Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 24:37 — 16.9MB)
Speaker: Pastor Val Watkins
Scripture Text: Micah 5:2
Classic TV Christmas
Die Another Day
Micah 5:2
Just a two-hour walk from the sleepy little town of Bethlehem where Christ was born to the bustling streets of Jerusalem where Christ was crucified (just outside of the city).
The historical journey from Bethlehem to Calvary should be a short one but too many people prefer the cradle to the cross.
People prefer to talk about births and babies rather than crucifixions and corpses, but whether we want to admit it or not there is but a short distance, historically, between Bethlehem and Calvary.
The converse is also true. Calvary would not have been what it was if God had not chosen to enter this world as a child and to live as a man.
After all, Bethlehem holds the promise of eternal life but it’s Calvary that holds the gift of eternal life.
And there are a lot of people just like that innkeeper. They’re not antagonistic about the real meaning of Christmas, but they don’t really care.
People like Herod like Christmas, but they’d prefer to keep Christ out of it.
The reason the Christian faith has survived and flourished over the past 2000 years is that there have been some who, after the angels have gone and the heavens are still and life is life, they still believe.
However little that we know of the wise men we do know that they came from a great distance bearing their gifts of love.
Because it’s only when we are completely sold out to Jesus that we will be able to make the trip from Bethlehem to Calvary.