This week's Bible Study - December 6, 2009

Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus

Background Scripture: Micah 5:1-5, 7:18-20

Quote of the Week:
I stopped believing in Santa Claus when my mother took me to see him in a department store, and he asked for my autograph.
-- Shirley Temple

The next few lessons take a look at what is behind some of the Christmas music that we hear and so often take for granted. Music truly stirs the soul. It doesn't matter if it is at a concert, in your car as you drive, in your house as you go about your day or in your ears as you listen to an iPod or some other music device. Without music, movies would seem very long and tedious - the background music adds to the story. We've come to expect music as we shop. It always seems to lift the moods of people. Music can also be a motivator. Many athletes will listen to music as they prepare for a game. Music can be very uplifting when we are down. Just like a certain smell make trigger a memory from your past, music can remind us of a time past, whether good or bad. Music can be used to lift your soul or to help you endure in the middle of life's difficulties.

There is a lot to enjoy about music, but there is a lot we miss about music as well. We often hear the sound of the music, but we can easily misconstrue the words and the meaning of songs. Surely you can remember times when you were younger and you would be singing along with the radio, not really knowing what the words were that you were singing or what they meant. This may continue for years until one day, you realize that you were singing the wrong words all along. Unfortunately, your words often make more sense than the original words to the songs. And, then there are songs that we may have heard over and over, yet we don't remember the words. When my father passed away, we had a graveside service. The well meaning pastor said a few words and then decided we would sing the first four stanzas of Amazing Grace accapella. Some of the people had been in church often; others had not been in church for years. All of us struggled to mumble the words as we sang. It made me think of this Mr Bean episode, where he was singing in church.

This mixup of words and the intended meaning often holds true in Christmas music as well. There are different types of Christmas music - some that has more closely aligned to the secular Christmas - Santa Claus, Rudolph, Chestnuts, etc. And, then there is the Christmas music that is all about the real meaning of Christmas. Even in those songs, we find that we forget the words. My mom has a game with mixed up words that gave clues to well known Christmas Carols. I found that it took a while for me to get my mind back into the music of Christmas, although I've already seen plenty of Christmas decorations and have heard Christmas music in stores.

( Micah 5:1-5 )

However, in the Old Testament there were prophecies that continued to show God's intention to redeem mankind. There were many prophecies regarding the Messiah that were written hundreds of years prior to the birth of Christ. This is one of the key elements to validity of Scripture. No other holy book contains prophecies, and the overwhelming number of fulfilled Old Testament prophecies is a testament to the truthfulness of God's word. One of the key prophecies regarding the birth of the Messiah is found in this Micah 5 passage.

Many of the prophecies in the Old Testament spoke to the fact that the Israelites would be taken into exile and humbled by foreign powers. The Israelites had turned away from God and they were to suffer the consequences. Micah wrote of how a siege was coming against Israel; and Israel's rulers and judges would be insulted. However, Micah continued to write about Bethlehem, though small among the clans of Judah, from whom would come the one who would be ruler over Israel and whose origins are from old, from ancient times. This is the passage that was quoted by Herod's chief priests and wise men when they were asked about the birth of the Messiah, in Matthew 2. They knew the answer, but they didn't receive the message that was intended. Although Bethlehem was the hometown of David, the greatest king of Israel, it was never great or influential.

Micah said that Israel would be abandoned until the fulfillment of this prophecy. The Lord was going to seem distant from the time of this prophecy until the time of its fulfillment. When the prophecy was fulfilled, the Messiah, Jesus, would stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord. Note that Micah refers to the flock as 'his' flock. Jesus would shepherd them, so that they would live securely. He would do more than bring peace, but he would be their peace. The same holds true today - we have much more than a leader that brings peace in our time, but we have a Savior that brings peace in our lives.

( Micah 7:18-20 )

The passage goes on to say that God will again have compassion on them, and will tread their sins underfoot and hurl all their iniquities into the depths of the sea. Again, this shows a God that cares for and has compassion on his people. Although they rise in protest against God at times, he will tread their sins underfoot and do away with their iniquities. In Psalm 103:12, it is written that God has removed our rebellious acts from himself - as far as the east is from the west. If you start going east, you will never end up going west. However, if you start going north, you will eventually go south, then north again. God doesn't revisit sin. We tend to revisit sin - when others have wronged us and often when we have wronged others. God puts all that behind him.

God was going to be true to Jacob, and show mercy to Abraham, as he had pledged on oath to the fathers of the Israelites in days long ago. From the onset, God had a plan and that plan involved the redemptive work of Jesus Christ. It took generations for humans to come to understand that they could not adhere to God's standards on their own. People today still try and live up to a set of standards, but their standards are of their own choosing. God's plan involved Jesus and it was the looking forward to his coming that gave the Israelites hope. In our lives, as believers, we look back to salvation that was brought to us by Jesus Christ.

Closing

The readers of Micah looked forward to the coming of Christ. They were going to be in the midst of many hardships and I feel sure that they were going to feel that God had turned his back on them. However, this was all part of God's redemptive plan. The words of the hymn, Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus may not be well known to many people today, but the message is very clear. It was written by Charles Wesley in the 1700s. The words, as powerful today as they were back then are as follows: