Hinsdale Covenant Church
12.01.24 - "Bethlehem: Beginnings in Brokenness" - Lars Stromberg
Well, good morning and welcome to Hinsdale Covenant Church. I would like to officially welcome you to the Advent season here at Hinsdale Covenant Church. Some of you maybe woke up this morning and walked into church and realized, "Oh, it's Advent." It's a little weird this year. Thanksgiving was super late and so Advent is upon us. So for the next four Sundays as we walk up to Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, we will do what we always do in Advent. We'll wait. We wait. We wait for the birth of Jesus, not in some sort of passive inert sort of way, but rather in an active and expectant way. That's what we do in Advent. That's what you're supposed to be doing in these weeks ahead, preparing our hearts for Jesus' birth for God's coming into this world in new and fresh ways in our lives, in our world here and now. So as we always do, we decorated for the season, as I'm sure many of you have already done in your own homes or are making plans to do this week. You can see we have a beautiful table set before us. If you walked in, you saw the tree that was set up. We've got the lights here. In our sort of year, as we're going through Advent, is we wanted our decorations to be very homey, very homey decorations. As you see, the table set here as I walked in this morning and I saw the tree and I was able to light the candles this morning. It reminded me of some of my own family gatherings and the homes that I grew up in, the homes that I spent time in during the Advent and Christmas seasons. Maybe on the way in, you noticed, on the tree, there were some straw ornaments. That's my heritage, my Nordic heritage, right? I grew up with those straw ornaments, beautiful sort of clean. That's my heritage. It makes me think of some of the evocative things in my own home, the smell of my grandma's rye bread, of gathering around the piano with instruments and playing together of late night conversations. It reminds me of my family gatherings. I'm sure you have those too, maybe something here reminds you of your own sort of family traditions and gatherings that maybe are different than mine, but they remind you of yours and they're meaningful to you. No one's ever going to write books about my family heritage and those things that are really important to me, but that doesn't mean they're not important to me and they're not important to you. So this Advent, we want you to consider the idea of home, of home, how vitally important our concept of home is to our own individual stories. I love reading biographies. I'm pretty much always reading a biography of somebody and I have to tell you, there's not a single biography out there that's worth anything that doesn't tell you about somebody's home, what their home life was like. It's where their story really begins. Our homes set the stages for our own stories as well. And it's the same thing with Jesus. So in this Advent season in 2024, we're going to talk about the story of Jesus' birth as we always do, but we're going to tell it from the vantage point of his home of Bethlehem, the place where he was born, the place that became the home for the Christ child. We're going to sing about that, as you can see, the name of this is a little town of Bethlehem, so we'll be singing that hymn, which, if we're not careful, can become a hymn that makes it seem like the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, the place was sort of this quaint, serene, pastoral event. But that's a stunted view of Jesus and his home, the place of his birth. So we're going to dive deeply into the town of Bethlehem, we're going to do a biblical survey of the town of Bethlehem and learn everything that we can't, Genesis, all the way through the Bible, through the birth of Jesus, and even to today. Let me walk you through our schedule so you can sort of see where we're headed for the next few weeks. Today we're going to be studying the first mention of Bethlehem in Scripture, which happens in the Book of Genesis. Next Sunday we're going to have a special recounting of the Book of Ruth, which is set in Bethlehem, and really transforms that place from a place of suffering to a place of blessing. In a couple of weeks we'll talk about Samuel and his trip down to Bethlehem to find and anoint the next king of Israel when he finds the shepherd boy David. Advent 4 we're going to look at Micah's important prophecy concerning the town of Bethlehem which sets the stage for Jesus' eventual birth. And then at 10 p.m. on December 24th we will all the birth story of Jesus from the gospel of Luke, and particularly Mary and Joseph, their journey to Bethlehem. As always, the more times that you can join us, the more times that you can commit to being here, the more full the gospel picture is going to be for you. So just as Advent is a time for family and a time for home, so too we're going to learn how Bethlehem becomes a prophetic home for the Nativity family. We're drawn to this series because we thought it would be an interesting and unique way to tell the story of the birth of Jesus, but also it goes with our theme for the year. Our theme for the year is renewal, and we're seeking renewal in our own lives and in our church, the refreshing