The best is yet to come
Commentary
The concept of pregnancy lends itself rather naturally to metaphorical usage. We speak of time as being pregnant with possibility or describe a book as pregnant with meaning. According to my dictionary, it is proper English for a linguist to say proverbs are "pregnant sayings" or for a historian to describe the middle of the twentieth century as "pregnant years." Proper, perhaps, but not completely clear. What exactly is "a pregnant pause"?
The term itself means "fertile, rich, full," but carries the implication of unrealized potential: the best is yet to come. So it fits well the biblical concept of eschatology that we emphasize during the advent season. God's rule is already asserting itself in this world, but what we experience now is only the beginning. The First Lesson and the Gospel Lesson make use of this image in relation to God's messianic reign. In the Second Lesson, I think, it is conspicuous by absence.
All three readings for today may also be taken as dealing in some sense with the pre-existence of Christ. This is most obvious in the reading from Hebrews, which envisions Christ recalling a time before he came to earth. In the First Lesson, the pre-
existence is not located in heaven but in the visions of the prophets. And in the Gospel, Jesus is described as Lord before his birth with charming literalism.
Micah 5:2-5a
Micah was one of the eighth century prophets who, along with Isaiah, Amos, and Hosea, responded to the Assyrian threat. That empire destroyed Damascus and Samaria, bringing to an end the nations of Syria and Israel. Judah remained, but as a weak state, ever conscious that the fate of her neighbors could befall her as well.
At such a time, Micah undertook what we would call a ministry of law and gospel, attempting to a) protest corruption, particularly any compromises made with regard to pure worship and social injustice (these could cause the nation to lose God's favor); and b) promise hope and trust in God's forgiveness and restoration.
The text for today is a messianic oracle that promises this restoration will be brought by one from Bethlehem. In Micah's day, the town's only claim to fame was that it was the place from which David came. Some scholars think the prophet means to reject the whole line of David (all his successors) by indicating that God will go back to Bethlehem and start over.
The reference to the Messiah coming from "one of the little clans" picks up on a common biblical theme: God's reversal of human expectations. Numerous individuals, such as Gideon (Judges 6:15), Saul (1 Samuel 9:21), and David himself (1 Samuel 16:11) appear insignificant for one reason or another, but God chooses the weak and the foolish (1 Corinthians 1:27).
The current time is described as one of pregnancy. Without being specific (or literal), the prophet indicates the coming deliverer is already in the womb. The idea of such a poetic image is to suggest that, while the time of fulfillment is not yet here, the certainty of its arrival has passed the point of no return. We can rejoice already in the certainty of future hope. This image captures the thought of Jesus and Paul in New Testament eschatology. When Jesus says the "kingdom of heaven is near" (Matthew 4:17), he uses the Greek word eggiken, which can mean either "almost here" or "already arrived." The ambiguity is intentional, for the certainty of God's victory and rule arrives in Jesus even if the fulfillment of all that this implies remains yet for the future.
The Messiah from Bethlehem will be a shepherd (that is, a "pastor") to God's people (v. 4). "And he shall be the one of peace" (v. 5a). Any who have visited Bethlehem around Christmastime in recent years cannot read these verses or sing the famous "Little Town" carol ("How still we see thee lie") without a sense of tragic irony. Today, Moslems must keep the keys to Christian holy sites in Bethlehem, as a compromise between warring churches that don't trust each other to keep them. Israeli soldiers must guard Manger Square since various Christian groups have developed the habit of killing each other there, especially around the holidays. Such turf wars reveal an obsession with place that completely misses the point. Bethlehem is an appropriate place of origin for the Messiah precisely because the place itself is so insignificant.
Hebrews 10:5-10
In these words from Hebrews, Christ is represented as speaking to God. The words themselves actually come from Psalm 40:6-8, which the author of Hebrews has discovered present words that Christ might have said to God when he "came into the world." The one line that seems to be a misquote is that which says, "A body you have prepared for me." The Psalm itself reads, "Ears you have dug for me." We don't know what verse or text of the Psalms the author of Hebrews had at his disposal, but the thought is actually the same. The line is a reference to creation, an image of God fashioning a human body out of clay. One step in such a process would be digging holes for the ears. It may be that the author of Hebrews (rightly) discerned that people would not get this, and so "modernized" the translation.
The original point of the Psalm was that God desires obedience over sacrifice. So, too, the main point of the passage in Hebrews is that Christ came to redeem us not by offering animal sacrifices but through obedience to God's will, obedience that would ironically require him to offer his own body as a sacrifice.
The choice of the lesson for this day is no doubt due to its representation of pre-existence. Christ is presented as having been in heaven with God before he came to earth, when God fashioned a body for him. The thought is similar to that of John's Prologue ("the Word became flesh"), which will be our Gospel Lesson on Christmas Day. It is important to remember that the language is poetic; if taken too literally, the theology of the text would be docetic and heretical. I remember a classic Advent prayer that was used in many churches for years. It thanked God for bending down from heaven and placing the baby Jesus in the arms of his mother. That's poetry. The reality was a lot messier. And, I would argue, the messiness -- the blood, the labor pains -- are significant to our faith.
Luke 1:39-45
Here is the story of two pregnant women. The first, we have been told, is a righteous person who lives blamelessly according to all the commandments and regulations of the Lord (Luke 1:6). Previously barren and "getting on in years" (1:7), she is now expecting a child. Blessed herself, she delivers two beatitudes to her kinswoman Mary.
Mary is said to be blessed because 1) she will be the mother of Jesus, a great man of God, and 2) she believes the word of the Lord. Both blessings are undoubtedly true and deserved, but Luke clearly believes the second to be the most important. We know this because another passage, Luke 11:27-28, revisits these two beatitudes and prioritizes them. There, a woman in the crowd calls out to Jesus, "Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that nursed you," which is a rather colorful way of saying, "Your mother is blessed to have a great son like you." Jesus counters, "Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it!" He is not arguing that his mother is not blessed, only with the reason for the blessing -- his mother is one who hears God's word and obeys it (see Luke 8:21).
Luke prefers the second beatitude for a couple of reasons. First, the thought that women are considered to be blessed when they produce great sons is traditional for a patriarchal culture but contrary to the new perspective of Christ (cf. Galatians 3:28). The value of women is not to be measured in terms of what sort of men they bring into the world; rather, women and men are now evaluated by the same standard: their faithfulness to God's word. Second, the idea that Mary is blessed because she trusts the word of God enables her to become an exemplary figure for us. It is a blessing that can be shared. We do not all have the opportunity to become earthly parents of the Messiah, but we do all have the opportunity to hear God's word and keep it.
Historically, the church has usually gotten this wrong. An emphasis on the unique status of Mary has facilitated both Roman Catholic devotion to her and Protestant aversion to her. Both tendencies are equally unscriptural, and in recent years Catholics and Protestants alike have moved toward presenting Mary as "the ideal disciple," an example of faithfulness that we can and should emulate. So far, the Catholics are doing better than the Protestants. Some Protestant sects name churches after biblical figures taken to be exemplary: Paul, Stephen, Thomas, Mark, Philip, Peter. As yet, however, there are few Protestant churches named after Mary. Why not? The Bible presents her (and, for that matter, Elizabeth, too) as more faithful than any of the men.
