C, Fourth Sunday of Advent - Micah 5:2-5a "Micah's Shepherd Prophecy"

In the days of the split kingdom, Micah was tasked to tell Israel and Judah of their impending destruction.  Both kingdoms had become conceited and presumptuous in their existence, bending God’s Word to suit their disobedient desires and pleasures, refusing to repent, not listening to those God tasked with the call to heed his Word and change their ways.

And why should they listen to Micah?  He was a man from Moresheth, near the former fields of the Philistines.  His imagery speaks of a remnant of the mighty Israel, shepherded again from Bethlehem by a new king who will lead in the strength of the Lord.  This new leader will come after the annihilation of Jerusalem and Samaria.

Although the book of Micah is just seven chapters, we are told the Word of the Lord came to him during the reign of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, before the Samarians were exiled to Assyria and the Judeans were exiled to Babylon.

Israel and Syria joined forces to attack Judah when Ahaz was king.  Before and after him his father Jotham and Hezekiah his son did what was right in God’s sight.  But Ahaz did not, he appealed to the king of Assyria who attacked and conquered Syria.  After this, Ahaz, king of Judah, went to meet the Assyrian king in Damascus, the capital of Syria, he had just won.  While meeting there with the Assyrian King, Ahaz saw the altar used in Damascus and ordered a replica be used in the Jerusalem temple instead of the bronze altar God had consecrated.

To this and other similar behaviours, God says through Micah, “Hear, you peoples, all of you; pay attention, O earth, and all that is in it, and let the Lord God be a witness against you, the Lord from his holy temple. For behold, the Lord is coming out of his place, and will come down and tread upon the high places of the earth. And the mountains will melt under him, and the valleys will split open, like wax before the fire, like waters poured down a steep place. All this is for the transgression of Jacob and for the sins of the house of Israel. What is the transgression of Jacob? Is it not Samaria? And what is the high place of Judah? Is it not Jerusalem?” (Micah 1:2–5 ESV)

God’s justice was not only to descend upon the kings, priests, and prophets of Judah and Samaria, but on all from the greatest to the least.  Therefore, judgement fell on Israel not long after, when Assyria took Israel into exile.

However, Hezekiah, the son of Ahaz did what was right and restored Judah and Jerusalem back under the Law of God and God blessed him.  Yet even so, when Hezekiah was ill, envoys from Babylon came to him, and he showed them the treasuries and storehouses of Judah to which the prophet Isaiah prophesied…

“Behold, the days are coming, when all that is in your house, and that which your fathers have stored up till this day, shall be carried to Babylon. Nothing shall be left, says the Lord. And some of your own sons, who will come from you, whom you will father, shall be taken away, and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.” (2 Kings 20:17–18 ESV)

A reprieve occurred for Judah in the face of their Israelite brothers being exiled to Assyria, and Judah under Hezekiah heeded God’s Word spoken through prophets, such as Isaiah and Micah.

When Hezekiah died, his son Manasseh rebuilt the high places that God, foretold of their destruction through Micah, and were physically demolished by King Hezekiah.  Now, this renewed disobedience set Judah up for exile too.  Bringing to fulfilment what Micah and Isaiah had forecast. 

God then stopped speaking to Israel for four hundred years, fulfilling the silence prophesied by Amos, “Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord God, “when I will send a famine on the land— not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord. They shall wander from sea to sea, and from north to east; they shall run to and fro, to seek the word of the Lord, but they shall not find it.”  (Amos 8:11–12 ESV)

God had handed them over to themselves, and it didn’t go well for them.  The land of milk and honey they were given, became desolate.  Those prophets whom they loathed for speaking the Word of God, disappeared.  God left them to themselves even after they returned from exile.  Even more so, the Jewish priests had become use to worshipping their own way without God.  They were smug in their desires and embroiled in political scheming.  Now under the rule of the Romans their way had become so wicked, they bowed to Herod the Great who began building the second temple in Jerusalem in 20 B.C.

Then this happened…  

Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem,  saying, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”  When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him;  and assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born.  They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet:  “ ‘And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.’ ” (Matthew 2:1–6 ESV)

Forced back into the Word of God, Herod and the Jews discovered the prophet Micah and his prophesy from chapter 5:2-5a. 

But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days. Therefore he shall give them up until the time when she who is in labour has given birth; then the rest of his brothers shall return to the people of Israel. And he shall stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God. And they shall dwell secure, for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth. And he shall be their peace. (Micah 5:2–5a ESV)

Now that Jesus has been born in Bethlehem, he shepherds his people.  He does this with his Word of Law and Gospel.  We are God’s people now that Jesus has redeemed us through his death and resurrection.  Yet like the Jews and the Israelites, we seek to go the way of the world around us, just as the Jews did and were caught napping at Jesus’ first coming.

He is coming again, yet many even within the church have turned from “the whole council of God’s Word”.  Leaders in the church, proclaim messages of hope, peace, and love, without addressing sin and calling people to repentance.  We have become fixated on our feelings of happiness without allowing the Holy Spirit to finish us in the joy of God’s holiness.  The second coming of Christ is set to catch out many, just as it did the first time.

If God can destroy the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, his very own chosen people, for not adhering to the work of the Law, what will he do to those who call themselves Christian and do not abide in Jesus’ work of the Gospel?  Who grieve the Holy Spirit by not allowing the Spirit to bring them to salvation humility in the Gospel through the humiliation and mortification of the human spirit in the Law.

Although Jesus came as the Shepherd, he came to be the Lamb of God. Like a shepherd who leads his sheep through the gate, in all humility he entered the gates of death as the sacrificial lamb. 

Are you allowing him to humbly shepherd you through death to life eternal?  Are you being shepherded into the holiness of God’s new heaven and earth in which righteousness dwells?  

Or are you shepherding your own righteousness, like those whom God allowed to be humiliated and perish in their sinful refusal to repent at Jesus’ first coming?

The church is proving itself to be no different to the Jews when Christ came the first time.  The way is wide that leads to destruction, even for God’s people when they choose not to hear his Word.  It’s tragic how so much of the mantra coming from our “human high places” proclaims a love that has nothing to do with being prepared by the Holy Spirit for the holiness of God, through the love of Jesus at the cross.  Like the Jews in Jesus first coming, don’t be turned in on yourself, using God and his Word to worship yourself!  Pick up God’s Word, hear and heed the warnings of the Apostles at the end of the New Testament!  Don’t be like the Jews who killed the prophets and were surprised by what was written in the prophets of the Old Testament when Jesus was born!

However, allow the Holy Spirit to humiliate the heights of human haughtiness within you.  To crush the arrogant altars and idiotic idols within.  Allow the Spirit to work you, so you heed the call of Moses, Micah and the prophets, Jesus the Good Shepherd himself, and the Apostles, to be led in humility, just as Jesus Christ was at his first coming. 

The Shepherd now seeks to shepherd you in the strength of the Lord, as members of his holy remnant, so you’re not surprised by his second coming.  

Come Lord Jesus Come! Amen.

C, Advent 4 - Hebrews 10:5-7,10 "God's Mighty Arms"

Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, “Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body have you prepared for me; in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure.  Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come to do your will, O God, as it is written of me in the scroll of the book.’”   And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.  (Hebrews 10:5–7,10 ESV)

These are the strengths of God in our lives: For Jesus to save us, and the Holy Spirit to help us!

From his mighty arms he gives us all we need in this life.  Salvation and sanctification are two arms of love outstretched toward us, from the Father of light, through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.  For God to save us and make us holy, is his will for all people on earth.  God’s will is your forgiveness of sin, and his will is for you to believe you are forgiven.

Not only is salvation through Jesus and being made holy by the Holy Spirit, God’s strength in our lives; it also pleases God when we take every opportunity to immerse ourselves in his salvation and holiness. 

When we do this, it’s a “win win” situation for us.  When one is immersed in salvation and holiness, God the Father is justified in his power and plan, and we are forgiven.  This forgiveness comes through the incarnation, life, death, resurrection and ascension of his Son, Jesus Christ.  And the Holy Spirit continues bringing forgiveness, first at Pentecost, then through the Word of God and through baptism into Jesus’ death and resurrection and through his body and blood in the bread and wine.

When we pray in the Lord’s Prayer, “your will be done”, it pleases God no end, to hinder and defeat every evil scheme and purpose of the world, the devil, and the old Adam within us.  In fact, when God’s will is done in heaven, he forgives us, sin is conquered by Jesus in his death and resurrection. He has victoriously ascended to the right hand of God the Father, finishing our separation from our Father in heaven.  Jesus now stands as the embodiment of the resurrection as the first born from the dead for all people who trust in him.  This includes you and me!

Although God’s will is done in heaven by God forgiving us our sin, and the devil has been conquered and thrown out of God’s presence, the devil still has limited power on earth.  And because of this, God’s will continues to be done on earth.

This makes earth the testing ground for humanity, where within each of us the battle rages between the will of God and the will of fallen humanity.  With his plan and power of salvation and holiness, God seeks to work forgiveness and good will as we live together.  Yet, the old Adam within each of us struggles to dominate with its knowledge of good and evil, driven by the devil.  And the devil is delirious and riddled with rage because he knows he is judged and is heading for eternal destruction with limited time left to deceive the world.

However, the contest between the devil and God is unbalanced.  God is not going to lose.  He is going to win, and it pleases him when we choose to remain with him.  It’s no wonder evil causes so much fury within those who desire to be in control and do not want to be delivered from evil by God into eternal holiness.

Not only is the devil on the losing side and is limited for a brief time in the restricted realm of creation amongst humanity, but he can only be in one place at one time.  On the other hand, God is omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent.  This means God is present everywhere, he knows all things and he is all-powerful.  And the devil is not, nor is humanity, nor is the old Adam within each of us.

Furthermore, this evil axis of the devil, the world, and our sinful self, is up against the three-fold divinity of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.  The Trinity is all-powerful, all-knowing, and present everywhere in creation and outside of it.

Since God’s will is done in heaven, we know it is done on earth.  Jesus is at the right hand of the Father doing his work of interceding on behalf of you and me.  The Holy Spirit is at the left hand of the Father being our help, giving us the words to pray and leading us into knowledge of our sin and salvation in God’s Word.  The Holy Spirit also brings us into fellowship with the Father through Jesus Christ and with each other.

The good news for you and me is that the Triune God embraces all who trust in him with the steadfast love of salvation, intercession, and holy help.  And this pleases God when we allow him to love us with his Trinitarian holy hug.

Mary says of God, “for he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name.  And his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.  He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts; he has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate; he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty.  He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy.” (Luke 1:49–54 ESV)

Mary declares God’s love as an embrace of mercy.  Mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation… in remembrance of his mercy.  In his mercy, he helps, fills, and exalts those who look to him.  But dismisses those who won’t receive his mercy, but rather, trust in their thoughts, thrones, and treasures.

But, our thoughts, our thrones, and our treasures all come from God in the first place!  It doesn’t please God when we trust in them instead of him.  Nor does it please him if we give him what he first gave us as a sacrifice for our salvation. 

Both trusting, in what God has given us, and, giving it back to him, is a feeble attempt to justify the human spirit, the old Adam within or the collective spirituality of worldly humanity.  And it’s a deception of the devil seeking to have us believe we can deliver ourselves out of evil into the holiness of God by doing such things!

But God has a Mighty Righthand Man praying for us.  Jesus Christ is the almighty power of God’s right hand!  God has fought and won the battle with the strength of Jesus’ love, faithfulness, and submission unto death.  And even despite God giving the knockout punch to sin and death in Christ Jesus, the Holy Spirit also proceeds from the Father and the Son to help us, and deal with the human spirit with which the old Adam seeks to control and deliver us into self-destruction and death.

