Tonight’s topic is Christmas prophecies. On the one hand it seems pretty simple. We know that Christmas is about the birth of Jesus and so Christmas prophecies must be prophecies about the birth of Jesus. But – and perhaps this is just going to be stating the obvious – I want to make sure we have an understanding of the significance of Christmas from a Christian perspective. Yes – it’s about the birth of Jesus. But I think we need to take it just a little bit more deeply than that. It’s about the incarnation of God – the coming of God to earth in human flesh. As John’s Gospel says, “The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us.” Paul expanded on the idea in Philippians: “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.” So, for those who think that only Matthew and Luke have Christmas stories – you could say that those are John’s and Paul’s Christmas stories. And the point of all four of these Christmas stories in the New Testament is the idea that, in Jesus, God took on human form. This is the divine incarnation. It was a concept that was well understood and accepted in the Gentile world. The pagan gods that were worshipped in most of Europe at the time were often said to have taken on human form. So divine incarnation has a receptive audience in the Gentile world, but the question is whether there’s support for it from within the Jewish Scriptures; the Jewish prophecies. That’s what we’re going to talk about tonight.
Before getting into the three passages I asked you to read
for tonight, though, I want to talk a bit about another one. It’s a story we
don’t hear a lot of in church. The first thing you have to remember about
Christmas is that it’s a season of the church year – a brief one (12 days) that
has usually only two Sundays (and every few years only one Sunday). The
lectionary includes the stories about Jesus’ childhood in the Christmas season,
and one of those stories is a particularly gruesome one that’s recounted by
Matthew. It takes place after the magi have visited Herod to ask where the
Messiah was to be born. When Herod is told that the Messiah would be born in
Bethlehem he dispatches soldiers to the town with order to kill “all the children in and around Bethlehem
who were two years old or under …” We don’t read that story very often. It’s a
real downer to think of baby boys being massacred just as we’re celebrating
Christmas. We have one Christmas carol that makes reference to the story:
Herod then with fear was filled: “A prince,” he
said, “in Jewry!”
All the little boys he killed at Bethle’m in his
fury,
At Bethle’m in his fury.
It’s a difficult text to preach
from. In 28 Christmas seasons since I’ve been ordained I’ve preached from it
once – a sermon asking: now that we’ve marked the birth of the Christ-child,
how far will we go to avoid the call he makes upon our lives?” I think I
entitled it, “Modern Herods! Who – Us?” Matthew links this to Jeremiah 31:15: “A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children;
she refuses to be comforted for
her children, because
they are no more.” It’s an unusual passage because the immediate context seems
to be a celebration of Israel’s release from Babylon. The first 14 verses of
Jeremiah 31 are a celebration of Israel’s restoration, and then you have the
sudden and dramatic transition to this terrible lament, put on to the lips of
Rachel. Rachel, of course, was long dead by the time of the exile. She had been
Jacob’s wife in the story told in the Book of Genesis. Jeremiah doesn’t
literally mean that Rachel herself was weeping (as I said, she’s long dead) but
he uses her as a symbol of the Hebrew mothers who have lost their children to
the Babylonians. Matthew extends Jeremiah’s understanding to the incident of
Herod’s slaughter of the baby boys. I didn’t ask you to read this so I don’t
want to go into it too deeply, but it seems to me this is another example of
Matthew (the Jewish Gospel writer) linking Jesus to messianic expectation.
Messiah arises at times of great hardship for the nation. The destruction of
Israel by Babylon was one such time; the occupation of Judea by Rome is
another; but even individual and isolated events such as the massacre of the
baby boys by Herod (an illegitimate king; a Roman puppet in essence) is linked
to the idea of the need for Messiah; for someone to appear and give hope; for
someone to set things right. It’s an ugly story, but it has some resonance for
Matthew as to why Messiah was needed: not just the big issue of Roman
occupation, but even local issues such as this that point out the hardships
being faced by the people.
Moving on
to the three passages I asked you to read, the first was the passage from the
prophet Micah. This one is linked to the one I just talked about. When Herod
asked his officials where the child the magi was searching for was to be born,
they told him it would happen in Bethlehem, and they cited this passage from
Micah: “But you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah, who are one of the little clans of Judah,
from you shall come forth for
me one who is to
rule in Israel.” That’s all the officials said to Herod, but there’s a much
broader context to the prophecy that needs to be thought about first. I always
tell people that at the very least you should look at what comes right before a
verse and at what comes right after a verse. So let’s look at those. The actual
prophecy cited was Micah 5:2. What do we learn from Micah 5:1, which says: “Now
you are walled around with a wall; siege is laid against us; with a rod they
strike the ruler of Israel upon the cheek.” Micah was a prophet in the 8th
century BC. He prophesied both before and after the exile to Babylon. Verse 1
helps us to put verse 2 into historical context. Jerusalem is apparently now
under siege; the people are suffering (living under a siege by a foreign army
is not easy); and “the ruler of Israel” (probably Hezekiah – who was considered
a good and righteous king) suffers great humiliation at the hands of the
conquerors. This time of disaster is what gave birth to the expectation (or at
least the hope) of a Messiah figure. Then, if you go to the couple of verses
after verse 2, here’s what you read: “whose origin is from of old,
from ancient days.
Therefore he shall give them up
until the time when
she who is in labor has brought forth; then the rest of his kindred shall return
to the people of Israel.
And he shall stand and feed his
flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God.
And they shall live secure, for
now he shall be great to the ends of the earth; and he shall be the one of peace.” So, the Messiah
figure is “from ancient days” and yet there’s also a sense of a birth of some
sort being involved with the coming of Messiah – “when she who is in labour has
brought forth” – a Messiah whose authority would extend beyond Israel “to the
ends of the earth.” So Micah helps to establish some of these expectations
around Messiah that Christians embrace as having been fulfilled in Jesus. And,
in the centre of these expectation is Bethlehem. Bethlehem actually does not
get a lot of attention in the Old Testament. It is, interestingly enough after
having considered the massacre of the baby boys there, the place where Rachel
is said to have died, it’s the place where David’s father Jesse lived, and it’s
the place where David was anointed as king of Israel by Samuel. That’s about
it. By the days of Jesus it was a relatively small and unimportant village.
I’ve seen estimates that during Herod’s reign (when Jesus was born) the
population might have been a little over 100 – which puts Herod’s massacre of
the baby boys into a little bit of context as well: there probably weren’t a
lot of baby boys 2 and under, given the total population. Which doesn’t make
that story any prettier but probably explains why there’s really no mention of
such an event outside the New Testament. In a brutal world, this was a pretty
tiny massacre. It probably explains why Micah refers to Bethlehem as “one of
the little clans of Judah.” Christians have always understood Jesus to have
been humble, and the birth in a stable in Bethlehem has always been a part of
that image. The stable isn’t mentioned by Micah, but Micah certainly portrays
Bethlehem as a humble place. So when you put these three part of the prophecy
all together, you have classic messianic expectation – a people who are
suffering, a figure who arrives with authority from God to set things right,
whose glory eventually spreads to all the earth. We miss a lot of that when we
focus only on Bethlehem as Messiah’s birthplace. There’s much more to Micah
than that.
From
Micah, we move to Isaiah. Isaiah is probably the most beloved of the prophets
for Christians. The three best known prophecies to Christians are probably
found in Isaiah, and two of them are the ones I’m going to discuss tonight. If
Micah started to make a messianic connection with God, then Isaiah brings that
connection to full flower. The divinity of Jesus has always been a
controversial topic, and most certainly a stumbling block in relations between
Christians and Jews. Had Christians simply claimed that Jesus was a prophet it
probably wouldn’t have been an issue between the two faiths. Even if Christians
had simply claimed that Jesus was the Messiah, Jews would obviously have
disagreed, but I don’t think it would have caused the major deterioration in
relations between the two faiths that arose. But the divinity of Jesus is
something that Jews do not and will not accept, and generally speaking Messiah
has been seen to be a human figure – military or political, usually. But these
two prophecies from Isaiah do seem to suggest that the idea of a Messiah who
was the incarnate God is not out of keeping with Jewish prophetic tradition.
