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Augustus Saint-Gaudens is one of America ’s most famous sculptors. In
Chicago ’s Lincoln Park ,
his 12-foot tall statue of Abraham Lincoln stands, which is regarded the finest
portrait statue in the United
States . From the mid-1800s until his death
in 1907, Gaudens sculpted some of the most notable figures in the world. But
one of his lesser known works of a lesser known subject stands outside the Trinity Church
in Boston . Standing
before a large cross, with one arm draped across a Bible on a pulpit, with the
figure of Jesus behind him with His hand on his shoulder, the robust figure of
Rev. Phillips Brooks stands with one arm raised high. The inscription reads,
“Phillips Brooks: Preacher of the Word of God; Lover of Mankind; Born in
Boston, AD 1835; Died in Boston, AD 1893; This Monument is Erected By His
Fellow Citizens, AD 1910.” If you pass by that statue sometime, you might find
a small group of people standing there singing, “O Little Town of Bethlehem,”
which Brooks wrote in 1868.
In the Winter of 1865, while Brooks was serving as pastor of
Philadelphia ’s Holy Trinity
Church
After an early dinner, we took our
horses and rode to Bethlehem .
It was only about two hours when we came to the town, situated on an eastern
ridge of a range of hills, surrounded by its terraced gardens. It is a
good-looking town, better built than any other we have seen in Palestine . . . . Before dark, we rode out of
town to the field where they say the shepherds saw the star. It is a fenced
piece of ground with a cave in it (all the Holy Places are caves here), in
which, strangely enough, they put the shepherds. The story is absurd, but
somewhere in those fields we rode through the shepherds must have been. . . .
As we passed, the shepherds were still ‘keeping watch over their flocks or
leading them home to fold.’
A few months later, the pastor wrote back to his church from
Rome , reflecting on that Christmas Eve he spent
in Bethlehem :
I remember especially on Christmas
Eve, when I was standing in the old church at Bethlehem, close to the spot
where Jesus was born, when the whole church was ringing hour after hour with
the splendid hymns of praise to God, how again and again it seemed as if I
could hear voices that I knew well, telling each other of the ‘Wonderful Night’
of the Saviour's birth ….
It was the memory of that Christmas in Bethlehem that prompted him to write the
carol that we all know so well. At Christmastime, we turn our thoughts to Bethlehem and to the
wondrous thing that happened there as God became a man in the person of Jesus
Christ and dwelt among us. But it was not by accident that Bethlehem was the place where this miracle
occurred. God orchestrated the events of history to bring all these things to
pass in the little town of Bethlehem .
It was a place of promise, a place of providence, and a place of provision.
I. Bethlehem
was a little town of promise (Micah 5:2)
Centuries before that night when Christ was born, God had
announced through His prophet Micah that Bethlehem ,
the hometown of King David, would be the birthplace of another ruler. But this king
who was coming would be no ordinary ruler. “From you [Bethlehem ]
One will go forth for Me [the LORD] to be ruler in Israel . His goings forth are from
long ago, From the days of eternity.”
With these words, God promises that the little town of Bethlehem is significant
in His purposes, for from it, He will send forth One who will rule on His
behalf. This One who is to be born in Bethlehem
has origins that predate His own birth. His goings forth are from eternity.
Only God is eternal, and in the person of Jesus Christ, God became one of us. John
says of Him in his gospel, “In the beginning was the word and the word was with
God and the word was God, … and the word became flesh and dwelt among us and we
beheld His glory.” Philippians 2:5-11 puts it this way, He “emptied Himself,
taking the form of a bond-servant, being made in the likeness of men.”
In Matthew 2, when the magi came to inquire of Herod where
to find the newborn King, Herod summoned all the chief priests and scribes and
asked them where the Messiah was to be born. Without hesitation they responded,
“In Bethlehem of Judea,” and they cited this prophetic passage of Micah to support
their claim. The prophecy was well known that the Messiah was to be born in
this little town of Bethlehem .
It was a little town of promise.
