From Vicar Linneman

The City of David - Bethlehem
September Newsletter
Vicar Tyler Linneman

 Where might you expect the home of a great king to be in the Bible?  The capital of the Israel, Jerusalem?  Maybe Rome, Babylon, Susa, or any number of the great cities of the ancient world?  But our Lord chooses what is weak to shame the strong (1 Corinthians 1:27), and this is the story of the city that he chose to make the home of the kings.

 Bethlehem was a small village just south of Jerusalem within the territory of Judah.  1 Samuel 16 tells the story of how God sent Samuel the prophet to the family of Jesse, who lived in Bethlehem, to anoint the man God himself hand-picked to be his king.  But it was the last person anybody would expect, David being the youngest son of a little-known family living in a tiny village was chosen by God to be the ruler of God’s chosen people.  But this king, David, would foreshadow and prophesy of the greater king who would also make Bethlehem his home.

​It was in this town that God’s anointed one, Jesus Christ, would be born as the King of Kings who would set his people free from their sins.  His earthy father was a carpenter, his mother a poor virgin, and his cradle a trough.  But as God spoke to Samuel when selecting David, “the LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7).  And so it was that in this little town of Bethlehem, the King of Kings was born.  It wasn’t a great city like Rome or Jerusalem where our Lord called home, but “you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days” (Micah 5:2).  Our Lord has a heart for the humble and overlooked, and even if we his church may seem small and overlooked in the world, it is with us that the King of Kings is pleased to call home.