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Weimar University

Don Mackintosh

The Prophecy We Rarely Talk About

So today, we want to talk about an unusual Christmas prophecy.

And as we enter the holiday season, many of us think about the songs of the holidays.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, and maybe some of the hymns as well.

And I don't know, it came to my mind as I was writing this sermon, it's the most wonderful time of the year.

It's the most wonderful time of the year, with the kids jingle-belling and everyone telling you to be of good cheer.

It's the most wonderful time of the year.

How many are thankful for the joy of Christmas?

But Perhaps we should go back to the actual story of Christ's birth as recorded in Scripture paints a different picture than all the songs that we often hear.

Not that I don't think we should sing them, and not that I'm trying to be Ebenezer Scrooge, and not because I want to mess up Christmas and have to sit under a tree with Dylan, the Christmas tree.

But reality is that when Jesus was born, there was a tyrant in charge by the name of Herod.

And he was nearly 70 years old at the time.

He had reigned for over 30 years after being made king of the Jews for being faithful to the Romans in the battle against the Parthians.

And after pinching an inch and worshipping Jupiter, he was the darling of Rome, and he was made king of the Jews.

Herod was powerful, he was prosperous, he was large, he was in charge, but he had no peace.

He had no peace, especially when it was the happiest time, when it was the most wonderful time of the great controversy, you might say, when Jesus was born.

He was afraid, he was terrified, he actually lived all his life as if he was in the middle and he was in the middle because even though he had satisfied Rome by worshipping Jupiter and even though he had satisfied Rome by helping them win the battle against the Parthians, this had alienated him from the people he was supposed to be king of, that is the Jews.

And they hated the fact that he had worshipped Jupiter And they hated the fact that he had worshipped Jupiter.

And they hated the fact that he was so close to Rome.

And even though Mark Antony and others had bequeathed on him the kingship of the Jews, He found himself in the middle between the Romans and the Jews and so he threw himself into building projects, some of the greatest building projects ever, some that still dazzle us today, those who have gone to Jerusalem, the Herodium, where you could see from that Herodium that he built the very place where Bethlehem, where Christ would be born.

And you could see even Jerusalem as well, not too far Jerusalem from Bethlehem.

And he was attempting to appease the Jews.

An Edomian means he was an Edomite and a Jew.

He was not fully of the son of David and not fully of Moab.

If you want to read about them, read Obadiah.

And he was of the bloodline of those who were the archenemies of the Jews, and yet he was half Jew.

He was in the middle, and so he threw himself into incessant building and the fashioning of swimming pools, even to put a swimming pool, a large swimming pool on the top of Masada.

He was a contractor, but he always felt like there was a contract on his life.

A descendant of Haman and a descendant of David, and he never knew when the knife might fall.

There was always polarization in his life.

There were always multiple conspiracy theories that were always in the air and he believed all of them.

But 1 that transcended them all was when wise men came from the east and said there was someone about to be born who was not made a king but was going to be born a king of the Jews and this terrified him.

You see he, this child that was to be born would come and invade and overthrow and Herod was terrified.

He knew that this child would win the hearts of the people.

But he didn't want to give up his leadership.

And so he needed to preemptively strike and so he did.

He asked the men from the east to bring the wise men and that new child into his presence so he could worship him.

But Joseph was tipped off in a dream by an angel told him to flee to Egypt.

I don't know if Joseph knew that he was fulfilling prophecy because God's son would be called out of Egypt.

Joseph went with the child and Herod was furious.

And all pretense and all placating now laid bare his raw power-induced intentions and his paranoia.

And like he had done many times before, even though this account's only told in Matthew's Gospel, but we know that other times, Herod used death squads to eradicate people that were against him.

In our scripture reading today, it alludes to this, where he killed all the babies that might possibly be of the age of the Messiah.

Maybe the child didn't flee, maybe he still was there and so he said, I'll kill all the babies.

It's the happiest season of all, not so much.

It wasn't like that for their loved ones.

It wasn't like those who had died, who would no longer be near.

And every time at that time of the year, their loss would be sensed and savored throughout their whole lives.

No, Christmas was not, at that time for sure, seen as the most wonderful time of the year.

From their perspective, it was a time of death.

You see, the rich had been co-opted and silenced, and that's always the way it is.

The rich are co-opted and silenced and enslaved, and the poor were just exterminated.

The innocents were exterminated as a result of the paranoia of a maniacal king who was trying desperately not to lose control.

I Suppose if that's where the story ended it would be well and good Well, it was a monarch that was a tyrant and he just killed everybody and that's the end of the story and that's the explanation but isn't that after all what tyrants do?

Herod, Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar, Augustus, Nero, Hitler, Ceausescu, Mussolini, Franco, Pinochet, Stalin.

That would be a great place to just end the story, but that's not where Scripture leaves it.

Remember our scripture reading was there was a voice, well let's look at it, in Matthew chapter 2.

A voice of 1, or of weeping, at that first Christmas.

Verse 18, a voice was heard in Ramah, that's right between Israel, I mean Jerusalem and Bethlehem.

You pass over that spot every time you're headed towards Bethlehem, even today.

Lamentation, weeping, great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted because they are no more.

Well let's just leave it there, let's just leave it there and yet it's not left there.

But let's look at actually where that's quoted from.

Verse 17, let's read it before we go back there.

Then it was fulfilled what was spoken of by Jeremiah the prophet.

Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, We don't talk about this.

This morning I preached about the prophecy in Daniel 9 and how it's related to the Christmas story.

But that fulfillment of prophecy we kind of like to talk about.

We talk about how Christ was a baby and how that was so cute and how this happened and that happened and then how he healed everybody and how this was just wonderful.

But here it is saying that the death of all these innocents, the death of these innocents was actually a what?

A fulfillment of prophecy, the prophecy of Jeremiah.

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The Prophecy We Rarely Talk About

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