Sample of A Seed … A Site … A Scepter

A SEED ... A SITE ... A SCEPTER. Genesis 12:1-3

Sermons for Midweek Advent Devotions

by Rev. Ken Behnken

2. A SITE

The covenant of blessing initiated by the Lord with Abraham had three components: a seed, a site, a scepter. Last week we looked at the promise of a seed – fulfilled in Abraham’s becoming the father of a nation, but specifically fulfilled in the one Seed of Abraham, Jesus Christ. And we rejoiced to see that as we share Abraham’s faith we all are spiritually his seed, his descendants, heirs with him of the covenant of blessing.

Tonight we consider the second component: the promise of a Site. The Lord’s call meant Abraham had to leave home and family and set out for “God knows where”. Think of the challenge! But when he had obeyed, and he finally pitched his tent in Canaan, the Lord repeated his promise. Though Abraham was just a visitor in the land, living there by permission of the Canaanites, the Lord told him, “Lift up your eyes and look north and south, east and west. All the land I will give to you and to your descendants forever.”

This promise of a Site for Abraham’s descendants came to its historical fulfillment 500 years later, when Moses led the children of Israel out of slavery in Egypt to the Promised Land. Under God’s blessing Joshua led the armies of Israel in successful campaigns of conquest. Thus the Lord lived up to his promise to Abraham and, at the same time, executed his fierce judgment of the Canaanites for the immorality and violence that had accompanied their pagan idolatry.

Joshua settled the twelve tribes in assigned homelands. The land was theirs for several centuries – through the time of the judges, when they were just a loose confederation of tribes, to the decades of the united kingdom, and into the time when Israel was divided into two kingdoms. Then their faithlessness brought the Lord’s judgment on them. The people of the Kingdom of Israel, the northern kingdom, were conquered by the Assyrians, who resettled them among other conquered peoples – and these ten tribes lost all national identity. The Kingdom of Judah continued for another century, but then was the victim of Babylon. Large numbers of Judah’s prominent people were deported into exile in Babylonia. In exile the Jews longed for their homeland – and their prophets revived the covenant promise of a site. Isaiah prophesied that a remnant would return; Jeremiah said the Lord himself would gather the remnant and be their shepherd; and Ezekiel promised, “There will be some survivors – sons and daughter who will be brought out of exile.” After 70 years the Persians conquered Babylon and Cyrus the Great permitted a contingent of Jews to return to Judah to rebuild Jerusalem and the temple. He appointed Zerubbabel, a Davidic prince, to rule them as his vassal. A national identity was regained, but the Jewish nation continued under the domination of world powers. This was the situation that obtained when Jesus came on the scene. Then, in 70 A.D., as Jesus had predicted, an ill-conceived rebellion against Rome brought death to a million Jews and the destruction of Jerusalem. Still later, when Arab Muslims overran the area, the promised Site effectively stopped being a Jewish homeland – until modern times and the formation of the State of Israel.

For our purposes, in our Advent preparation, it is most significant that we see the promise of a Site having its sharpest focus as it converges with the fulfillment of the promise of the Seed. Then we remember that Micah’s prophecy pointed ahead to the very Site of the birth of the true Seed: “You, Bethlehem, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.” Remember when the Magi came looking for the newborn King of the Jews? The scribes in Herod’s court were able to direct them to Bethlehem, quoting this text from Micah.

Why was Bethlehem chosen to be the most specific fulfillment of the promise of a site? Because Bethlehem was David’s town – and the promised Seed was to be the Son of David. David grew up as a shepherd lad in the hills around Bethlehem. And though as King of all Israel he made Jerusalem his royal city and brought the tabernacle and the Ark of the Covenant there, when the Son of David who would establish David’s throne forever was to be born, God took him back to David’s roots in Bethlehem. It was not in a regal palace but in a humble cattle cave that the promise to Abraham of a Site for his Seed was fulfilled in its ultimate meaning.

Its humble circumstances were appropriate – for Jesus later explained that he had come, not to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many. It was pertinent that he was born in poverty, for his heart’s desire was to do the will of his Father, not to accumulate things. Fittingly, he was attended at his birth, not by learned scribes, but by common folks who humbly believed the message of angels.

