02.01 | O Little Town
Reading: Matthew 2
“Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem…”
Matthew 2:1
Jerusalem and Bethlehem. A city and a village.
The city is on a hill. It is impressive, powerful, majestic. It has rich history, extraordinary architecture, and is the seat of power for all things commercial, political, and religious. It’s the kind of place where you’d expect to find a newborn king.
Bethlehem is different. It’s small, rural, and simple. Its name means ‘House of Bread’ — bread being the most basic, earthy sustenance for humanity. It’s the little village where, a millennia before, a teenage shepherd boy called David was called out from tending sheep to becoming the songwriting, giant-killing king of Israel. It was named after a man called Bethlehem, in the ancestry of David. Bethlehem had a cousin who became an artist: Bezalel, who would build a tent of worship that would host the presence of God Himself.
Two places. So different.
Today's story presents us with two power bases. In biblical language, two kinds of kingdom.
One of these kingdoms looks like King Herod in Jerusalem. He has power and majesty, a crown and robes, and yet this kingdom is riddled with compromise, steeped in corruption, and will do anything to cling to its power. Its nature is exposed in the sickening story of the killing of the young boys of Bethlehem. This story is meant to shock us. It is looking to show us something—that the power bases of the world always end up trying to cling to power, even though it lead it into great evils to do so. It shows us that this kingdom will oppress, exclude, and even kill those vulnerable who threaten its power base. The culture is fear. Competition. Control. It might look like heaven but it stinks of hell.
But then there is this other place. A peasant baby born in a humble village—a village of bakers and shepherds and songwriters and artists. A baby who becomes a refugee in Egypt, and a fugitive in the place of the Nazarenes (a despised and overlooked region). A baby who lacks every earthly symbol of status and power, and yet the stars themselves herald His arrival. He doesn’t draw the religious and the mighty to His birth, but rather shepherds (wait until we get to Luke’s Gospel), and these wise men, or magi. One translation for who they are could be ‘magicians’. They’re a kind of 1st Century group of wealthy, mystic, New Agers. They watch the stars. They don’t have a religious background that the Jewish religious leaders would have in any way commended. They come from the wrong place, and worship the wrong way, looking to the stars rather than the Scriptures for guidance. And yet their hunger for the real draws them here, bringing gifts fit for a king, and come to the village to worship the King of a totally different kind of Kingdom.
A king born in the House of Bread, yet who will reign with endless integrity, draw the most marginalised, exemplify the joys of simplicity, and host the very presence of God Himself.
Reflect:
Two places. Two kingdoms. Two ways of being.
How does the Kingdom of Jesus reshape our values today?
Pray:
Lord Jesus,
Your Kingdom is like nothing I see anywhere else.
And yet when I look in my heart,
I see it is often drawn to the ways of competition, control, and fear.
This distorts me:
I don’t want my heart to come from this place today.
Would you renew my heart,
Re-birth me from humility into humility,
That I may live simply and freely,
Accompanying the hurting,
Embracing the outsider,
And hosting your very presence,
That your unending Kingdom may overspill into the world around me through my life today.
In your Name,
Amen.
Old Testament:
For those of you also reading the Old Testament this year, here are today’s readings:
Genesis 3-5 | Proverbs 1:1-7