Prophet

Micah 5:2-5a; Jeremiah 33:14-16

December 3, 2006

With today’s fast-paced lifestyle, sometimes we are not very patient people: "It’s coming..." / "So is Christmas".
Well, it’s Dec 3, and Christmas is coming!

I am really looking forward to Christmas. I saw the first Christmas items in the store this year back in October. That was a little too early. But now, I am really looking forward to it. I mean, I get excited every year, but this year, it’s Jason’s first Christmas, and I can’t wait.

In the O.T., God had an anxious anticipation for Christmas to come as well.  In fact, throughout the OT He sprinkles prophecies of the coming Messiah.
We are used to looking in the gospel accounts for Jesus’ birth and the surrounding events that took place.  But in our text, the O.T. prophet Micah gives us a glimpse into God’s plan of salvation long before the babe is born in a Bethlehem manger.

You may not be familiar with Micah, but he was a contemporary of the prophet Isaiah.  Unlike Isaiah, Micah was only prophet sent to both N & S Kingdoms.
Where Isaiah was a court preacher, Micah just a simple country preacher.

You don’t generally hear a whole lot about him.

However, when the Magi went to Herod seeking "The one born King of the Jews", Herod demanded to know the location. The chief priests and scribes quoted Micah 5:2 as a reference and Herod sent troops to Bethlehem to kill all the male children two years old and under.
So Micah, even though he lived some 700 years before the event, figures prominently in the birth narrative of baby Jesus.

Micah also gives us a reference to baby Jesus as being part of the eternal Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Referring to the Messiah, he says "His goings forth were of old, from ancient times" or “from days of eternity.”
In other words, Christ is eternal with God the Father from the beginning of time.  

Christ was before all things:
John chapter 1: In the beginning was the Word…And he was with God in the beginning...and the Word was made flesh.

Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God who chose to lay aside his glory until his redemptive work here for us was completed. 

So you see, Jesus, who fulfilled Micah’s prophecy as Bethlehem ’s most famous baby, is the eternal Son of God—the One who was, who is, and who is yet to come.

And that is why the prophecy of Micah and the other OT prophets are forward-looking to the arrival of the Messiah. 

When we celebrate Christmas, we celebrate the fulfillment of the prophecy of Micah, Jeremiah, and others.

So the first part of the prophecy has been fulfilled, the Messiah has been born in Bethlehem .  He lived and died as an atonement for our sins so that we could have a place in heaven.  However, like Micah and the others, we live in a time of waiting for the last part of the prophecy to be fulfilled:  we await Christ’s return to this earth and for His kingdom to fill all the earth.

Do we fail to appreciate this aspect of Christmas, the prophetic nature of it?
I mean, certainly, we can look back to that first Christmas and we can read the Christmas accounts in the Gospels regarding Jesus’ birth.

And in retrospect we can certainly see how the baby Jesus was God’s Messiah.

But do we ever look forward to Christmas like the prophets could in the OT times, waiting not only for the baby to be born, but for the return of the Lord?

Maybe it’s because we don’t have modern connection with prophecy like they did.
Really, who are our prophets today? Miss Cleo? Jeanne Dixon? Johnathan Edwards from the show Crossing Over?

Or maybe it’s because we’re just too familiar with the Christmas story.
I mean, let’s face it: although Christmas comes but once a year, it comes EVERY year!  That could perhaps explain the commercialization of Christmas—we need something to keep it exciting, something to await with eager anticipation.

Even the prophet Jeremiah sees the need to get people get excited, and so gives them the news that “The days are surely coming”.
One thing about prophets, though.  When they give you news, it’s usually of the Good news/bad news sort.

It’s like the story of a manufacturer of shoes who sent two salespersons to a far-away land. Shortly after their arrival, he received an e-mail from each salesperson. One pleaded: “Get me out of here—no one wears shoes!” The other requested: “Send me more inventory—everyone here needs shoes!”

The cover of your bulletin depicts another prophet—Moses.  Even for Moses, the good news was that God led the people from captivity to the Egyptians; the bad news was that they were marching through the wilderness, tired and hungry, unsure if God would really deliver them to freedom.

Well, the bad news of Micah’s prophecy is that Israel will be conquered and thrown into Babylonian captivity; the good news, however, is that a new King would rule over Israel and “the rest of his brothers” who join the Israelites to worship him.  The people would be delivered to freedom, and this King would shepherd over them and will be their peace.

Approximately 100 years transpired from Micah’s initial prophecy, and the bad news had come to pass: they were in Babylonian captivity.  This was bad news, especially if you were living through it like Jeremiah was.

And yet, Jeremiah remains faithful to God and proclaims his oracle of hope in spite of the immediate situation of hopelessness. The days are surely coming, Jeremiah prophesies, when the Messiah-King shall come to rule with justice and righteousness.

Hope, scripture tells us, is the evidence of things not seen, that is, of the fulfillment of God’s promise to us.

Now, we all know that at times it is difficult for people to live on mere hope. And yet, where there’s life there’s hope; and where there’s hope there’s life.

Several years ago, Desmond Tutu, bishop of South Africa wrote a book called Hope And Suffering. It was a very fitting title, and true to life in his country at the time. When people were dragged down by the apartheid regime, Bishop Tutu and other Christian leaders were proclaiming oracles of hope.

“Life in South Africa would change, the days are surely coming—don’t lose hope, don’t give up on life,” he said.  Bishop Tutu himself lived that message of hope and inspired hundreds of thousands in his native country to do the same. And, lo and behold, that hope, in the midst of suffering, gave birth to new life: the apartheid regime came to an end, and a multicultural, multiracial nation, united to live and work for peace and justice, forgiveness and love, for all South Africans.

As hope lives in the face of despair for nations, so too does our Hope live in the face of our personal trials and struggles.  It is the hope we find in Jesus Christ, the One who was, who is, and who shall come again, just as the prophets said.

That is why the writer of Hebrews says, “In the past God spoke to our foregathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe.  The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.”

(Heb. 1:1-3a)

God’s gift to you today, then, is a prophecy of hope and redemption found in Jesus Christ, the baby in the manger who is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. 

May that gift sustain us today, as we come to his table to share in his sacrifice for us, and as we look forward to God’s prophecy that Christ shall return.