Micah 5:2-5a
The Rev. Dr. Robert S. Langworthy, preaching
December 22, 2024
Some of us feel we’re doing just fine. We’ve taken responsibility for ourselves, and created a life with which we are satisfied. While our diligently engaging in self-help has not given us a perfect life, it has given us one that’s plenty good enough. We are content.
Others of us have an equally good life and yet long for a still better life. While we see that self-help has made a difference, we feel self-help hasn’t brought us far enough along. While we don’t complain, we’re not content with our status quo. We hope for something more. But do we have reason to indulge such hope when we’ve already given the best we’ve got to give?
The Bible in many places declares the good news of Christmas: That, when self-help couldn’t help enough, God brought us help from outside the realm of human potential. In the supernatural, miraculous God-Man Jesus, born in that Bethlehem barn, the Creator offered help from beyond: a human-divine Person who would, if we permit Him, live within us to enable us to enter more and more deeply into God’s shalom – the peace that makes us the best we can be, people on their way to being whole and wholly holy.
At Christmas God became one of us, that any one of us may become more like God.
Philosopher Any Rand once said, “Man’s destiny is to be a self-made soul.” In contrast, the Bible says a greater destiny and hope lies in being a Christ-remade soul. Our having the best life we can does not result from our exerting willpower and self-discipline, from pulling ourselves up by our own bootstraps; but from our coming with nothing but our need for help to this Person who is always there for us, no matter what, ever ready to live in our heart and make us over from the inside out. We hope, not in our competency or capability, but in the character of this One who invites us to trust Him to accomplish in us and for us what we never could on our own. Because of Jesus, the addicts among us learn to manage our disease; the narcissists among us get pulled out of ourselves; the coldly indifferent gain a caring heart; and the dishonest become truthful people of integrity.
The prophet Micah was a contemporary of the prophets Amos, Hosea and Isaiah. Micah denounced wicked political rulers and religious leaders, and every kind of money-grubbing exploiter of the poor.
By God’s inspiration Micah saw deep into the future, events that were both centuries away and centuries apart, including the end-of-history-as-we-know it event when God takes complete control and makes everything as it should be. Sometimes it’s hard to determine which event Micah is talking about – or whether he’s talking about several at once – but the overall course of events is clear. God will, to knock some sense into His people, allow them to suffer the consequences of their unfaithfulness and unrighteousness, only in the end to restore a faithful remnant of them by His grace.
Micah saw that out of Bethlehem – a tiny obscure village whose only claim to fame was as the birthplace of David, Israel’s greatest king, and a village so unremarkable that it had to be distinguished from another Bethlehem in Zebulun by the family group, Ephrathah, that constituted the majority of its population – out of that unpromising place, would “come forth” for God a Son of David greater than David himself, One who is “from of old, from ancient days”, a mighty Ruler who shall lead Israel into justice and peace. He first “shall give up” His people to disciplinary judgment to prepare them for “the time when she who is in labor has brought forth” and the faithful remnant of them “shall return” from their exile in sin. Then “he shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of the Lord” and they shall know peace from the hand of this “one of peace”.
Micah did not know this One’s name, but we believe we do. We call Him Jesus, the baby of Bethlehem, the Prince of peace, the Hope of the nations. And we believe that one day He shall overcome our broken world’s heartache, unfairness and death with everlasting serenity, extravagant goodness and new life.
The hope of Christmas is that the Bethlehem God-Man will at last completely fix this fallen, messed-up world and set everything right. For that we wait; but, in the meantime, we enjoy foretastes of that great day and create foretastes of it for others.
Theologian Dale Bruner, whom I got to know when I worked at Whitworth College, related a story his pastor, David Peterson, told. David was preparing a sermon when his little daughter came into his study and asked if they could play together. He answered, “I’m awfully sorry, Sweetheart, but I’m working right now. In about an hour, though, I will play with you.” “Okay,” she replied; and then added, “When you’re finished, I’m going to give you a great big hug.” “I’d love that!” he said with a smile. Then she skipped to the door, only to do a sudden about-face, run back to him and give him what David described as “a chiropractic, bone-breaking hug”. He exclaimed, “Darling, you said you were going to give me a hug after I finished.” She responded, “I still will. I just want you to know what you have to look forward to!”
That’s how God is too. He wants us to know now what we have to look forward to.
But He also wants us to help others know what they could look forward to, and He depends on us to give them, for Him, foretastes of it. That may involve giving them a hug; or, for those who don’t like hugs, a warm smile. It may involve speaking up for their rights, or speaking up for justice and righteousness in the public sphere. It may involve just humbly serving the needy.
We celebrate well God’s coming in the flesh out of love for us all when we incarnate well His love for all we can in our flesh. May we honor Christmas year-round by bringing others the help that comes from beyond us all and ushering them into the best life they can have!
Write a comment: