O’ Little Town of Bethlehem

Christmas carols are blaring all around, but as what we wrote a month ago, many of these do not even proclaim the message of Christmas at all.  Those that do are often referred to as Christmas hymns since these are mostly sang in churches and not in department stores and malls or aired over the radio and TV.  Saved for a few that get mixed with the secular carols that are distinctively silent on the message of Christmas.

One of the most loved, by both adults and children alike, is “O’ Little Town of Bethlehem,” which we know and sang ever since we were small children.  But what and where is Bethlehem, and how important is it?  It is not as much mentioned in the Bible as the other places like Jerusalem, Israel’s capital, or Nazareth, where Jesus lived and grew up.  The world knows Bethlehem is where Jesus was born some 2,000 years ago.

As a town, it’s not even a big one, currently with 25,000 population, like many small towns we have now in the Philippines.  It’s probably just a handful of houses centuries back.  It’s around 10 km. south of Jerusalem, and is often referred to, or interchangeably as “Ephrathah.”  Although mentioned only a few times in the Bible, it is significant because this is where Rachel, Jacob’s second wife, and mother of Joseph and Benjamin, died and was buried.  Bethlehem is also where Naomi, Ruth’s mother-in-law came from.  The book of Ruth is one of the books of the Bible, and her son, Obed, is the father of King David, who wrote many of the Psalms, and whom the Bible calls as “a man after God’s own heart.”  Later, it was also in Bethlehem that David was anointed as king.

But what made Bethlehem important, especially to the Jews, is the prophecy that the Savior will be born in this town.  Hundreds of years before Jesus’ birth, the prophet Micah, said, "But as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, Too little to be among the clans of Judah, From you One will go forth for Me to be ruler in Israel. His goings forth are from long ago, From the days of eternity." (Micah 5:2).  Matthew, Luke, and John quoted this prophecy in their gospels.  The little town of Bethlehem is where the Savior is born.  The King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the infinite, Almighty God, became man and was born a baby in the little town of Bethlehem.

Bethlehem is just a little, quaint town in ancient Israel, but God chose it as the place in the entire universe to become human.  That is the whole essence of Christmas, that the infinite God, the creator of the universe, became man so that he can die for our sins and redeem those who believe in him us from eternal death.  It’s not the parties, gifts, and trimmings, nor the wholesale commercialization that it has become now.  God came on a silent night in the little town of Bethlehem to bring salvation to those who believe.