son was not born to a princess, but to a peasant.  It is sad that so many have tried to deify Mary.  The whole point of the Christmas story is that God chose an insignificant, normal peasant girl to be the mother of the Son of God.  There was no merit, so special qualities, no outstanding talents in Mary that merited God’s work.  He works by grace, choosing the insignificant to do his extraordinary work.  Mary was not immaculate, or miraculous; she was normal.   Just another Galilean peasant girl.  Her only significant quality was obedience, a willingness to do whatever God asked of her. 

There was no fanfare in Bethlehem at the birth of Jesus.  “How silently, how silently the wondrous gift is given.”  The only people who heard of the birth were socially unacceptable shepherds on the hillside.   God did not send his angels to mayors, governors, philosophers or any other cultural illuminati.  The angels appeared to shepherds, the unwashed and undesired. 

It was no accident.  God works in humanity to redeem people and to glorify himself.  He uses the insignificant, the ordinary, and does extraordinary things through them so that there can be no mistake:  God did it and he alone deserves the glory for it. 

What do you think might have happened in Bethlehem that night if people had known Messiah was born?  Life would have come to a screeching halt and everyone would have appeared at the manger to pay respects.  The wealthy and influential would have fallen over themselves to make the most luxurious accommodations available to the Christ child.  But there was no such fuss.  “While mortals sleep,” Christ is born.  “In the dark streets shineth the everlasting light,” but the Bethlehemites never saw it. 

God is still at work today, though many are oblivious to it.  He descends to “cast out our sin and enter in,” to “Be born in us today.”  Immanuel still works in this world by God’s sovereign grace to enter hearts, change lives and settle our eternal destiny. 

Many, even some who claim to believe, glide blissfully through life unaware of the powerful work of God.  May we not be like them. 

May we be like Mary, like the shepherds; ordinary folks willing to obey God and be tools in his redemptive work; ordinary folks through whom God does extraordinary things.