Sarah speaks at our Family Christmas Celebration and looks at the question - what does the house of bread have to do with Christmas? 

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Transcript
I'm just wondering if anyone knows: what has a House of bread got to do with the Christmas story? So we're going to learn something today. Anybody know, any of our older people, perhaps know, what has a House of Bread got to do with the Christmas story?

Anyone elders?

So is it something to do with? The stable not right, no? No, Jesus was not born in a gingerbread house. Hannah do you know? Well done Hannah round of applause.

I can tell you've got a good biblical studies teacher at school!

The House of Bread is actually another name for Bethlehem. Yeah, do you know some people didn't know that? Well there we go! We've all learned something today. My job is done.

No, not quite OK. So the House of bread that is literally what Bethlehem means. Now why would God choose the House of bread to be the birthplace for his son?

Well, I know that God had actually already chosen Bethlehem to be the birth place of his son 700 years before he was even born. I mean, some of you don't even know what you're getting for Christmas for a member of your family, and Christmas is next week! Yet God had this in hand. He had it all ready, planned.

In fact, God already knew way before 700 years. But he told us he gave us a hint and a clue 700 years before Jesus was born. That Bethlehem, the House of Bread, was going to be the first home for Jesus.

Now I want to just tell you a little bit what life was like 700 years before Jesus was born. OK, so. God had chosen a nation called Israel and this nation was made up of 12 tribes and God had made a covenantal promise with the Nation of Israel. He said to them, I'm going to be your God and you are going to be my people, and it was a promise that God was never going to break.

We see some amazing days for that nation of Israel. We see that they get set free from slavery in Egypt, amazing! We see God be with them and take them to a new land, that promised land. But actually, 700 years before Christ was born, it wasn't a great day, in fact, it was at a time of war!

You see the 12 tribes of Israel had separated. There were 10 tribes in the north, the Northern Kingdom and two tribes Judah in the South. Sadly, the people of Israel had forgotten the covenantal promise that they had made with God, and they had started to worship other gods. And it was not an amazing day!

In fact, God had allowed the Assyrian army, (say boo) The Assyrian army to come and attack the Northern Kingdom and we are told that they overpowered the Northern Kingdom when they attacked them and the 10 tribes of Israel were then scattered. It was not a good day! It was a day of war, a day of darkness, a day of fear and a day of worry!

The problem was the Assyrians didn't look like they were stopping at the north. They wanted to come for the south. Just imagine that the Assyrian army on the doorstep of the Southern Kingdom. And it's then that a voice is heard in the darkness, a prophetic voice that spoke words of hope to that Southern Kingdom and we're going to look at those words now.

It was given through the prophet Micah. OK, and I'm going to grab my Bible as well. What I love about this prophecy is that it's a bit like an echo. It was relevant for then, but the sound of the prophecy continues, till we see the fulfilment of this prophecy 700 years in the future, in a little town, called the House of Bread. These are the words that Micah spoke “But you, Bethlehem, Ephratah, 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. Therefore, Israel will be abandoned. Until the time when she, who is in Labour, gives birth and the rest of his brothers return to join the Israelites, he will stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God and they will live securely for then his greatness will reach to the ends of the Earth, and he will be their peace.”

This was the voice of God speaking 700 years before Christ was born. Now I don't know about you, but I've been spending a lot of time thinking and pondering over this particular portion of Scripture and it says right at the very beginning - you, Bethlehem, though you are small among the clans of Judah. And in fact, another Bible translation says that Bethlehem, though you are small amongst the thousands of clans of Judah.

OK. Bethlehem is little in size. Do you know they couldn't even scrounge together 1000 people for the army? It was so small! It was considered almost like the runt of the litter. I just wonder if anyone here has had a Bethlehem day. Or sadly, even a Bethlehem year? A time in your life where you've just thought, especially compared to others, I'm just not worth it, I'm not good enough. Has anyone ever felt like that before?

When you look at somebody else and you see all that they have and all that they can offer and all that, they can bring and you think what have I got? I just feel so insignificant. Well, I want to encourage you, if you've had a Bethlehem day this year, that God chose Bethlehem. He chose the House of Bread to be the home of his son. Isn't that amazing? Yes, this is the God that we worship. The God who does not overlook us, He loves us and we are of great significance and great worth to him! God picks out this House of bread.

Now bread has huge amount of symbolism in the Bible. If you trace through the biblical narrative and you look at the purpose of bread, you will see that it is a real symbol of God's provision. We saw it when the Israelites were in the desert. They had nothing to eat and they were moaning and groaning and grumbling, and God provided for them daily manna. That was bread for them to eat bread to sustain them, to give them what they needed.

It was also part of their worship because they broke bread at the Passover to remember the time when God had rescued them. A time when they put the lamb's blood above their gate posts, their doorways, and the Angel of death passed over them, and so to remember that, that rescue, they ate bread as part of their worship.

So, bread has great significance in the Bible and I want to remind us this Christmas time as we look at this story that is set in the House of bread. That actually there is still a great provision from God through the presence of his son coming down to Earth. He still satisfies our greatest need through the gift of Jesus, and I want to explain to you this morning how Jesus coming to Earth, meets our greatest need and also again shows us God's rescue plan.

Right now boys and girls you're gonna want to watch this. I've got here a handkerchief, and this handkerchief represents everybody in this room. It represents me. It represents you, and in fact it represents everybody in the world.

The Bible tells us that we need Jesus because of our sin. It says in the Bible that, everybody has fallen short of God's standards. We all do things that are wrong and I'm just going to make this handkerchief as dirty as I can to represent the fact that, do you know what? We all do things, we say things and we think things and you know what, sometimes we don't do the things that we should do. That isn't God's best for us? The dirt on the hanky is the sin represented in our hearts. Our greatest needs is to be forgiven to be made clean again. So we might try, we might try and do our best efforts. Do you know what we might even go to church and we might think that'll be good. Go into church and I'm going to do some good things. I'm going to do my best to look out for other people, I might even give some money to charity. I might give some of my time to help somebody else and they are all fantastic things that we can do.

But do you know what? It doesn't make us clean. There's only one thing that can make us clean. And that's accepting what Jesus has done for us.

This bowl represents Jesus and the fact that he came to the House of Bread, and he was born as the son of God. He came, and he lived his life of love and then he died, on the cross. When we see that Jesus has died on the cross for us, when we choose to believe that, a really special thing happens, we are told that we are washed, not only clean, but clothed in something called righteousness, clothed in righteousness! We have then been made right with God and hopefully, you will see, that the stains have disappeared.

That is how we are clothed in righteousness, not because of our own efforts, not because of what we do, it's not about me myself and I, but it's about Jesus and what he has done for us!

Do you know what? Some of you here I know are already clothed in God's righteousness. You've made that choice, you are a follower of Jesus and you love him. But there is a world that still lives in darkness, there is a world that still doesn't have the hope that you have and I want to encourage us this Christmas time to be like the shepherds, when the shepherds peered in and they saw Jesus the saviour of the world, they couldn't help but leave that place and go and tell everyone that they met about what they had seen. So that they too, can be made clean.

Can I pray? Father God at this Christmas time we want to say thank you so very, very much for Jesus. We thank you that he is the one who died on the cross for us so that we can be clothed in righteousness. And I want to pray for anybody here who hasn't yet made that choice to be clothed in righteousness Lord, that you would prompt them this morning not to wait another day but to accept the gift of Jesus, into their hearts to know that they've been made right, through what Jesus did on the cross.

And Lord, for those of us who know, I pray that you would put an urgency in our hearts to go and tell the world, what you have done for us, so that many may be washed clean today because of your good news. We thank you that you provided for us our greatest need. You rescued us and we thank you for that, in Jesus name, Amen.