“A Major Message from a Minor Prophet”
Micah 5:2

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Pastor Kevin Vogts
Trinity Lutheran Church
Paola, Kansas
Third Sunday in Advent—December 11, 2016

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

Our text is this morning’s Old Testament Reading, Micah’s prophecy of the PLACE where the promised Messiah will be born, “A Major Message from a Minor Prophet”: “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me One who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.”

Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi.  Memorizing those books of the Bible gives confirmation students fits.  The last twelve and the shortest books of the Old Testament, commonly known as the “Minor Prophets.”  Each so short that some of the Minor Prophets are barely one page long; all together so short that just one of the Major Prophets, such as Isaiah or Jeremiah, is much longer than all twelve of the Minor Prophets put together.

If you were to cut apart this Bible and lay the pages of the book of the prophet Isaiah end to end, it would reach all the way to the peak of this church.  But the book of the prophet Micah would come about only to here (gesture with hand at waist). 

Is that how YOU feel sometimes: minor, insignificant, unimportant compared to others?  The town of Bethlehem in Ephrathah was like that.  So small that it was actually in danger of losing its status as one of the towns of Judah.  Like today, when the government sometimes decrees that a small town can no longer have its own post office, it seems in Micah’s time Bethlehem was so small that it was on the verge of going out of existence, losing its official status as one of the towns of Judah.

Compared to the great city of Jerusalem, just ten miles to the north, Bethlehem was insignificant, unimportant.  But from the pen of the MINOR prophet Micah comes a MAJOR message, a startling prophecy concerning this tiny town: The promised Messiah, the long-awaited Savior, will not be born in the big city, in grand and glorious Jerusalem, but in the region of Ephrathah, in a humble little village called Bethlehem: “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me One who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.”

Big things sometimes DO come in small packages.  The MINOR prophet Micah had a MAJOR message, foretelling in exact detail 700 years in advance the birthplace of the Savior of the world.  The little town of Bethlehem was chosen by God for a great honor, to be the birthplace of his own Son.  AND in this same verse Micah tells us of ANOTHER big thing that came in a small package that first Christmas: The little Babe of Bethlehem, laying in the manger, so frail and weak, is actually GOD in human flesh, “whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.”

Micah may have only been a minor prophet, but he was SPECIAL, special because God chose him to proclaim a major message, to predict the birthplace of the Messiah; Bethlehem may have only been a tiny town, but it was SPECIAL, special because God chose it to be the birthplace of his Son; the little Babe of Bethlehem may have appeared like any other newborn, small and helpless, frail and weak, but he was SPECIAL, special because in that Babe dwells all the fullness of God, “whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.”

In the same way, though you may sometimes consider yourself minor, insignificant, unimportant, you too are SPECIAL, special because Christ the Lord was born for you, to be your Savior, to pay for your sins, to make things right between you and God.  Because of Christ’s birth, life, sacrificial death, and resurrection, God forgives you all your sins.  You are special because God has chosen YOU to be his child.  You are special because God sent his own Son to make you his child.

Though you may sometimes feel minor, like the MINOR prophet Micah, or insignificant and unimportant, like the LITTLE town of Bethlehem, remember that you are SPECIAL, because “unto you is born . . . in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.” 

Like the little town of Bethlehem, God has chosen for his Son to be “born” in you, born in your heart, cradled in the manger of faith.  And like the minor prophet Micah, God gives you a major message to share with the world: Christ, the Savior, is born!

So one thing this promise from Micah shows us is that God works in places and through people that we may consider minor, insignificant, unimportant.  And this promise from Micah shows us that no one and no place is ever minor or insignificant or unimportant to GOD.

“O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie!

“Yet in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting light.

“The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.”

“But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me One who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.”