Let’s Go To Bethlehem!

“Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.” Those words spoken by the shepherds on the first Christmas Eve are familiar to us. An angel of the Lord had brought them “good news that will cause great joy for all the people.” And the angel told them how to find the source of this good news and the reason for this good news. In Bethlehem they would find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.

Although Luke’s account of the shepherds going to see baby Jesus is filled with familiar details, the thread that ties the whole thing together is what the shepherds were told about the child. We hear that connection three times in these verses. First, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.” Then they spread “the word concerning what had been told them about this child.” And finally, Luke tells us that as they returned to their flocks they were “glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.” It would seem to me that if we are going to be blessed by this familiar account of the first Christmas we should focus on what the shepherds had been told about Jesus. We can’t literally go to Bethlehem and find Jesus using the identifying signs that the angel spoke about. They would find him “wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” So, let’s focus on the identity of that baby and the facts about what he came to do for us. We’ll let that be our source of great joy today. Yes, brothers and sisters in the faith, let’s join the shepherds as they go to Bethlehem. We take a journey of faith to find our Savior, our Messiah, and our Lord.

“LET’S GO TO BETHLEHEM”

I. To find our Savior

II. To find our Messiah

III. To find our Lord

So why shepherds? Have you ever asked that question about the first Christmas Eve? Why did God choose to send angels to that particular social-economic group? I suppose God the Father could have just made the cows and sheep and even the manger itself cry out in praise and adoration at the birth of the Christ-child. But we get the feeling that God prefers the adoration of humans. He loves us, His children, and our greatest good is recognizing and celebrating the value and worth of God—giving him honor, praise, and glory! Inviting the shepherds to worship Jesus was an act of love toward them. From what we know about God through his revelation in the Bible should the fact that he chose these shepherds, the smelly, the ignored, the not-quite-outcasts of Israel to receive this message? Throughout the Bible we find other examples where God reveals himself to the humble and the lowly. Why do think this is so often the case? Generally speaking, it is the humble and poor (at least poor in spirit, if not economically poor) who will see their need for a Savior. I suppose that is a good question for us to consider this morning. Are we humble and poor in spirit? When we look at the mess that is our lives and that is our world we can’t help but be humble and poor in spirit. Like the shepherds we come as beggars to Bethlehem—to find our Savior, our Messiah, and our Lord.

I.

Let’s go back to the message that the angel of the Lord had for the shepherds. “Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you.” In the language that the shepherds spoke it would have sounded closer to “Joshua.” From the Hebrew name ?????????? (Yehoshu'a)

Meaning “Yahweh is salvation.” Although it would be 8 days after the first Christmas Eve, Joseph and Mary gave God’s Son the name Jesus, because as the angel had told Joseph in a dream, he would save his people from their sins.

But truth be told there were likely other babies born at the same time as Jesus who were given the same name. Historians tell us that would not have been unusual. But when it comes to the Babe of Bethlehem that name takes on a very different meaning. So, what does that name mean for us? What exactly does a Savior do? Perhaps we say, “Well that’s easy. A savior saves, right?” But it’s important to be specific about how Jesus is our Savior and how he saves us. Listen to two powerful passages of the Bible for a clear answer about what . 2 Timothy 1:9–10 says, “He has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, 10 but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.” Before God created the world it was his plan to save us. Tonight he invites us to go to Bethlehem to find him in a manger. As our Savior, Jesus, was born to live and die in our place so that we can live forever with him. We heard that same Good News in our Second Reading for this Sunday. Listen again to Titus 3:4–6 which says, “But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, 5 he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, 6 whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior.” When we go to Bethlehem in faith we find, not just a Savior, but our Savior. Through our Baptism we have been clothed in his holy life and his sacrificial death. And that means we are also reborn and renewed. Brothers and sisters, as the familiar Christmas hymn declares, “Oh, Come Let us Adore Him!”