The town of Bethlehem, about ten kilometres southwest of the city Jerusalem, is an important part of the Christmas story. Anyone who knows anything about the first Christmas has heard about Bethlehem.

Already centuries before the birth of Christ, the connection between Bethlehem and the event that became known as Christmas was revealed to God’s people. They were told through the prophet Micah that from Bethlehem a king would be born and that through Him God would rule over them and bless them.

In Matthew 2, when the Magi or wise men came to see the newborn king of the Jews, Herod asked the leaders of the people where the Christ was going to be born. Together with a clear reference to our text, they answered him by saying: “In Bethlehem in Judea” (v. 5).

This new king was going to fulfil the promise that God had made to David about his family. God had told David that one of his descendants would reign eternally on his throne. However, his sons had been unfaithful and Jerusalem, as the capital, represented their failure. So God was going to go back to Bethlehem, back to where the kingship had begun. He was going to make a new beginning in the house of David.

The region around Bethlehem was called Ephrathah and the whole area was considered to be rather humble and insignificant. Yet it was from there that God had taken a humble and insignificant shepherd boy and made him king over his people.

The Christmas story tells us that the life of the Lord Jesus on earth also had a very humble beginning. At the same time, He was a special king whose “origins are from of old, from ancient times.” As the Lord’s disciples learned what this meant, the riches that God had promised in the prophecy of Micah 5:2 became so much clearer to them. Christ may have been humble, but He was also divinely glorious, and by God’s grace He was going to share that glory with his people.

To bring his prophecy to fulfillment, God used the census of Caesar Augustus to bring Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem at the time that He had chosen. Nothing happens by chance and God rules over all creation for his own glory and for the benefit of his people!

The new king born in Bethlehem would be like his forefather David. Yet even more than David was, the Lord Jesus would be a man after God’s own heart and would be faithful to the office that He had received. Christ did his work in order to bring glory to his Father and to fulfil his Father’s promises and plans.

Like David, the Lord’s office would involve being a shepherd. In John 10 He described Himself as the good shepherd who would selflessly sacrifice Himself for his sheep. He takes care of us, He feeds us, and He gives us what we need the most, for through Him we have peace with God.

The peace that He provides is very different from what many of the Jews hoped for and it also goes far beyond the kind of peace on earth that people today still hope for at Christmas time. The real peace that we need – the kind that has to come before we can even begin to hope for peace here on earth – is first of all peace through the forgiveness of our sins.

We only understand the real meaning and blessing of Christmas when we look at it from the perspective of the Lord’s whole life. It’s not enough to think only about a baby who was laid in a manger in Bethlehem. His birth was just the beginning of what would be finished when He offered Himself for us on the cross. He was not only born to rule but also to suffer and to die in our place. It’s through faith in all that He came to do that we have real joy in our salvation and our hope for future blessing.

The angels who appeared to the shepherds outside Bethlehem in Luke 2 proclaimed peace on earth for those with whom God is pleased. By our faith in his Son, God is pleased to accept us as his own and to share with us the real peace of Christmas.

As the people of Micah’s time also did, we through faith in God’s promises can look forward to sharing in the full blessings of the eternal kingdom of the King once born in Bethlehem!