How could a little town mean so much to a worn out pastor looking for spiritual revitalization on a trip to Israel? Come hear the story of O Little Town of Bethlehem and journey along with us as we continue our Christmas sermon series, Christ In The Carols.
Phillips Brooks graduated from Harvard in 1855 and then attended the Episcopal Theological Seminary. He was ordained in 1859 and became the pastor of the Holy Trinity Church in Philadelphia in 1861. The Civil War broke out on April 12, 181, and for the next four years of his pastorate, the young spiritual leader sought to encourage his sheep in tough, tumultuous times. But it was not easy.
Most Sundays, women who had lost sons in the war dressed in black to express their mourning. Weekly news from the various battlefields took a toll on everyone as losses and injuries mounted. The joy and peace the nation once possessed appeared to be slipping away.
When the war ended in 1865, Reverend Brooks thought the nation would quickly heal and head to brighter, healthier times. But then, on Good Friday, April 14, Booth assassinated President Lincoln. His funeral service occurred on April 19, and leaders agreed to invite the thirty-year-old Reverend Brooks to give the President’s eulogy. He did an outstanding job, and on the following Sunday, April 23, he gave an uplifting, encouraging sermon to his large congregation titled “The Life and Death of Abraham Lincoln.”
Emotionally spent after all of this, Reverend Brooks decided to replenish and rejuvenate his soul by taking a much-needed sabbatical to the Holy Land. On Christmas Eve of 1865, he felt a need to leave the celebrations in Jerusalem, so he set off for Bethlehem on a horse. That five-mile ride through the mountains and valleys changed his life forever.
As the sun set in the west over the Mediterranean Sea, Reverend Brooks felt awe as bright, twinkling stars started to dot the blackened sky. He could not help but think of what Mary and Joseph saw as they rode toward Bethlehem. In his mind’s eye, he could see the shepherds tending their sheep off in the distance, only to be interrupted by the descent of a mighty angel of God. The empty, quiet streets of the town caused him to be deeply moved concerning how the Lord of Glory was born in such a humble, insignificant place. But He was, just as the prophet Micah prophesied some 800 years before his birth in 5 B.C. (Mic. 5:1-2). When he returned to the States, the journey moved and rejuvenated his spirit, and he told friends and family that it would always be “singing in my soul.”
Three years later, in 1868, Reverend Brooks was finally able to capture his feelings of that spiritually transformative trip with these lyrics:
O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie!
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go by.
Yet in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting Light;
The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.
For Christ is born of Mary, and gathered all above,
While mortals sleep, the angels keep their watch of wond’ring love.
O morning stars, together proclaim the holy birth,
And praises sing to God the King, and peace to men on earth!
How silently, how silently, the wondrous Gift is giv’n;
So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of His Heav’n.
No ear may hear His coming, but in this world of sin,
Where meek souls will receive Him still, the dear Christ enters in.
O holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us, we pray;
Cast out our sin, and enter in, be born in us today.
We hear the Christmas angels the great glad tidings tell;
Oh, come to us, abide with us, our Lord Emmanuel!
He rushed these lyrics that had flowed out of his heart to his church organist and worship leader, Lewis Redner. What did he want from this man? He wanted him to write a melody to capture the essence and emotion of the words. After struggling with various melodies, on December 25, 1868, Redner finally composed the music of what is now one of the most moving Christmas carols that Christians sing.
As these lyrics and this song energized Reverend Brooks’ church and countless other churches through the last 156 years, we must pause this Christmas to ask one question:
How Does This Carol Revive And Rejuvenate The Soul?
Of the various themes we could isolate in this memorable carol, I want to zero in on just one.
Jesus Is Bread For The Soul
Bethlehem, in Hebrew, means “house of bread.” I am confident the name related to what it produced: bread, the staple of life. What do people stock up on when a storm is headed our way? Bread, among a few other items. Why bread? Because it nourishes the body and can be used in various ways to achieve this purpose. We are all familiar with naming a town after what it produces: Pie Town, New Mexico; Two Egg, Florida; Bean Station, Tennessee; and Oyster Bay, New York, to name a few. So, if you desired great, tasty bread in ancient Israel, where did you head? To Bethlehem.
Bethlehem was also famous because King David was born here and because Micah, some 500 years after David, prophesied that the Messiah would come from this humble, little hamlet:
2 “But as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, Too little to be among the clans of Judah, From you One will go forth for Me to be ruler in Israel. His goings forth are from long ago, From the days of eternity.” (Mic. 5:2 NAS)
Micah’s day resembled those of Reverend Brooks. War plagued the nation as any enemy worked to defeat them. Amid this impending national catastrophe, God told Micah to inform the people that one day the King of Kings would reside on the throne of David, and this king would bring peace and prosperity to the land (Mic. 5:3-5). That King would be the eternal God in the flesh and be born in Bethlehem, the House of Bread.
As prophesied, Jesus was born in 5 B.C. in Bethlehem. When Passover approached during his new ministry, a crowd of 5,000 followed Him near the Sea of Galilee (John 6). Realizing they needed to eat, Jesus secured five barley loaves and two small fish from a little boy’s lunch bag. After blessing the food, He began distributing it, and the bread and fish kept coming until all 5,000 people were fed. They even had twelve baskets left of fragments of the barley loaves (John 6:14). The miracle so astounded the people that they claimed that the Prophet of all prophets walked among them (John 6:14).
After this, Jesus boarded a boat and headed to His base of operations in Capernaum, located on the north coast of the Sea of Galilee (John 6:16). On the next day after this jaw-dropping miracle, the people who had seen it headed over to Capernaum (John 6:22-25). It must have been some flotilla heading toward Capernaum with that many people.
When they finally caught up to Jesus, they asked, “Rabbi, when did you come here?” His reply has the meaning of Bethlehem written all over it:
26 Jesus answered them and said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate of the loaves, and were filled. 27 “Do not work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man shall give to you, for on Him the Father, even God, has set His seal.” (John 6)
Translated: Jesus told them, “You followed me not for spiritual reasons but for physical ones. You just want more bread I miraculously produced at will.” His following counsel rebuffed and educated them. He told them not to work for earthly bread to nourish the outer man but to work to find bread that nourishes the inner man by giving him eternal life. Jesus is prepared to provide that kind of otherworldly, amazing bread to anyone with a spiritual hunger.
The response of the people is most illuminating regarding the human heart:
28 They said therefore to Him, “What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?”
They wrongly thought that the possession of eternal life and a relationship with God revolved around their work, be it spiritual, religious, or otherwise. They thought this way because this was the false bread the Pharisees had served up for years. It could not have been more misleading. Perhaps this Christmas, you are confused like this, folks. You think you are heaven-bound because of the works you perform for God. Such could not be further from the truth because your works are tainted by sin. Only Christ’s work as our Messiah and Savior can accomplish this.
Christ’s answer to these religiously work-oriented people is most instructive:
29 Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.” (John 6)
Jesus said, “Gaining eternal life has nothing to do with your works but with belief in Him as the Savior.” Is this blind faith? No. It is faith wedded to facts. The fact of the feeding the 5,000 was proof enough that He was the Lord in the flesh. From that miracle, they witnessed, they should have quickly concluded that Jesus was, in fact, the long-awaited divine and Davidic King from Bethlehem (Isa. 7:14; Mic. 5:1-2). God has given us facts, as well, to guide us from works to faith in His Son’s work. Concerning the precise prophecies of the Messiah’s arrival given hundreds of years before His birth, Rene Pache concludes in his book “The Inspiration and Authority of Scripture,”
“Now it is affirmed that 333 of the prophecies concerning Christ have been fulfilled! According to the law of probabilities, there would be one chance out of 83 billion that so many predictions would come true in the case of one single individual. Needless to say, such a ‘chance’ does not exist, and no one but the omniscient God could predict and act like this.”[1]
What you do with incontrovertible facts like these is the difference between eternal death and life. What will you do?
What did the people standing before Christ do? They arrogantly retreated into their fortress of unbelief:
30 They said therefore to Him, “What then do You do for a sign, that we may see, and believe You? What work do You perform? 31 “Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread out of heaven to eat.'” (John 6)
Is this not shocking? Christ challenged them to believe in Him in light of the fact of the bread and fish multiplication, and they audaciously said they needed another sign to consider. I think the bread and fish miracle would have done it for me. But not for these folks. They, like so many, wanted more evidence.
What evidence did they demand? Shockingly, they drew a false equation between Moses and Jesus. Here is the essence of their argument: “Moses gave us manna, or bread, to sustain us in the wilderness every day for forty years, and you have only given us bread on one occasion. Do something more spectacular than Moses, and we might believe.” Sad. Do you see yourself in these people? What else must God do to cause you to move toward His Son, Jesus, in faith?
Jesus, at this juncture, could have rebuked them and chosen to end the groundless, offensive conversation, but He did not because He loved these spiritually starved sinners. Turning to them in love, He said,
32 Jesus therefore said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread out of heaven, but it is My Father who gives you the true bread out of heaven. 33 For the bread of God is that which comes down out of heaven, and gives life to the world . . . 35 Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me shall not hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst. 36 “But I said to you, that you have seen Me, and yet do not believe. 37 “All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out. 38 “For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. (John 6)
Moses was merely an intermediary between the Father and the people. He did not produce the physical bread. That came directly each day from God, the Father. That bread temporarily satisfied earthly hunger, but all those who ate it over those forty years died in the wilderness. Jesus, conversely, is perpetually “the bread of life,” speaking of eternal spiritual life, as opposed to temporal physical life supported by a perpetual eating of physical bread.
His promise in light of His person is clear: Whoever is spiritually hungry and eats of this bread will never be spiritually hungry again. No longer would they rely on their vacuous works to save them. Now, they would rely on Christ’s vicarious work on the cross. No longer would they erroneously think that salvation is wedded to perpetual religious or moral works, but they would enjoy the fact that one bite of Christ as the Bread of Life gave them spiritual life and eternal life.