Today, the Church of the Nativity stands over the traditional site of Jesus’ birthplace. It was built originally in the 300’s by Emperor Constantine’s mother, Helena, and was rebuilt by Crusaders. The Crusaders built it with a small, low entrance door – to keep proud Muslim warriors from riding their horses into the shrine. The small door is still there, as is fitting. The only way to receive this humble King is to get off your high horse, bow low, and kneel at his manger – and then be ready to follow even to the cross, to be blessed by his ultimate display of humility, his death for your sins.

Our wonder at a 700-year-old prophecy being fulfilled by Bethlehem’s being the Site of the birth of the Seed deepens when we remember that his mother Mary and her husband Joseph lived some 70 miles to the north, in Nazareth in Galilee. But God’s decisions are firm, and his ways of implementing them are sure and certain. Caesar Augustus unwittingly became an instrument in God’s hand when he decided to count the people under his rule. It was the first Roman census. Jews were required to return to their ancestral homes for enrolling. So Joseph, a descendant of David, took his wife Mary, also a descendant of David, to Bethlehem. It was a time in her pregnancy when otherwise they surely would not have been traveling. “While they were there,” Luke tells us, “the days were accomplished that she should be delivered.” Remember the proverb? “Man proposes; God disposes.”

Why Bethlehem? The Hebrew Bethlechem means “house of bread.” Wheat fields flourished in the area. Ruth the Moabitess, you remember, gleaned wheat in the fields of Boaz outside of Bethlehem, and later was married by Boaz and became the great-grandmother of David. The family line that would produce the promised Son of David made Bethlehem their home for generations – and the fertility of the area provided their livelihood.

Bethlechem was the house of bread also spiritually. There, from God’s own bakery, came the Christmas Bread, the living Bread from heaven, the Bread of life. Also this building, our House of God, becomes a Bethlehem when Jesus comes to us to nourish our faith as we “eat” that living Bread through Word and Sacrament. Our homes, too, become Bethlehems when through Word and prayer we invite Jesus and his Father to make their home with us.

This is not something that just happens. We must worked at it. A few years ago a study of Lutheran families indicated that 20% had devotions and prayed together and talked about Jesus and their faith. Another 20% said formal table prayers and talked at times about the church and what was happening there. But in 60% the only time they prayed together or spoke of their faith was when they were in a church service. Which group would your family be in? Which would you like it to be in?

In the final analysis, our homes will be Bethlehems only when we ourselves become Bethlehems. Isn’t that why we sing, “Ah, dearest Jesus, holy Child, Make Thee a bed, soft, undefiled, Within my heart, that it may be A quiet chamber kept for Thee”? St. Paul wrote about “the mystery of Christ in you”, (Colossians 1:27) That’s what has to happen! We need to be Bethlehems in whom Christ is born, in whom he lives!

That means you have to get away from some places, some associations, some activities – just as Abraham had to leave Haran and its pagan influence. As an old saying puts it: “If you don’t want to trade with the devil, don’t hang around his store.” We need to know there are places where Jesus will not go with us, associations he will not be a part of, activities that at best will dull our spiritual sensibilities, and at worst will break our relationship with Christ.

Fortunately, there are also places where Jesus will meet us and our children and nourish us through his Word. There are associations in which he is at the center of helpful Christian fellowship. There are activities that enhance life – also our life with him. Happily, he wants nothing more than to live in us, making our lives a fulfillment of the promise of a Site.

Even that is not the last extension of the promise of a Site. Hebrews reminds us that “here we have no continuing city, but we seek the city to come, whose maker and builder is God.” The final promise of a Site awaits the time when the Seed of Abraham, the Son of David, our Lord Jesus Christ, will return in glory to usher in his eternal kingdom. As that is pictured in the Book of Revelation it is not in terms of “the little town of Bethlehem” but in terms of “the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, coming down from heaven.” King Jesus will not come in humility to serve. He did that once for all. He will come in glory to sit on his glorious throne. He will judge the nations as they appear before him. And he will invite all who are his own to “take their inheritance, the kingdom prepared for them since the creation of the world.” That promised Site will be wonderfully glorious because “the dwelling of God will be with us, and he will live in us.”

The covenant promise of a Site has been fulfilled in the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem! The promise of a Site is being fulfilled as the risen Christ comes to live in you with his blessing! The promise of a Site will be fulfilled when he comes in glory and throws open the gates of heaven!

The invitations to the heavenly Jerusalem have gone out. Make your reservations without delay!

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