Bethlehem, Or Bedlam?

Are you struggling right now? Are these challenging times for you? If so, take heart; Jesus came to the earth during challenging times. You remember the story. Joseph took Mary to Bethlehem because the tax collector called. Jesus arrived at a taxing time in the history of the earth. Jesus was Christmas amid confusion, Bethlehem amid bedlam.

The times then remind me of the times now. A crowded inn, that’s overpopulation. A stable, that’s low-income housing. A time of political intrigue...remember last year’s elections? Soldiers marching in the streets of Bethlehem. This sounds like today’s news…hello? A government census, busy people, pushing and shoving. Sounds like 5:00 PM traffic to me. People were confused about where to go. How about the theological polarization among the Pharisees and Sadducees? Sounds like today, huh? Yet even during wars and rumors of wars, financial turmoil, and rampant individualism, Christmas came and still comes.

In Jesus’ time, extraordinary circumstances called for an extraordinary person. There needed to be someone who could serve as a bright hope for tomorrow. There needed to be 'Marys' who are pregnant with hope for the future. Heaven’s response to those times was, “Be not afraid, I bring you good news of a great joy which will come to all the people.” Luke 2:10 Heaven’s response was glad tidings and the bright hope of salvation for tomorrow. In their darkest hour, God’s greatest power was revealed! Light came to the shepherds - ordinary people - people searching for honest answers. Please note that the customers who were looking for him found him. Lesson: We rarely see what we are not looking for. God has a way of doing that. 

E. B. White says, “To perceive Christmas through its wrappings becomes more difficult every year.” The shepherds saw Bethlehem, not bedlam. They saw Christmas, not confusion. In taxing times like these, Christmas shines through, clearing the fog and haze of confusion. Times now are not so different from then. And, maybe just maybe, somewhere right now in the world, some baby has just been born that will grow into a fine leader, leading for the right reasons, who can help straighten things out a bit. But no one is thinking about babies, are they?  

There’s a lesson here. Please read the following quote written by Frank W. Boreham in his book, Mountains in the Mist, published in 1914.  

“A century ago, men were following with bated breath the march of Napoleon and waiting feverishly for news of the war. And all the while, in their own homes, babies were being born. But who could think about babies? Everybody was thinking about battles. In one year, a host of heroes was born. Gladstone was born in Liverpool, England, and Tennyson at Somersby. Oliver Wendal Holmes was born in Massachusetts. The very same day of that same year, Charles Darwin made his debut at Shrewsbury. Abraham Lincoln drew his first breath in Old Kentucky. Music was enriched by Felix Mendelssohn's birth in Hamburg. 

"But nobody thought about babies. Everybody was thinking about battles. Yet, which of the battles of 1809 mattered more than the babies that were born in 1809? We think that God can only manage His work through the big battalions of life, when all the while God is doing it through the beautiful babies being born into all the world.

"When a wrong wants righting, or a truth wants preaching, or a continent wants opening, God sends a baby into the world to do it. And where do you find God in Christmas? In a manger. A baby was born at the heart of the Roman Empire, and when the Roman Empire would crumble and fall, that baby, who would become a man, would also become the Savior of Rome as well as the whole world.” 

Think of it, mothers and fathers: your baby might be sent into the world to be a solution. Parents, you might think you’re insignificant, but with God, all things are possible. And, grandparents, your grandchild might be just what their generation needs to uplift something or someone in need. Remember from last week’s article, God starts small to go big.   

Author and counselor, Craig Lounsbrough writes, 

“The beauty of Christmas is that God didn't forget. Not now. Not ever. Despite man's incessant proclivity to forget God, God never forgot. Despite man's demands for a faith that excluded God, God never forgot. Christmas is God remembering. Christmas is God's refusal to forget. Christmas is God's declaration that He will never forget. 

"Christmas was God deliberately placing Himself in Bethlehem as a baby, squarely in the middle of humanity, when that very same humanity sought to remove Him, squarely from the middle of everything, by any means possible. Christmas is God's greatest gift ever given to humankind. Christmas is God's steadfast refusal to forget, and His forever commitment to forgive.” 

To those in the busy town, it was bedlam, not Bethlehem. To the shepherds, it was Bethlehem, not bedlam. God didn’t forget the promises that He made to us yesterday, today, and forever. It was joy to the world, not joy from the world.     

This Christmas, let’s not miss Christmas at Christmas and the reason for the season. Have a Mary Christmas and a Merry Christmas.