God’s will for you is to give you life, today and into eternity!  Psalm 80 testifies to God’s righthand man, the son of man, Jesus Christ, who is made strong for God’s good pleasure, for our salvation, and for goodwill amongst humanity. 

Yet, in our existence it might not always be apparent that God’s will for you is to give you life.  In fact, most of the time it appears God has delivered us over to death and decay.  

Similarly, when you look at Jesus’ ordinary entrance into the world, his life of struggle and opposition received, it looks like Jesus was not God’s righthand man.  That God had left him to die and decay also. 

Still, as Jesus stared death in the face, as the cross and crucifixion awaited him, he was faithful and steadfast towards God’s will, which is your forgiveness.

You too are called to faithfulness and steadfastness, despite what might appear as if you have been left for dead.  But just as Jesus was raised, you too are called to see your resurrection in Jesus’ resurrection.  It pleases God when you see and hear his plan for your salvation fulfilled in Jesus’ death and resurrection.

For God to give you life, he needs to show you darkness, destruction, and death within yourself, so you might willingly receive his restoration and let his face shine on your darkness so you might be saved. 

Hear Psalm 80… But let your hand be on the man of your right hand, the son of man whom you have made strong for yourself!  Then we shall not turn back from you; give us life, and we will call upon your name!  Restore us, O LORD God of hosts!  Let your face shine, that we may be saved!  (Psalm 80:17–19 ESV)

Jesus now shepherds you in his forgiveness.  His face shines on you in his good pleasure.  But it also shines in the darkness to show the way of peace.  Jesus, together with the Father, sends the Holy Spirit to guide you and help you remain within his boundaries and to live, the life he won for you, in peace. 

God promises Jesus will shepherd you in his church.  The prophet Micah declares on God’s behalf, “And he shall stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the LORD, in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God.  And they shall dwell secure, for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth.  And he shall be their peace.” (Micah 5:4–5a ESV)

In God’s mighty arms there is peace and love, to the ends of the earth.  Amen.

C, Advent 4 /Christmas Day 2012 – Micah 5:2, Luke 2:4-7 “Fruitful Bread”

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And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn. (Luke 2:4–7 ESV)

The name Bethlehem in Hebrew means, house of bread. Around the town were grain fields and sheep grazing country. Bethlehem is also referred to in the Old Testament as Ephrathah, which in Hebrew means, to bear fruit. Bethlehem or Ephrathah was a place associated with food and fruitfulness. It seems to focus on life being created but it hasn't always been that way.

We all know the Christmas gospel — baby Jesus born at Bethlehem. But Bethlehem appears in a number of places in bible. Let's look at them to give us a fuller picture of what happened at Bethlehem because of us and for us.

The first mention of the town is in Genesis, and it's a sad occasion. Rachel was the wife of Jacob, and the mother of Joseph. She had trouble conceiving and bearing children and as the family moved towards Bethlehem, or Ephrathah, Rachel went into labour with her second son. She gave birth to him and on her death bed named him Ben-Oni, which means, son of my sorrow. But Jacob renamed him Benjamin, which means, son of my right hand. And then he buried his much loved wife, Rachel, in a grave at Bethlehem.

So here in Genesis we have a prototype or preview of the gospel at Bethlehem. Jesus was the son of Mary's sorrow because of her birth pains and his death on the cross, and like Benjamin, Jesus is the Son who now sits at the right hand of his Father.

Then in Judges chapter seventeen, a cloud is cast over Bethlehem, as it becomes the location from where an idolatrous Levite came as priest to serve a man called Micah in Ephraim. This is not the prophet Micah who spoke out against idolatry, but rather he and the Levite became the fathers of idolatry in the tribe of Dan after the tribe overran Micah's house and carted off his idols and the Levite priest.

And from events starting in the Bethlehem, in Judges nineteen, unfaithfulness, rape, murder, bodily mutilation, war and near genocide took place between Benjamin, a tribe of Israel, and Israel's other tribes.