The high christology of this text is also noteworthy. Elizabeth refers to the child in Mary's womb as her "Lord." Luke wants to emphasize that, as "Silent Night" puts it, Jesus is "Lord at his birth" (2:11) -- and even before that! To be "Lord" is ultimately more than just Messiah. He is Messiah to Jewish people; he is Lord of all. The same point is made much later in 20:41-44, where we learn that Jesus is not only the Son of David (i.e., Messiah), but also the Lord of David. It is because Jesus is Lord that Christians can pray to him in the book of Acts (one would not pray to the Messiah). It is because he is Lord that we worship him (Luke 24:52) -- considering that he himself said we should worship none but "the Lord God" (Luke 4:8). To call Jesus "Lord" in Luke-Acts is essentially the same as saying he is God. How much more profound this makes the Christmas story -- God as a helpless baby! Or, now -- God as a fetus, totally dependent upon his human mother.
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By Elizabeth Achtemeier
Micah 5:2-5a
In the prophecies of Second Isaiah, the Lord God declares, "My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways" (Isaiah 55:8), and how true that is of the God to whom the Bible witnesses! In our society, we adulate those whom we think are successful or talented or distinguished in some way. Many teenagers look up to a famous sports figure and try to imitate him on their own playing fields. Many viewers tune into the television program that interviews someone who is famous and rich. Fan clubs gather around Hollywood stars, and the faces of the so-called "beautiful people" look out at us from every magazine cover. Even, more soberly, the rich executive, the famous singer, the accomplished writer command our respect and attention. We look up to those whom we believe "have it made."
The God of the Scriptures does not seem to take notice of our worldly standards, however. For a judge to lead his people in battle God chooses a man from the weakest tribe in Manasseh (Judges 6:15). For the first king of Israel he selects a Benjamite from the smallest tribe in Israel and from the humblest family in that tribe (1 Samuel 9:21). In our time, God picks out a black preacher from Georgia to lead a civil rights revolution. And he anoints a small and humble nun in India to teach the world what love and mercy mean. God chooses seemingly insignificant people to work his will in the world. As Paul wrote to the Christians in Corinth, "... not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth" (1 Corinthians 1:26).
So it is, too, with God's future Messiah, according to our passage in Micah. That chosen Ruler of the world will come from the smallest clan within the tribe of Judah. To be sure, he will be from the line of David. He will come from Bethlehem Ephrathah, and because David was the son of Jesse, "an Ephrathite of Bethlehem in Judah" (1 Samuel 17:12), the future Messiah will have a davidic heritage. But, as we know, he will be a lowly man, born in a cattle stall, raised up in a carpenter shop, and condemned to death as a criminal. Perhaps our evaluations of people in our society have nothing to do with God's thoughts and ways.
There is always a mystery surrounding the way God works in this world of ours, and that is certainly true of this messianic promise in Micah. We would like to categorize our Savior, to pin him down to a definite definition, to be able to say clearly and boldly just exactly who and what he is. But we cannot do that with this promised Messiah. His "origin is of old," says our text, "from ancient of days" and that latter phrase is used of God in the Book of Daniel (Daniel 7:9, 13, 22). The promised Messiah, Micah is telling us, will come not just from a small clan in Judah. He will also have his origin in God, and his birth will have been planned by God a long time ago. This ruler of the world, whom God will send to save his world, will be a man and yet more than a man, will come from Judah but also from God.
So it is that when the early church wanted to tell who Jesus Christ is, in A.D. 451, it formulated what is known as the Creed of Chalcedon, to which the church has agreed ever since. "We, then ... all with one consent, teach men to confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the same perfect in Godhead and also perfect in manhood; truly God and truly man ... Only begotten, in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably...." Our Messiah, as Micah promises, is both God and man, both divine and human.
The God of the Bible not only does things in his own way, however. He also does them at his own time. We think sometimes that God should do some particular act right now, or at a time that we choose. The Judeans undoubtedly wanted God to save them in the eighth to sixth centuries B.C. But verse 3 of our text tells them that first they would have to go through the humiliation of their king in 597 B.C. and the deprivations of the Babylonian exile in 587 B.C. and following. The Messiah would not immediately appear on the scene. First, Israel had a chastening for her sins and a discipline to undergo, as we do also so often before we know our Savior to be with us. God prepares our hearts in many different ways before we are ready to receive him.
But the Messiah will come, Micah promises -- that anointed one of the house of David, sent from God, raised up from the people, to do away with evildoers and to bring to the faithful a realm of justice and righteousness, of peace and security and wholeness (cf. Micah 4:1-4).
The promised Messiah will "stand," said the prophet. That is, his reign will be forever. Despite all of the opposition to his rule; despite the fact that he will be "despised and rejected by men" (Isaiah 53:3); even if he should not be at all what anyone expects; indeed, even if we condemn him to death and hang him on a cross, his kingship shall be forever, and his rule shall never be defeated.
And what will the Messiah do? He will be a shepherd to us. "Shepherd" is another name for "king" in the Bible. But he will be a loving king, a shepherd who feeds his flock. That is, he will provide us with the necessities of life and guide us in the right paths and protect us from all harm (cf. Psalm 23). Under his protecting rule, we will know peace in our lives, though all the world be in an uproar. We will know ourselves forgiven and accepted into his flock, our past sin and guilt done away by his mercy and renewal of us. We will find ourselves part of a new flock, of a new people, who trust in the Shepherd's rule. And we will find that nothing can separate us from the Shepherd's love for us.
All this will come to pass, says Micah, because the Shepherd will be given God's power, and all the wondrous acts that the Shepherd does will glorify his majestic Father God.
The Messiah will come -- and he has come in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ -- not for our sakes alone, however. Micah says that the name of the Messiah will be great in all the earth. In short, the Messiah's rule will extend over all people in his everlasting kingdom. This Son of God and son of man comes not just to bring us salvation. God gave his Son because he loves the whole wide world. And there shall come a time, Micah is saying, when our Lord will be known to all, and when his forgiven and saved people shall cover the face of the earth. To that promise given us by Micah, and to the beginning of its fulfillment in the birth of Christ, all of us, with all the faithful, can say, "Amen" at this Christmastime.
The term itself means "fertile, rich, full," but carries the implication of unrealized potential: the best is yet to come. So it fits well the biblical concept of eschatology that we emphasize during the advent season. God's rule is already asserting itself in this world, but what we experience now is only the beginning. The First Lesson and the Gospel Lesson make use of this image in relation to God's messianic reign. In the Second Lesson, I think, it is conspicuous by absence.
All three readings for today may also be taken as dealing in some sense with the pre-existence of Christ. This is most obvious in the reading from Hebrews, which envisions Christ recalling a time before he came to earth. In the First Lesson, the pre-
existence is not located in heaven but in the visions of the prophets. And in the Gospel, Jesus is described as Lord before his birth with charming literalism.
Micah 5:2-5a
Micah was one of the eighth century prophets who, along with Isaiah, Amos, and Hosea, responded to the Assyrian threat. That empire destroyed Damascus and Samaria, bringing to an end the nations of Syria and Israel. Judah remained, but as a weak state, ever conscious that the fate of her neighbors could befall her as well.
At such a time, Micah undertook what we would call a ministry of law and gospel, attempting to a) protest corruption, particularly any compromises made with regard to pure worship and social injustice (these could cause the nation to lose God's favor); and b) promise hope and trust in God's forgiveness and restoration.
The text for today is a messianic oracle that promises this restoration will be brought by one from Bethlehem. In Micah's day, the town's only claim to fame was that it was the place from which David came. Some scholars think the prophet means to reject the whole line of David (all his successors) by indicating that God will go back to Bethlehem and start over.
The reference to the Messiah coming from "one of the little clans" picks up on a common biblical theme: God's reversal of human expectations. Numerous individuals, such as Gideon (Judges 6:15), Saul (1 Samuel 9:21), and David himself (1 Samuel 16:11) appear insignificant for one reason or another, but God chooses the weak and the foolish (1 Corinthians 1:27).
