Hope in Our Smallness
A Thrill of Hope • Sermon • Submitted
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Star Wars underwater scene… “There’s always a bigger fish.”
Many times we mean that physically, but:
You don’t have to be small to feel small.
You don’t have to be small to feel small.
There are things in life that can make even the “biggest” of us feel small.
At times it can be what we see... (ocean, canyon, star-filled sky)
At times it can be what we hear… (others say things to us, we say things to them)
Maybe this pandemic has made you feel small...
A little town in Israel, called Bethlehem, certainly knew what it was to feel small. Micah, an Old Testament prophet, wrote:
Bethlehem Ephrathah,
you are small among the clans of Judah;
one will come from you
to be ruler over Israel for me.
His origin is from antiquity,
from ancient times.
Therefore, Israel will be abandoned until the time
when she who is in labor has given birth;
then the rest of the ruler’s brothers will return
to the people of Israel.
He will stand and shepherd them
in the strength of the Lord,
in the majestic name of the Lord his God.
They will live securely,
for then his greatness will extend
to the ends of the earth.
Towns in that day were measured by the number of men that could be mustered for battle. Bethlehem was, in this sense, one of the “smallest” clans in the nation.
Cities in Israel were also measured against the “ultimate standard”, the “City of God”: Jerusalem. Bethlehem was, in this sense also, small.
Smallness, to the biblical audience and to us, gives the idea of powerlessness… weakness… insignificance… and the Bible links it with the word “sin.”
The Bible uses sin to describe our conduct apart from God, and carries the sense of “missing the mark.” This explains what Paul was getting at when he wrote the famous line Romans:
For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God;
The unfortunate truth is that we all fall short; our lives are inflicted with smallness, and the Bible does not beat around that bush.
But:
The Bible challenges our assumption that small things are insignificant.
The Bible challenges our assumption that small things are insignificant.
The Scriptures will not let us forget something very important about little old Bethlehem. The prophet Samuel was called there to anoint one of the greatest kings Israel would ever have:
When they arrived, Samuel saw Eliab and said, “Certainly the Lord’s anointed one is here before him.”
But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look at his appearance or his stature because I have rejected him. Humans do not see what the Lord sees, for humans see what is visible, but the Lord sees the heart.”
and after moving on down the line of perfectly logical choices, one little boy remained:
Samuel asked him, “Are these all the sons you have?”
“There is still the youngest,” he answered, “but right now he’s tending the sheep.” Samuel told Jesse, “Send for him. We won’t sit down to eat until he gets here.” So Jesse sent for him. He had beautiful eyes and a healthy, handsome appearance.
Then the Lord said, “Anoint him, for he is the one.”
David is held up in the Bible as a great king and a “man after God’s own heart,” a magnificent example of God’s greatness in and through someone of small and humble beginnings.
Micah, speaking the word of the Lord, makes a promise: another would come, from David’s hometown and royal lineage, to rescue Israel (and the world!) and take the throne...
The little town of Bethlehem would bring forth God’s great Ruler!
The little town of Bethlehem would bring forth God’s great Ruler!
And Matthew, who wrote the first book of the New Testament, believed he knew exactly who it was:
After Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of King Herod, wise men from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star at its rising and have come to worship him.”
When King Herod heard this, he was deeply disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. So he assembled all the chief priests and scribes of the people and asked them where the Messiah would be born.
“In Bethlehem of Judea,” they told him, “because this is what was written by the prophet:
And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah:
Because out of you will come a ruler
who will shepherd my people Israel.”
The thrill hope we find in Bethlehem is this:
God is with us in the small places and moments, showing his greatness through them.
God is with us in the small places and moments, showing his greatness through them.
God has, in Jesus, chosen to make himself at home in the “smallness” of the world. He has chosen the small, weak, overlooked places and people in the world to bear his kingdom and demonstrate his glory!
When we come face to face with this truth, we have a choice: to respond like Herod, or to respond like the wise men.
Don’t despair in your smallness, whatever that might be… and don’t assume the smallness of others.