II. Bethlehem was a little town of providence (Luke 2:1-5)
God has chosen a virgin named Mary to be the mother of the
Messiah. Mary was betrothed to a carpenter named Joseph. They lived in another
little insignificant town called Nazareth ,
but it was on the opposite end of the land from the place where the Messiah’s
birth had been prophesied. But God providentially directs the affairs of men
and the world in which we live. Paul says in Romans 13 that no governing
authority exists except those which have been established by God. And in the
providence of God, He raised up one Augustus Caesar to rule the Roman Empire . Mind you, Augustus was not a devout
worshiper of God. In fact, not too many years after this, Augustus would be
declared to be a god, and the worship of the Roman Emperor would be established
during his reign as Caesar. But God can use anyone and anything to further His
purposes. Throughout the Scritpures, we find Him speaking through a donkey,
raising up pagan nations to discipline His own people, and using imperfect
people to carry out His perfect purposes. So it should come as no surprise that
He can use a godless emperor to set the events in motion that will bring about
His promised events.
Augustus declared a census of the entire Empire. And one of
the stipulations of this census was that everyone must go back to his own
hometown. Jameson, Fausset, and Brown’s commentary gives this excellent
summation:
But how came Joseph and Mary to
remove thither from Nazareth ,
the place of their residence? Not of their own accord, and certainly not with
the view of fulfilling the prophecy regarding Messiah's birthplace; nay, they
stayed at Nazareth till it was almost too late for Mary to travel with safety;
nor would they have stirred from it at all, had not an order which left them no
choice forced them to the appointed place. A high hand was in all these
movements.
God’s meticulous providence guided Mary and Joseph back to
the place of promise where the prophet had foretold long ago that Messiah would
be born. And so Bethlehem
becomes ground zero for God’s entry into the world. It was a little town of
providence.
Now finally …
III. Bethlehem was a little town of provision (2:6-7)
When the Lord commanded Abraham to sacrifice his only son,
Isaac, Abraham told Isaac that they would go up to make a sacrifice. Isaac
said, “We have fire and wood, but where is the sacrifice?” And Abraham’s
response was this: “God will provide for Himself the lamb” (Gen 22:8). And from
that time on, God was known to His people as YHWH Jireh, the Lord who provides.
And we have come to know Him as such as well. He is the One who meets our need
with His gracious provision.
It was here in this little town of Bethlehem that God provided for our greatest
need, and provided for Himself the Lamb that would be our sacrifice. Had our
greatest need been poverty, God would have sent a financier. Had it been
ignorance, He would have sent a professor. Had our greatest need been boredom,
He would have given us an entertainer. But our greatest need is deliverance
from our sinful condition, which keeps us separated from God. Therefore God
provided us with a Savior. When the angel appeared to Joseph in Matthew 1, he
said, “You shall call His name Jesus.” The name “Jesus” means “YHWH is Salvation.”
The angel said that this must be the child’s name, “for He will save His people
from their sins.”
The name of the town, “Bethlehem ,”
means “House of Bread” in Hebrew. And here the One was born who said, “For the bread of God is that which comes down out of heaven,
and gives life to the world … I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will
not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst”
(John 6:33-35).
And so the first gift ever given at Christmas was the
greatest gift ever given – a gift from God to man. And unlike some of the gifts
we give each other, we don’t look at this gift and wonder, “What in the world
do I need that for?” Rather, we look at this infant, born to live righteously
in our place, born to die as a substitute on our behalf; and then we look at
ourselves, born in sin, living in rebellion, destined for eternal separation
from God because of our enmity with Him. And we take this gift in our arms, and
say, “Thank you God, this is just what I needed! This is what I’ve always wanted.”
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever
believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” Bethlehem was a little town of prophecy,
providence, and provision.
It didn’t make it into our hymnals, but Phillips Brooks
wrote a final stanza to his beloved Christmas carol about the little town of Bethlehem . It went like
this:
Where children pure and happy
Pray to the Blessed Child
Where misery cries out to Thee
Son of the Undefiled
Where Charity stands watching
And Faith holds wide the door
The dark night wakes, the glory breaks
And Christmas comes once more
Pray to the Blessed Child
Where misery cries out to Thee
Son of the Undefiled
Where Charity stands watching
And Faith holds wide the door
The dark night wakes, the glory breaks
And Christmas comes once more
Pure and happy ones, the hymnwriter says to you, “Pray to
this blessed Christmas child.” Miserable and afflicted one, cry out to this Son
of the Most Holy God. And in love and faith, you will find the glory of the
Lord breaking into your dark night, and Christmas will have come once more.
How silently, how
silently, the wondrous gift is given. So God imparts to human hearts the
blessings of His heaven. No ear may hear His coming, but in this world of sin,
where meek souls will receive Him still, the dear Christ enters in.
O holy Child of Bethlehem
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