Micah 5:2–5a

"Oh Bethlehem Ephrathah, you are too little to be among the clans of Judah:" Too little, too unimportant, too insignificant. Oh Bethlehem, you don't amount to anything. So God chose Bethlehem to come down to. The smallest, the most humble, the least important of towns. There he was born as a man and took on our human form with a human body at the time when she who was in labor has given birth.

There lay God himself. The creator of the universe. The Most High, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords lay sleeping in a humble feed trough for animals in a barn. You would look for a new born king in the capital city—Jerusalem. But he wasn't in the capital city! He was in Bethlehem, "too little to be among the clans of Judah;" too unimportant, too insignificant. You would expect to find a baby king in a palace. But he wasn't in a palace! He was in a barn! You would expect an infant king to lay in a soft, royal bed with linen sheets and down pillows. But he lay in an animal feed trough on a mattress of straw! You would expect an infant king to be attended by the king's courtiers. But he was attended by lowly shepherds in the field! God came in humility. Born into poverty, to a humble family, attended to by poor shepherds, outcasts from society, surrounded by crude, smelly, dirty animals in a barn, because he was too insignificant to be given room in an inn.

This is the second greatest mystery in the universe, that God became a human being and joined himself to his creatures. This is pure love. God coming down to our level and becoming one of us: sharing our pains, our sorrow, our weakness, our poverty, even our sins and death. Here we see the true character of God. What he is like; what is in his heart. He doesn't expect us to go up to him, he comes down to us. He lowers himself to us. He does not consider a high and lofty place a thing to be grasped, but he lowers himself to be at our side. In fact he makes himself even lower. He became a servant, not a master or ruler. He went to the cross and died an ugly, painful, shameful death, stripped naked, the way convicted criminals were executed. And that is the first greatest mystery in the universe—that God died for you and for me.

God came down! Isaiah once cried out, "Oh that God would rend the heavens asunder and come down!" But little did he expect God would come down in such a fashion, to be a servant and bear our burdens. He didn't come with gold and silver vessels in royal garments, accompanied by armies of angels. He came in a poor, humble human body. And He still comes to us today in simple, ordinary, insignificant things like water, and bread, and wine. So, in suffering and pain, in sorrow and affliction there we find God. He says in the Psalms: "The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit." Where is God nearest to us? In our afflictions, our sufferings, our crushed spirit, there is God found. We find God in the ordinary, the poor, the weak, the unimportant, the unglamorous things of life, the crosses we bear, the sufferings we suffer.

God's greatest glory is to suffer and die for mankind. His glory is to save us men from wrath and condemnation. God's glory is that "for us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary and was made man; and was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate. He suffered and was buried." His deepest humility is his greatest glory!

But when God comes down to our level everything is turned upside down. When the high and lofty becomes lowly and despised, everything changes. We are changed. We are forced off our own thrones and pedestals. We are the ones who like the high places of honor, the positions of status and authority. We are the ones who exalt ourselves and compete with one another to see who is the strongest, the most important, the one in charge.

For we are all descendents of Eve. Now who was Eve? Eve was a virgin. She had a man, Adam, but she was still a virgin when she was tempted to become like God and she exalted herself. She became proud and tried to lift herself to a higher level, a greater status. She wanted to be like God. By her pride and disobedience she not only became the cause of her own death, but she caused the death of the whole human race. Because we are her children we too are proud and disobedient and, like Eve, we will die.

We exult ourselves and want to be higher than we are. We want to be someone important. We want to be significant. We want to be noticed and praised by others. We want to be looked up to. We set ourselves on the throne of our lives and want to be the sole ruler and king. We are our own king of kings and lord of lords. We don't want to be like little Bethlehem, or even to be from little Bethlehem. We want the glory and power and status of a mighty metropolis or capital city.

Because of this very basic flaw in our nature we are always trying to fix other people. We are experts in finding fault with others. We think that other people are the cause of all our problems. If they would just get things straight and do the right thing. We somehow seem to know what the right thing is and we are so happy to point it out when others don't live up to our level of goodness. We like to show them their faults and point them out to people. It happens to me too. Seems like I especially get riled up and feel the need to point out people's faults when I am driving. Those other drivers really need their driving skills fixed. Now, I'm not into obscene words or gestures, but I have figured out how to use my horn as a weapon of mass destruction.

And that is our problem ever since Eve: we toot our own horns way too much. A wise man once said, "If we want to fix the world, we must first fix our own country. And if we want to fix our country, we must first fix our families. And if we want to fix our family, we must first fix ourselves." You see, the real problem is not the other people. Not other drivers. Not other members of our family. Not our friends and neighbors. Not even our fellow church members. It's ourselves! The real problem is in our heart. Sure, they may do some things wrong, but that's not our real problem, it's the way we respond when they do something wrong. Our lack of love. Our inability to forgive. Our attitude. Our judgmentalism. Our pride and lifting ourselves up and sitting above others to judge them. We are all children of Eve; wanting to elevate ourselves to a higher level.

So the next time you pray that God would change someone else, stop and start over. Pray that God would change you instead. Your real problem is not other people, it's you. Your problem is not what's outside you, it's what's inside you. It's your heart. It's your attitude.

But how can you change your attitude? How can you change your heart? You can't! not any more than a thorn tree can become an apple tree.

That's why God came down to us; lowering himself to your level. He came down to you in order to bring you up. He had to come to change you himself. To sanctify you by offering his body, his weak and lowly human body as the sacrifice for your sin. He didn't offer the body of an animal as the sacrifice, but he offered his own human body as the sacrifice for your sin. He comes to shepherd his flock that you may dwell secure and be in peace.

He came as the Son of a different virgin, Mary. He came as the son of a humble virgin. She too had a man, Joseph, but she was a virgin. Of humble birth, poor estate, lowly, humble. She did not exult herself or seek to be greater. She is the antithesis of Eve. If on account of Eve's pride and disobedience death spread to all men, on account of Mary's humility and obedience life was given to all mankind. Instead of magnifying herself, Mary sings: "My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my savior." Instead of seeking a higher level or status to lord over others, she sings, "He has looked on the humble estate of his servant." What Mary sings is what God has done for her and for the whole human race. For the Lord has come down into our lowly lives of suffering and sorrow to do great things for us. His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud, he has brought down the mighty from their thrones and he has exalted those of humble estate. He has filled the hungry with good things and the rich he has sent away empty. He has helped his servant Israel."

By his humility, being born in the little town of Bethlehem, by stooping low to become our servant, by humbling himself to death on a cross for us, he has dealt with our sin, our pride, the loftiness we inherited from Eve. He has taken away our sin. He has reconciled you to God. He took on a human body so he could offer it as the sacrifice for your sin. Not the body of bulls and lambs, but his own human body in order to redeem humans. To sanctify you through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

By the humility of God, coming down to little Bethlehem, becoming one of us and taking on our humanity, with a body like ours, and living in lowly estate, by using the humble and lowly elements of water, and bread and wine, he has sanctified us by his own body. That is why we prepare to celebrate Christmas this year; it is the celebration that God came down into our world and into our level of existence and became one of us in order to sanctify us with his blood shed on a cross and to lift us up on the last day and raise us with a new, glorified body and take us to be with him for eternity. Amen.