O Little Town of Bethlehem

“O Bethlehem Ephrathah, you are but a small Judean village, yet you will be the birthplace of my King who is alive from everlasting ages past!”       Micah 5:2 [The Living Bible]

God chose Bethlehem to be the birthplace of Jesus, His Son.  This verse says Bethlehem was only a small village, yet God honored her with such significance.  We are blessed that God honored us also in giving Jesus not only to the famous and powerful people on earth but to all; to us, no matter what our station in life is.

Micah prophesied the event of Jesus’ birth hundreds of years before it happened.  He prophesied even the place of Jesus’ birth.  This tells me that only God could have told him because only God is omniscient and in control of everything, including His salvation reaching out to man.  This is the God we worship together this Christmas season.  He alone is worthy of all our adoration.

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.

O morning stars, together
Proclaim the holy birth,
And praises sing to God the king,
And peace to men on earth.

For Christ is born of Mary;
And, gathered all above,
While mortals sleep, the angels keep
Their watch of wondering love.

How silently, how silently,
The wondrous gift is given!
So God imparts to human hearts
The blessings of his heaven,

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:
O come to us, abide with us,
Our Lord Emmanuel.

In 1865 Phillips Brooks visited the Holy Land.  Brooks was a well known minister in Philadelphia.  Even the children admired him. They didn’t find him intimidating although he stood at 6 feet and 6 inches.  It was recorded that he could preach at 200 words a minute.  He must have kept his congregation on their toes.  When he died one of the young girls in his church paid him a high compliment when she said,” “O how happy the angels will be.”

During his visit to the Holy Land he rode the dangerous stretch from Jerusalem to Bethlehem to serve in the midnight service in the Church of the Nativity.  Two years after he walked the streets of Bethlehem the memories still stirred his soul and he wanted to make the story of Jesus’ birth more real to his congregation.  That is when he wrote the words to “O Little Town of Bethlehem”, one of my very favorite carols.

His church organist, Lewis Redner, wrote the melody for him and their Sunday school children’s choir sang it on Christmas Eve.

“O Little Town of Bethlehem” was loved in the USA.  Later, in 1906, the carol was introduced to England. Vaughan Williams rearranged it to the traditional tune Forest Green, which he had learned from the peasants in Surrey in 1903.