This all came about when a concubine left her husband and returned to her home at Bethlehem. On fetching his concubine and travelling through the Benjamin countryside, he stayed in Gibeah and when his life was threatened, he gave his concubine to the wicked men of the city and they raped her and left her for dead. Her master cut her into pieces and sent her body to the far corners of Israel. So distraught at what had happened to the concubine, Israel fought against the city and their brother tribe of Benjamin, and nearly destroyed it forever.

As we can see, Bethlehem was anything but fruitful or a house of wholesome food in these times. Rather, from the events of this town, we see very clearly the sin that permeated the Israelites; sin that commits humanity to death; sin that shows our need for a Saviour.

This fruitlessness continues at the beginning of the book of Ruth. Naomi and her husband, Elimelech, fall on hard times as they battle drought at Bethlehem, so they move to Moab with their two sons. After moving, Elimelech dies and the sons marry two Moabite women, Orpah and Ruth. Eventually the two sons die as well, leaving the three women widowed. Orpah returns to her family in Moab, but Ruth stays with Naomi, who returns to Bethlehem just in time for the barley harvest.

On returning to Bethlehem, Naomi requests she be called Mara, which in Hebrew means, bitter. Naomi in Hebrew means, pleasant or beauty. She told them she had left for Moab full, but the Lord had brought her back empty. One could understand why she might have felt this way, with no welfare system and having lost all the men in her life, Naomi's future looked more bitter than pleasant.

But the Lord had not left Naomi and Ruth bare and bitter in Bethlehem. Her husband — whose name Elimelech, incidentally means, my God is king — had relatives at Bethlehem. And the Jewish custom was for the family of the dead husband to support the widow and children with a kinsman-redeemer. Boaz was the redeemer and eventually married Ruth and looked after Naomi. Therefore, Ruth remained faithful to her mother-in-law and found favour with Boaz, a relative of her father-in-law, and continued the line of Elimelech. It is no accident that Boaz and Ruth are the great-grandparents of King David.

As we all know, David was a shepherd who came from Bethlehem. God laid his hands on David through Samuel and also made him shepherd and king of Israel. There were numerous times in David's kingship that he looked to God as his "Elimelech" — his God as King. We can see, despite the horrors and bitterness surrounding Bethlehem, God was making the town, Ephrathah, fruitful!

Therefore, it is no accident Jesus Christ, humanity's Kinsman Redeemer, was born in Bethlehem. Just as the human spirit of Elimelech lived on through Boaz and Ruth in King David; our God — the King of Creation — was conceived in Mary, lived on earth, and was raised to life through the Holy Spirit, in the person of Jesus Christ, beginning at Bethlehem. It comes as no surprise to us that God fulfilled his promises made through the prophets, such as the prophet Micah…

"But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days." (Micah 5:2 ESV)

When Jesus was born and laid in the manger; he was born to lie in the darkness of death for you and me. Bethlehem has much to do with us. We are weak; our lives without a Redeemer, God, and King, would be bitter; much more bitter than Naomi and Ruth's life without a kinsman-redeemer.

In fact you are this Bethlehem; you are God's fruitful house of bread! You may see your life as less than ordinary, not extraordinary in the least. But God does. He has laid his Son in you, in the manger of your heart. Right in the place where out of the human heart come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness. (Mark 7:21–22 ESV)

Bethlehem dished up some horrendous daily bread for those who lived there. And at other times it would have seemed just an ordinary boring town amongst the flocks of sheep and fields of wheat. So too you may feel nothing special, or in times of strife in your life, your daily bread may make it seem that God is nowhere to be found.

But surely if our Father in heaven would lay his son in such a place to suffer and die, and then raise him to his right hand! Then wouldn't he also bear his eternal fruit in us having laid his Son is us? You are Ephrathah Bethlehem, smallest of the small, but within lives he who is not only ruler of Israel, but Lord of creation! The single most fruitful bread and our only daily bread that will sustain you forever! Amen.