His promise also informs us that He, the Bread of Life, will NEVER reject any spiritually hungry person the Father sends His way. He will always accept that person, no matter what kind of sinner they were. The Apostle Paul was sent His way, and we know what happened. Despite the fact Paul was convinced that salvation was related to works coupled with faith in God, despite the fact he hunted down and killed Jews who dared to partake of Christ as the Bread of Life, even he saw his sin on the Damascus Road and partook of the Bread of Life (Acts 9). Looking back at this life-changing moment, Paul said:
15 It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost of all. 16 And yet for this reason I found mercy, in order that in me as the foremost, Jesus Christ might demonstrate His perfect patience, as an example for those who would believe in Him for eternal life. (1 Tim. 1)
He spent the rest of His life pointing Jews and Gentiles to the Bread from Bethlehem.
I don’t know what kind of sinner you are this Christmas, but I do know this. If you are spiritually hungry, searching for spiritual answers to life’s most significant questions, or wondering why you were created and what your life purpose is, this message is for you. Partake, by faith, of Jesus, the Bread of Life, and He will forgive you and welcome you into His eternal family. He came down from the glory and wonder of the heavenly sphere to fulfill the Father’s will. And what was that will? That sinful man would have a Savior who would die for their sin so He could offer them the bread to beat all bread. Regarding this, Paul wrote to the Ephesians,
7 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace, 8 which He lavished upon us. (Eph. 1)
Christ, the Bread of Life, can grant eternal life to sinners by means of His substitutionary death for their sins. Now, it is incumbent upon sinners to partake of the Bread of Bethlehem by faith. Will you?
How did the Jews in Capernaum respond to Christ’s teaching about bread? Read on, and you will see:
41 The Jews therefore were grumbling about Him, because He said, “I am the bread that came down out of heaven.” 42 And they were saying, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does He now say, ‘I have come down out of heaven ‘?” (John 6)
Instead of receiving Him, they rejected Him. Rephrased, you can appreciate their argument: “How can HE be from heaven when we all know his father, Joseph and Mary? We know He came from them and not from heaven. That’s only logical.” They should have considered His miraculous birth in Bethlehem but did not. They should have considered the various prophets who prophesied that the Messiah would come from heaven as the God-man (Isa. 7:14; Mic. 5:1-2). But they chose to reject all evidence regarding Christ’s person.
How did He respond to their unbelief? With grace. He continued the conversation when He did not have to.
43 Jesus answered and said to them, “Do not grumble among yourselves . . . 47 Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life. 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50 This is the bread which comes down out of heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die.
51 I am the living bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he shall live forever; and the bread also which I shall give for the life of the world is My flesh.” (John 6)
Physical bread sustains physical life, but only Christ, the Bread of Life, gives and sustains spiritual, eternal life. Christ left these folks, as He leaves you this Christmas, with a choice. Will you partake of the Bread of Life born in Bethlehem, the House of Bread? What will you do? Eat by faith, and you will live like you never lived before.
In 1865, an emotionally spent pastor went for a ride on a horse from Jerusalem and Bethlehem on Christmas Eve. It was a ride that would change his life, for it caused him to remember what we call the reason for the season. In an insignificant village, God did a significant work for mankind by sending His Son to be the Bread of Life for hungry sinners. That theological thought put wind in the limp sails of the pastor. That theological thought also put some lyrics in his heart that would go on to be wedded to a moving melody that would point countless people to the Bread of Life, Jesus, the Christ.
Are you spiritually hungry this Christmas? If so, the Lord is waiting for you to partake of the Bread of life. R. C. Sproul, a famous pastor and teacher, recounts how he came to partake:
“I had actually gone to a church-related college, but I went on a football scholarship, not because of any interest in the church. At the end my first week, which was spent in freshman orientation, my roommate and I decided to hit some of the bars across the border. We get to the parking lot, and I realized that I was out of cigarettes.
So I went back in the dorm and went to the cigarette machine. I got my Luckys and turned around and saw the captain of the football team sitting at a table. He spoke to me and my roommate and invited us to come over and chat, and we did. This was the first person I ever met in my life that talked about Christ as a reality.
I’d never heard anything like it. I was just absorbed, sat there for two or three hours. He didn’t give a traditional evangelism talk to me; he just kept talking to me about the wisdom of the word of God. He quoted Ecclesiastes 11:3: “Whether a tree falls to the south or to the north, in the place where it falls, there will it lie.” I just feel certain I’m the only person in church history that was converted by that verse. God just took that verse and struck my soul with it. I saw myself as a log that was rotting in the woods. And I was going nowhere.
When I left that guy’s table, I went up to my room. And in my room by myself, in the dark, I got on my knees and cried out to God to forgive me.”
Christ not only forgave R.C., but He also gave him forgiveness and eternal life. What a gift from God! And to think that it all starts with you enjoying Jesus as the Bread of Life.
[1] Rene Pache, The Inspiration and Authority of Scripture (Chicago: Moody Press, 1969), 283.
