Rev. Jeffrey T.
Howard
Pitts Creek and
Beaver Dam Churches
Sermon
- Micah
5: 2-5 – Live Secure
Christmas 1
December
30,
2012
We
are now in the season of Christmas. We are putting away presents,
sending thank you notes, and taking down the tree. But for many of
the Christians in the world the festivities are just starting. In
the Christian calendar Christmas starts on December 25th
and lasts for twelve days culminating with the giving of gifts on the
eve of the Feast of Epiphany on January 6. And if a popular song
from the 18th
Century is any guide today, the sixth day of Christmas is the time
when your true love will give to you six geese a-laying and so on.
This is a glorious and joyful time. And we need to thank God for
all the blessings we have received. But not everyone is having a
joyful time. Not everyone is feeling blessed right now. There are
real problems in the world. So we need a savior as much as ever.
And since we have already heard from Jeremiah, Malachi, Zephaniah,
and Isaiah we rejoice because we know a savior is coming. Let us
pray.
“Grant
unto us, O Lord, to be occupied in the mysteries of thy heavenly
wisdom, with true progress in piety, to thy glory and our own
edification. Amen.” (John Calvin)
Sometime in the
last decade of the first century before Christ a group of astronomers
arrived in Jerusalem. They had seen something in the heavens that
indicated that a new king of the Jews had been born. They assumed
that this would be a political king so they went to the king's palace
for a meeting with King Herod. They knew when the messiah would be
born from the stars. But they didn't know where this would take
place. King Herod wanted to know where this was happening so he
directed his own scholars to search the ancient records to see if
this location could be determined.
The most learned
men of Judah began searching the ancient scrolls. Nowhere in
Jeremiah, Malachi, Zephaniah or even Isaiah was the information they
sought to be found. So they went to an old scroll of one of the
prophets from 800 years before, the scroll of the prophet Micah. And
what they read there must have terrified them.
As
they read the scroll they must have realized the Judah in the 8th
century before Christ was experiencing a disaster. The coalition
which had allowed the kingdoms of Syria, Israel and Judah to prosper
had fallen apart. And the Assyrians were taking full advantage of
the situation. Damascus fell to the Assyrian army as did Samaria.
And Jerusalem was next. The Assyrian army destroyed farms and
fortified cities in the Judean country side. The only reason
Jerusalem was spared destruction was that King Ahaz of Judah payed a
large tribute to the King of Assyria.
The effect of all
this was a disaster. With the farms destroyed there was no harvest
that year. There was no food for the people to eat at the very
moment that a large number of refugees were pouring in from the
north. People were hungry. Starvation was right around the corner.
In this desperate condition what could they do? They needed God to
do something. They needed a savior.
It was at this time
that God sent a message to a prophet in a most unlikely place. His
name was Micah and he lived in a rural farming village in the
southwest corner of the country. He brought this message from God to
Jerusalem. But when he arrived in the capitol he was shocked by what
he saw. Government officials were taking bribes. Priest demanded
money for performing sacrifices. Even prophets would say whatever
you wanted to hear for a price. Micah saw that people were
foreclosing on mortgages on family farms throwing people out of their
ancestral homes. Greed was their god. No one in Jerusalem was
caring for the poor and the needy. No one in Jerusalem was caring
for the widow, the orphan or the homeless. And so Micah realized
that God could not use Jerusalem to save his people from starvation.
A new leader, a savior, was needed to feed the people of Judah like a
shepherd feeds his flock. But where would this savior come from?
Jerusalem was the
political capitol of the nation, but Bethlehem was its bread basket.
Bethlehem literally means “House of Bread”. The area around
Bethlehem was a rich agricultural region that could feed the nation.
So a farmer, a shepherd like David, from Bethlehem was needed to feed
the hungry people of Judah. God put it this way speaking through
the mouth of the prophet Micah.
2
"But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the
clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler
over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times."
3
Therefore Israel will be abandoned until the time when she who is in
labor gives birth and the rest of his brothers return to join the
Israelites. 4
He will stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the LORD, in
the majesty of the name of the LORD his God. And they will live
securely, for then his greatness will reach to the ends of the earth.
5
And he will be their peace.
The first century
scholars in Jerusalem read all of this in the ancient scroll. They
realized that the messiah, the Christ, the anointed one the magi were
looking for had come to Bethlehem. God had sent a new king not to
Jerusalem where David reigned, but to Bethlehem where David was a
shepherd. The messiah would not be a political and military ruler.
Rather he would be a shepherd who would feed his people.
This was not good
new to King Herod. He conspired to destroy the messiah by killing
all the boys in Bethlehem two years and younger. But God had
something else in mind. He sent the magi to Bethlehem with gifts for
Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus. These gifts of gold, frankincense
and myrrh where just what the family needed to flee Judah into Egypt
as refuges fleeing the wrath of Herod. God had provided this young
family with the money they needed to buy food and survive in a
foreign country.
And so the prophecy
of Micah has been fulfilled. Our savior has come to Bethlehem. This
savior is not a military and political ruler like David the King.
Instead he is like David the Shepherd tending his flock, making sure
they are fed. And this is good news for us because we have a savior
who cares for us. He is our good shepherd. The Psalmist put it
this way.
Psalm
23:1-6
The LORD is
my
shepherd; I shall not want. 2
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the
still waters. 3
He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for
his name's sake. 4
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will
fear no evil: for thou art
with
me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. 5
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies:
thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. 6
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life:
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.
But the promise of
God as spoken through the prophet Micah is that our savior is not
just for us. Rather he has come to save the whole world. He has
come to restore the covenant with Abraham that
“all
peoples on earth will be blessed through you” (Genesis 12:3) And
so to completely fulfill the prophecy of Micah, Christ established
his church as a blessing for the world. So we are now the shepherds
for a hungry world. We are to care for the poor and needy. We are
to care for the widow and orphans. We are to feed the hungry of the
world. But this job is too big for us. How can we do it? The only
hope the world has is that God will be their shepherd working through
us to bless them.
So like the wise
men who visited Jesus we need to bring gifts out of the abundance
that God has given us and join together with churches around the
world to bless the people who need a savior. We live securely here
in American. Let us use our resources to help others live as
securely as we do. And when the people of the world live securely
there will be peace on earth because people who have been blessed do
not have to use force to get what they need. So be an instrument of
peace and help others to live in security. Let us pray.
Lord Jesus, we
come to you this day just as the magi did when you were a young
child. We bring our gifts to you just as they did. Use our gifts to
help others live securely. And though us bring the blessings peace
upon the world. This is our Christmas prayer. Amen.
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