The first
passage I asked you to read was Isaiah 7. I asked you to read the entire
chapter for context. To give even a little bit wider context, Chapters 1-39 are
considered 1 Isaiah (believed to have been written prior to the Babylonian
exile) and all of the first 9 chapters are generally summarized as oracles
against Judah – they’re speaking of divine anger at Judah. So, although the
exile hasn’t happened yet, it’s clear that the prophet understands that Judah
had angered God, setting the stage for some messianic content: bad things are
going to happen because of God’s anger, and the people need to be rescued from
it. What you have in this chapter is a 3-way exchange between God, the prophet
Isaiah and King Ahaz of Judah. It’s a complicated exchange, and it’s sometimes
hard to tell if this is good news or bad news being given to Ahaz. What is
clear is that Ahaz feels that Judah is under threat from his enemies. 2 Kings
portrays Ahaz as an evil king, so it’s interesting that in the passage Ahaz
falls back on the premise that one should not put God to the test when he’s
told by God (presumably through Isaiah) to ask for a sign. Ahaz says he won’t
do that - “I will not do so; I will not put the Lord to the test” – but rather
than being commended for being faithful and trusting, God’s response seems to
be one of irritation with Ahaz. The prophecy now says that it’s Isaiah speaking
(it’s important to remember that Isaiah and God are used interchangeably – God
speaks through the prophet; the prophet speaks for God; when either of them
speak it can be presumed that both are speaking.) Isaiah says this after Ahaz
refuses to ask for a sign: “Then Isaiah said: “Hear then, O house of
David! Is it too little for you to weary mortals, that you weary my God also? Therefore
the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child
and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel.” There are two vital points
made here. One is that the child to be born will be “Immanuel” which as we all
should know, means “God With Us.” So this child is to be a divine incarnation
of some sort. There’s no other way to understand the meaning of “Immanuel.” But
the real issue in the passage is “the young woman is with child,” which other
versions of the Bible translate as “the virgin shall be with child.” Because
this is prophetic, whether it’s present tense or future tense isn’t all that
significant. It’s a divine promise. But is it “young woman” or is it ”virgin”?
The Hebrew word is “al-ma.” “Al-ma” is kind of a general word. It isn’t used
very often in the Old Testament and several of the times it’s used (in 1
Chronicles and Psalms) it seems to be used as some sort of musical direction.
Applied to women, it does, in fact, mean “young woman” although it can also be
used to refer to a virgin, who would usually also be a young woman in that
culture. So, why translate it as “virgin” – for which there’s a far more
specific Hebrew word that could have been used (be-kulah.) It’s because of the
Septuagint. The Septuagint was a translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into
Greek about 200 years before Jesus was born. It was translated by Jewish
scholars, and when they translated this verse they chose the Greek word
“parthena” as the equivalent for “al-ma.” “Parthena” means specifically
“virgin.” That suggests that the expectation even before Christ was born in the
Jewish community was for a miraculous virgin birth. There’s also the insistence
of the passage that this birth would be “a sign.” Well, a sign is only
meaningful if it points to something. A young woman giving birth isn’t a sign –
it happens fairly regularly. How could such a birth be meaningful? But a virgin
giving birth – that would be a sign! That would be a miracle. The translation
of “al-ma” can be debated, but I think it’s clear that the verse makes more
sense if “al-ma” is translated as “virgin.” To reject the virgin birth,
therefore, can’t really be done through linguistics; you’d have to fall back on
science – a virgin birth is biologically impossible. But then you have to limit
God, by saying that God can’t do things that are impossible for humans. I think
the combination of “al-ma” with “Immanuel” in the same passage, along with the
Jewish witness of the Septuagint, clearly supports the use of “virgin.” To me,
it’s the only thing that helps the verse make sense. God himself is involved
with the conception and birth of this child, who will be God incarnate.
Then we
move to the final passage I asked you to read for this week : Isaiah 9:2-7.
There’s a promise here to “those who were in anguish.” A light will appear. The
oracles against Judah end with Chapter 9. This light restores the people, and
brings peace to them: “For all the boots of the tramping warriors and all the
garments rolled in blood shall be burned as fuel for the fire.” And how (or through whom) is this
to be done? “For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of
Peace.” Is this child linked to the child whose birth was spoken of in Chapter
7? It’s hard to say, but it’s difficult not to make a connection between the
two parts of the prophecy. And in this case, the presence of God in the child
is made abundantly clear – he is to be, among other things, both “Mighty God
[and] Everlasting Father.” Some have suggested that “Mighty God” should
actually be translated (or at least understood) as something like a “god-like
hero” but that’s simply an attempt to get away from the clear implication of
the verse. It’s actually quite fascinating that none of the New Testament
authors cited these words in defence of their obvious conviction not only that
Jesus was the Messiah but that Jesus was also God Incarnate, but even without
the witness of the New Testament, these words demonstrate that the Old
Testament does seem to look forward to a divine Messiah rather than a simply
human Messiah. So even if the New Testament doesn’t bear witness to Isaiah 9:6,
it’s completely understandable that Christians can see a justification for the
divine nature of the Messiah here. And Isaiah makes clear that this child’s
reign will be eternal: “He will reign on David’s throne
and over his kingdom,
establishing and upholding it
with justice and
righteousness from
that time on and forever.” So Messiah will establish an
eternal Kingdom that will extend over all the earth, rather than simply a
temporal kingdom that will reign over Israel. That lends itself to the
Christian understanding of Jesus as Incarnate God who comes to establish God’s
reign over all the earth, rather than as merely the Son of David who comes to
re-establish David’s reign over Israel.
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