Too Small to Fail

Jesu Juva

Micah 5:2-5a                                                    

December 22, 2024

Advent 4C                                               

 Dear saints of our Savior~

        Have you been to Manhattan before?  No, not the Manhattan with Times Square and Central Park and Broadway.  I’m talking about Manhattan, Kansas—the Manhattan famous for the Kansas State Wildcats and Tuttle Creek Reservoir and . . . Interstate 70.  Manhattan, Kansas isn’t part of the Big Apple; it’s the “Little Apple” of the Midwest—the small town cousin of the slightly better known borough back east.       

        Small towns are great.  And the celebration of Christmas always includes what may just be the most famous small town in human history.  Bethlehem wasn’t always famous.  It had some notoriety because King David had been born there.  And long before that, Jacob’s wife, Rachel, had been buried at Bethlehem. 

        Bethlehem was little at the time of Jesus’ birth.  Perhaps 600 people lived there. To make things even more complicated, however, was the fact that there was more than one Bethlehem.  A bigger Bethlehem—a better-known Bethlehem—was located up north in Galilee.  (Bethlehem had the same problem as Manhattan, Kansas.)  Every proud citizen of Bethlehem would always need to specify that he or she was from Bethlehem Ephrathah, or Bethlehem in Judah. 

        But as small and insignificant as it was, Bethlehem had one big thing going for it—a promise from God that the Messiah would be born there.  Seven hundred years before the calendar flipped from BC to AD, the Prophet Micah proclaimed this prophecy:  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 origin is from of fold, from ancient days. . . He shall be great . . . And he shall be their peace.  There you have it.  Bethlehem was just a little town with a big, big promise.

        The prophet called Bethlehem “little—too little.”  But that Hebrew word “little” referred to more than just population.  “Little” also meant “insignificant.”  This word was also used to describe the youngest, last-born sibling in a family.  And in a culture where being first-born was a really big deal, being the last-born of the litter meant that you were kind of insignificant—least important in the whole family (just ask King David).  Bethlehem was too little, too small, too insignificant to matter.  All Bethlehem had going for it was a dusty, rusty, nearly-forgotten promise from God.

        But Bethlehem—backwater, backwoods Bethlehem—was the very spot where our Savior made His grand entry.  “Small” and “insignificant” is our Savior’s modus operandi.  He’s the Savior that’s too tiny to fail.  “Little” is what Jesus does best. He does big things in small ways. The question is:  Can you handle a Savior so small?

        In today’s Holy Gospel all the action revolves around Jesus—even though Jesus is just an invisible, imperceptible speck of humanity in the womb of His virgin mother.  Christmas is about the God who flies under the radar—who specializes in obscurity and humility—who first makes a splash not in Rome, not in Jerusalem, but camouflaged by cattle and surrounded by smelly shepherds.  O sure, He’s God of God.  He’s Light of Light.  He fills the whole universe with His regal, royal magnificence.  He’s a Deity; but He’s a diapered Deity!  He’s the Messiah; but He’s a mangered Messiah.  He’s the Christ; but He’s the Columbo of Christs.

        You remember Columbo, don’t you?  Police detective played by Peter Falk?  Unlike most cops, Colombo’s involved in no car chases, no shoot outs.  He’s certainly no Sherlock.  He’s not even dusting for fingerprints or waiting on lab results.  Lieutenant Columbo just shows up chomping on a cigar, wearing a rumpled trench coat.  He’s no threat.  He’s just so ordinary—a nobody.  He just casually chats up the killer.  He’s not intimidating, just annoying.  He projects an aura of weakness—a forgetful, forgettable, unremarkable quality—which causes all the bad guys to let their guard down—to seriously underestimate Columbo—who always overcomes evil with good.

        Can you handle a Savior like that?  Jesus simply shows up as an infant nursing at His mother’s breast.  The whole world lets its guard down at that scene.  Jesus doesn’t interrogate you.  He doesn’t care about your alibis.  He’s not collecting evidence on you. He doesn’t lock you up; but gives you complete and total freedom.  Your finances, your job, your marriage, even your church attendance.  Jesus doesn’t micro-manage any of that—doesn’t dictate or orchestrate your daily to-do list.  He just fills your life with blessings and forgiveness, and a plan and a promise, saying, “only believe.  Trust Me.”

        To the world our Savior’s smallness can be mistaken for weakness.  Sometimes we make the same mistake.  Our Savior’s utter humility tempts us to think that we can stray from His ways without consequences, while carefully covering our crimes.  Jesus is just so hidden that we think we can take the freedom He gives, and use that freedom as a license for idolatry or adultery or greed or selfishness.  Our little Savior invites us to live large in His amazing grace; but we spend all our energies majoring in the minutiae of anxiety and pettiness, rage and revenge.

        One thing is for certain:  We need a Savior.  But a super-sized, superman Savior simply won’t do.  We need a Savior who comes to us—as one of us.  God with us, we say, on this Sunday before Christmas.  We need a Savior too small to fail. 

        How low can He go?  To what depths will He sink and shrink to save us and to reveal the wonders of His love?  We need a servant-sized Savior who can bend down low to wash the stinky feet of sinners, who soaks up our sin in a sinner’s baptism.  Who makes Himself nothing.  Who humbles Himself.  Who becomes obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross.  That cross looks to all the world like weakness.  But we know otherwise.  We see the cross; and we behold the wonder of His redeeming love.

        The message of the cross is love.  And, yes, it is greatness—greatness packaged in weakness and meekness.  The prophet Micah was able to see past the rural poverty of Bethlehem Ephratha to the greatness of the Ruler who would be born there.  “He shall be great,” said Micah.  And, he adds concerning the Babe of Bethlehem:  He shall be their peace.  You and I know that peace.  It passes understanding, but we know its source is the cross.  Our redemption from sin and death was finished there.  And our Lord’s resurrection which followed on the Third Day means eternal peace for us.  It is the peace of knowing that we too are destined for the greatness of resurrection life.

        Can you handle a God who operates in such obscurity?  He proclaims His victory through the voices of unremarkable preachers.  He makes you wise through words printed on the pages of your Bible.  He gives you a new birth in the splash of baptism—and supplies full forgiveness in the Holy Supper of His body and blood (where the serving size is small; but the blessings are too big to measure). 

        Beginning with His birth, our Savior’s ways seem unimpressive, unimposing and unpretentious.  But that’s just His way.  He knows your sin, but still—still!—He comes to love you and save you.  On this Fourth Sunday of Advent we learn that God’s way is never the easy way or the predictable way or the popular way.  His way is the Bethlehem way.

        In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.