The current time is described as one of pregnancy. Without being specific (or literal), the prophet indicates the coming deliverer is already in the womb. The idea of such a poetic image is to suggest that, while the time of fulfillment is not yet here, the certainty of its arrival has passed the point of no return. We can rejoice already in the certainty of future hope. This image captures the thought of Jesus and Paul in New Testament eschatology. When Jesus says the "kingdom of heaven is near" (Matthew 4:17), he uses the Greek word eggiken, which can mean either "almost here" or "already arrived." The ambiguity is intentional, for the certainty of God's victory and rule arrives in Jesus even if the fulfillment of all that this implies remains yet for the future.
The Messiah from Bethlehem will be a shepherd (that is, a "pastor") to God's people (v. 4). "And he shall be the one of peace" (v. 5a). Any who have visited Bethlehem around Christmastime in recent years cannot read these verses or sing the famous "Little Town" carol ("How still we see thee lie") without a sense of tragic irony. Today, Moslems must keep the keys to Christian holy sites in Bethlehem, as a compromise between warring churches that don't trust each other to keep them. Israeli soldiers must guard Manger Square since various Christian groups have developed the habit of killing each other there, especially around the holidays. Such turf wars reveal an obsession with place that completely misses the point. Bethlehem is an appropriate place of origin for the Messiah precisely because the place itself is so insignificant.
Hebrews 10:5-10
In these words from Hebrews, Christ is represented as speaking to God. The words themselves actually come from Psalm 40:6-8, which the author of Hebrews has discovered present words that Christ might have said to God when he "came into the world." The one line that seems to be a misquote is that which says, "A body you have prepared for me." The Psalm itself reads, "Ears you have dug for me." We don't know what verse or text of the Psalms the author of Hebrews had at his disposal, but the thought is actually the same. The line is a reference to creation, an image of God fashioning a human body out of clay. One step in such a process would be digging holes for the ears. It may be that the author of Hebrews (rightly) discerned that people would not get this, and so "modernized" the translation.
The original point of the Psalm was that God desires obedience over sacrifice. So, too, the main point of the passage in Hebrews is that Christ came to redeem us not by offering animal sacrifices but through obedience to God's will, obedience that would ironically require him to offer his own body as a sacrifice.
The choice of the lesson for this day is no doubt due to its representation of pre-existence. Christ is presented as having been in heaven with God before he came to earth, when God fashioned a body for him. The thought is similar to that of John's Prologue ("the Word became flesh"), which will be our Gospel Lesson on Christmas Day. It is important to remember that the language is poetic; if taken too literally, the theology of the text would be docetic and heretical. I remember a classic Advent prayer that was used in many churches for years. It thanked God for bending down from heaven and placing the baby Jesus in the arms of his mother. That's poetry. The reality was a lot messier. And, I would argue, the messiness -- the blood, the labor pains -- are significant to our faith.
Luke 1:39-45
Here is the story of two pregnant women. The first, we have been told, is a righteous person who lives blamelessly according to all the commandments and regulations of the Lord (Luke 1:6). Previously barren and "getting on in years" (1:7), she is now expecting a child. Blessed herself, she delivers two beatitudes to her kinswoman Mary.
Mary is said to be blessed because 1) she will be the mother of Jesus, a great man of God, and 2) she believes the word of the Lord. Both blessings are undoubtedly true and deserved, but Luke clearly believes the second to be the most important. We know this because another passage, Luke 11:27-28, revisits these two beatitudes and prioritizes them. There, a woman in the crowd calls out to Jesus, "Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that nursed you," which is a rather colorful way of saying, "Your mother is blessed to have a great son like you." Jesus counters, "Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it!" He is not arguing that his mother is not blessed, only with the reason for the blessing -- his mother is one who hears God's word and obeys it (see Luke 8:21).
