Walking Toward Bethlehem

We began the Advent season fresh, with energy and anticipation of what was to come. We made plans for all the ways we would make the Christmas season meaningful and Christ-filled. "It will be the best Christmas ever!" we said. Our goals seemed realistic at first, but soon the list became lengthy and elaborate and time passed too quickly. We didn't get started on the "to-do" part soon enough, and maybe we forgot what was most important: to put our trust in God. Maybe we rushed out the door without our shopping list, or we forgot to check the calendar until...here we are on December 11 with a broken sandal, 35 miles to go, no hotel reservations and the eminent Deliverer's arrival imminent.

The Advent season is a bit like the walk Joseph made from his hometown of Nazareth to Bethlehem, the town of his family line and of Mary's - the line of David. Joseph and Mary must have been very realistic about their travels. They had 70 miles to walk from their hometown of Nazareth to Bethlehem of Judea to report for the census as ordered by Caesar Augustus. It was a long, slow walk and Mary was, it turns out, very pregnant. She shouldn't walk so far in her condition so Joseph presumably put her on a donkey to ride the distance. I wonder if they packed for the baby King, just in case? From what we are told in Matthew and Luke, Joseph and Mary put their trust in God - there were no motel reservations made in advance and no doctor on standby for delivery.

"But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times," (Micah 5:2 NIV).

Micah prophesied that the little town of Bethlehem would be the birthplace of the ruler over Israel. The long-desired Messiah would be born as a baby from the ancient line of David, just as God had planned hundreds of years before. And Micah predicted it again, still hundreds of years before His holy birth.

As Bethlehem becomes visible, down our road to Christmas, we must remember that the story only begins in Bethlehem. Jesus' life took Him back to Nazareth, on to Cana, Tyre, all around the Sea of Galilee, over the road to Emmaus, and ends in Jerusalem at Calvary. We must walk all those steps with Jesus so we can see with our own eyes how and why Jesus came to dwell on earth as a baby who grew into the One, the Only, perfect and sinless Man sent by God to give us salvation from our sins, through His death on the cross and His resurrection.

"He will stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God. And they will live securely, for then his greatness will reach to the ends of the earth. And he will be their peace," (Micah 5:4-5 NIV).

SDG: Glory to God Alone