that comes from a genuine encounter with the very presence of God. And what this series is going to do is it's also going to highlight a vital renewal principle for us, which is this. Renewal begins in small, unassuming, humble, quiet places. Much more on that as we go through these weeks, but for now let's begin our biblical study of Bethlehem at the very beginning and see what we can learn from this origin story. So would you please stand as you're able for the reading of Scripture this morning. It's from Genesis 35 verses 16 through 21. Then they, that's Jacob in his family, journeyed from Bethel. And when they were still some distance from Ephrath, Rachel was in childbirth, and she had a hard labor. When she was in her hard labor, the midwife said to her, "Do not be afraid for now you have another son." As her soul was departing for she was dying, she named him Ben Oni, but his father called him Benjamin, and Rachel died, and she was buried on the way to Ephrath, that is, Bethlehem. And Jacob set up a pillar at her grave. It is the pillar of Rachel's tomb, which is there to this day. Israel journeyed on and pitched his tent beyond the tower of Eder. The word of the Lord, thanks be to God, you can be seated. I did a Google search, image search of just Bible Bethlehem to see what would show up, and these were some of the top images, these kinds of images, pristine, sort of like airbrushed or clip art, sort of nativity scenes, perhaps similar to some of the nativity that we may put up in our homes in the next months or put on our Christmas cards, but our biblical introduction to Bethlehem is really different than an image like this, isn't it? It's really different than what the Google image search can offer us. When we sing a little town of Bethlehem, which we will do today, Genesis 35 is not typically part of that story, it's not what we're thinking of, it's not what we're thinking of. Some of you will remember that we went through the story of Jacob for 13 weeks this last summer. I omitted this part of Jacob's story during that series because I knew where we were headed in Advent, so I wanted to save that text for today, for this day here today, and it's a more important story than you might realize. Rachel, just to jog your memory, is Jacob's beloved wife, the one he loved and cherished, the one he worked 14 years really hard for his uncle to marry, she's the wife through whom the blessing of Jacob will be passed now and through generations. And here she is in this text struggling in bearing children, that's kind of her story. After years of infertility and loss, she finally does bear a son for Jacob, Joseph is his name, but she deeply desires to bring more children into the world. She is so desperate after watching her sister Leah bear multiple sons for Jacob that she pleads with Jacob in Genesis chapter 30, "Give me children or I shall die." This proves to be poetic in multiple ways. She does bear him another son, but it does indeed cost her her life. The text tells us that Jacob and Rachel traveled south from Bethel and as they approached the place called Ephrath, otherwise known as Bethlehem, she entered into labor, critically hard labor. Now she was dying, she named her son Ben Oni, which Jacob changes immediately to Ben Yummy or what we would say Benjamin. The text tells us that Rachel was buried on the side of the road outside of Bethlehem, where Jacob set up a pillar of remembrance for her. And this, friends, is how we are introduced to the town of Bethlehem in Scripture. Was this what you were expecting on Advent 1 as you came to church today? What are we supposed to glean from this text? Well first, a couple helpful things for us to know about this text and about these people. First, you need to know that Rachel is an unsung matriarch. We don't talk about Rachel all that much in our tradition. She rarely makes an appearance in our children's Bible stories or other printed material. I've never ever led a multi-week Bible study on Rachel before, but that doesn't mean that she's not a really important figure. She's considered to be one of the chief matriarchs of the Judeo-Christian faith tradition. And that has sort of been lost in our Christian tradition. She's sort of been lost in that. She's been sort of relegated to the background of our biblical experience. But that is not the case for our Jewish brothers and sisters. For them, Rachel is a wildly important and highly venerated matriarch. For Jews, Rachel is someone that they identify with as a people. Their ethnic and religious identity centers around suffering and loss of exile, not quite making it to your homeland, of homelessness, of longing for the Messiah. And here Rachel dies on the side of the road on the way to the Promised Land, a trail of tears of unmet expectations for loss, for a life of wandering. So for Jews, Rachel comes to personify the cry for the spiritual and physical return of all the people of Israel. Rachel refused to be comforted until the suffering of her children and all children come to an end. So while the story of her death might seem obscure to us, it was rich and layered and continues to be for the Jewish people. Second thing you should know is her tomb is still there. You could go visit it if you would like to. The tomb of Rachel or the Khabad Rahel is a place that you can visit today. It's just on the north end of the town of Bethlehem. It's in the shadow of a large wall which divides the West Bank from Israel, right next to a major military checkpoint. It's tucked into a residential neighborhood now, but for a long time it was, as Scripture described it, a tomb on the side of the road. There's been a structure on this site since at least the 18th century that we know of for sure, the marker that Jacob himself set up as a monument to his wife is long gone. But it seems that there is good reason to believe that this is indeed the place where Rachel was buried. We know this because it's a pilgrimage site of some significance. It's considered actually the third holiest pilgrimage site in the Holy Lands. And there are records dating back to the 11th century of Jewish pilgrims visiting this site just north of Bethlehem. It's expected that in this year, 2024, there will be 140,000 visitors that go to this very small tomb. Why is it so popular? Why has it become such a popular pilgrimage site for so many people? Well, because it's become a place to weep. The majority of pilgrims that come to the tomb are women who come to mourn the loss of a child or to pray for the safety of their current pregnancy. A Jewish tradition said that from her roadside tomb, Rachel wept for all who passed by on that road for the suffering and the loss that they experienced and for their return from exile. It is said that when the Israelites were carried into Babylon in exile in 586 BC that they passed by Rachel's tomb and heard the sound of her still weeping. For pilgrims, this tomb is a deeply spiritual place, a place that speaks to the suffering of all people. Third thing that you should know is that the name change that happens in this text is pretty instructive for us. It tells us a lot. Rachel names her son Ben Oni as she is departing this life. Ben Oni is translated as son of my sorrow or son of my pain. Kind of an inauspicious name for a child, isn't it? But Jacob renames his son quickly to Benjamin, which means son of my right hand or favored son. Maybe this is some avoidance on Jacob's part. He just doesn't want to deal with the reality of pain and suffering. He's grieving his wife who is passing away. Maybe it was good foresight on his part, but either way the name change is significant. The suffering and pain and loss are present regardless, but Jacob chooses to not bring that name forward to not dwell on that sadness, instead he renames his son and he charts a different path for his life than son of my pain or son of my sorrow. And that would actually prove true because Benjamin becomes Jacob's right hand his strength, especially in his old age. So there it is. The first mention of Bethlehem in scripture. And knowing what we now know, what are we to glean from this passage as we begin our advent journey? Just a few thoughts for you. First every good story starts with conflict. Every good story starts with conflict. Think about your favorite movie or book, favorite children's story, perhaps. They all begin with some sort of conflict, some sort of tension, some sort of, some sort of pain, the loss of something, a struggle, a problem to be solved, a threat of some sort. If there wasn't any conflict, the story probably would not be very compelling because there's nothing to resolve. So as we tell the story of Jesus and his birth during Advent, we need to resist the urge to just gloss over the conflict and the loss in his story, in his people, and in that place. The conflict and loss that is baked into the very town that he is born into. What's not photoshop or airbrush, the nativity, making it only serene and pastoral? I think the birth story is gritty and it's full of conflict and pain, it's multi-layered, as is the place of Jesus' birth and all that it represents. So when we embrace conflict and pain in our own story, when we own it, it reminds us of something that is vitally important, that we can't get through Advent, not at least naming, and that is, we have something to be saved from. We are in need of a Savior who can tend to all that is broken and weeping and lost. Which brings me to a second thought. We're not just longing for Christmas day as we go through Advent or baby Jesus being born, he's already been born, we're longing for redemption. That's what we're waiting for. We got to be clear on what we're waiting for in the Advent season. We're not merely waiting for some commemoration of Jesus' birth or for our celebrations of Christmas in our homes as wonderful as those things are. We're waiting for Jesus to come back and make all things right. Jesus coming 2,000 years ago inaugurated the Kingdom of God, but I think we can all agree that the inauguration of the Kingdom of God did not eliminate all grief and pain and tears and crying and sorrow from the world. We were introduced in Jesus coming into this world to the one who wipes away tears, redeems spaces, can salve and bind our wounds, who can redeem and restore. And Advent is the primary time in which we wait expectantly for him to return to the world that needs a Savior, that longs for redemption. Rachel represents the mourning of all people, but Jesus represents the one who can and we believe will wipe away every tear. Third, we can decide which name we're living into, especially in this season. As we wait in Advent, we can choose Benjamin over Benoni, not in an avoidant way, but in an aspirational way. We can take an honest assessment of our pain, the world's pain and the difficulty in our story, in our homes and our families, and we can say, I'm going to rename that. I'm going to live into a different reality. We can look at our world and recognize the brokenness and the divisiveness and the violence and the loss without minimizing it, but we can also say, I am going to actively choose to hope for a better tomorrow, a redeemed one, a one with a Messiah at the center of it all. So those are just some thoughts as we begin. This is where the story of Bethlehem begins, it's a tomb on the side of a lonely road. Indeed, the story of Jesus begins in small, unassuming places, and we're going to see that more and more in the weeks to come. But to close today, I do want to go back to that hymn, a little town of Bethlehem, which we'll sing throughout the month, we'll sing it today as well. I chose this as the name for our series, a little town of Bethlehem because of the story of this hymn, which I think is very interesting, as we sing it, we realize perhaps that it tells the story of Bethlehem better than we might think. Philip Brooks is the one who wrote the poem of this beloved Christmas hymn. He wrote it for the Sunday school children at his Philadelphia parish, Holy Trinity Church, and he wrote it following a pilgrimage to the Holy Lands and to Bethlehem in 1865. Brooks on that pilgrimage had the opportunity to travel on horseback between Jerusalem and Bethlehem, that's about six miles from each other, and he got to travel it on horseback on Christmas Eve. After traveling that road and passing the shepherd's fields, the same ones that the Bible tells us about, Brooks participated in the Christmas Eve service at Constantine's Church of the Holy Nativity, which is built over the traditional site of the birth of Jesus, the cave of the birth of Jesus, it was built in 386 AD. He wrote about that service, which started at 10 p.m. and lasted all the way till 3 a.m. He was caught up completely in the worship of that place. Shortly after returning home to Philadelphia, he penned that poem which would become this hymn because he wanted to try and teach the children in his Sunday school about the birthplace of Jesus. The first verse which we know is very pastoral, a little town of Bethlehem, how still we see the lie, right? But for me, what sticks out to me every time I sing it, is the final verse of this hymn. O Holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us, we pray, cast out our sin and enter in, be born in us today. Brooks seems aware from his trip to Bethlehem of something more than just the geographic and historical significance of this place. He seems aware to me of the cosmic significance of a place called Bethlehem, that Jesus came to a broken place, a sinful place, a sad place, and he came as a savior, to cast out our sin and to enter in, to be born in us. I think he must have felt this on that journey, I think that's where those words come from. You see in the 19th century, while on horseback, as he was approaching the town of Bethlehem, Philip Brooks would have rode past a small tomb on the side of the road. Perhaps over he was with, he asked, what is that tomb all about? Maybe there were some women who were weeping there. Perhaps he brought the suffering of that place on the side of the road into that late night worship in Bethlehem and sort of brought it all together, and maybe that's why he wrote the hopes and fears of all the years are met in you, Lord Jesus tonight. All good stories begin in a place where redemption is needed, even mine, even yours, and certainly in the town of Bethlehem. So I invite you friends to enter a waiting posture. It's okay to own the weeping, the pain of your own story, and it's also okay to choose the Benjamin over Ben Oni as we begin this Advent journey. The best gift that I can give you is the holy reminder that you need a Savior, that our world needs a Savior. And as I've said, that's where every good story begins, would you pray with me? A holy child of Bethlehem descend to us, we pray. And as you've done and will continue to do, we ask that you would cast out our sin and enter in and be born in us. We are aware God of our need for a Savior. We are aware that we live in stories and participate in the stories of others and the story of this world where there's conflict, there's tension, there are things to be redeemed. And we invite you as we wait to come, Lord Jesus, come and be born in our midst, come and be born in our world, come and be born in our hearts, do your redemptive work. And would you mature us and strengthen us and comfort us in our waiting? We pray these things in your name, amen. Friends now is the time in our service where we will take our tithes and our offerings and prepare our hearts to come to the communion table. If you're a visitor with us this morning or relatively new with us, we want you to know there's never any obligation to give. For those of you who call this church home, I invite you to give freely. And as the Lord is coming to you, ushers.
From Genesis 35:19-29