Luke prefers the second beatitude for a couple of reasons. First, the thought that women are considered to be blessed when they produce great sons is traditional for a patriarchal culture but contrary to the new perspective of Christ (cf. Galatians 3:28). The value of women is not to be measured in terms of what sort of men they bring into the world; rather, women and men are now evaluated by the same standard: their faithfulness to God's word. Second, the idea that Mary is blessed because she trusts the word of God enables her to become an exemplary figure for us. It is a blessing that can be shared. We do not all have the opportunity to become earthly parents of the Messiah, but we do all have the opportunity to hear God's word and keep it.
Historically, the church has usually gotten this wrong. An emphasis on the unique status of Mary has facilitated both Roman Catholic devotion to her and Protestant aversion to her. Both tendencies are equally unscriptural, and in recent years Catholics and Protestants alike have moved toward presenting Mary as "the ideal disciple," an example of faithfulness that we can and should emulate. So far, the Catholics are doing better than the Protestants. Some Protestant sects name churches after biblical figures taken to be exemplary: Paul, Stephen, Thomas, Mark, Philip, Peter. As yet, however, there are few Protestant churches named after Mary. Why not? The Bible presents her (and, for that matter, Elizabeth, too) as more faithful than any of the men.
The high christology of this text is also noteworthy. Elizabeth refers to the child in Mary's womb as her "Lord." Luke wants to emphasize that, as "Silent Night" puts it, Jesus is "Lord at his birth" (2:11) -- and even before that! To be "Lord" is ultimately more than just Messiah. He is Messiah to Jewish people; he is Lord of all. The same point is made much later in 20:41-44, where we learn that Jesus is not only the Son of David (i.e., Messiah), but also the Lord of David. It is because Jesus is Lord that Christians can pray to him in the book of Acts (one would not pray to the Messiah). It is because he is Lord that we worship him (Luke 24:52) -- considering that he himself said we should worship none but "the Lord God" (Luke 4:8). To call Jesus "Lord" in Luke-Acts is essentially the same as saying he is God. How much more profound this makes the Christmas story -- God as a helpless baby! Or, now -- God as a fetus, totally dependent upon his human mother.
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By Elizabeth Achtemeier
Micah 5:2-5a
In the prophecies of Second Isaiah, the Lord God declares, "My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways" (Isaiah 55:8), and how true that is of the God to whom the Bible witnesses! In our society, we adulate those whom we think are successful or talented or distinguished in some way. Many teenagers look up to a famous sports figure and try to imitate him on their own playing fields. Many viewers tune into the television program that interviews someone who is famous and rich. Fan clubs gather around Hollywood stars, and the faces of the so-called "beautiful people" look out at us from every magazine cover. Even, more soberly, the rich executive, the famous singer, the accomplished writer command our respect and attention. We look up to those whom we believe "have it made."
The God of the Scriptures does not seem to take notice of our worldly standards, however. For a judge to lead his people in battle God chooses a man from the weakest tribe in Manasseh (Judges 6:15). For the first king of Israel he selects a Benjamite from the smallest tribe in Israel and from the humblest family in that tribe (1 Samuel 9:21). In our time, God picks out a black preacher from Georgia to lead a civil rights revolution. And he anoints a small and humble nun in India to teach the world what love and mercy mean. God chooses seemingly insignificant people to work his will in the world. As Paul wrote to the Christians in Corinth, "... not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth" (1 Corinthians 1:26).
So it is, too, with God's future Messiah, according to our passage in Micah. That chosen Ruler of the world will come from the smallest clan within the tribe of Judah. To be sure, he will be from the line of David. He will come from Bethlehem Ephrathah, and because David was the son of Jesse, "an Ephrathite of Bethlehem in Judah" (1 Samuel 17:12), the future Messiah will have a davidic heritage. But, as we know, he will be a lowly man, born in a cattle stall, raised up in a carpenter shop, and condemned to death as a criminal. Perhaps our evaluations of people in our society have nothing to do with God's thoughts and ways.
There is always a mystery surrounding the way God works in this world of ours, and that is certainly true of this messianic promise in Micah. We would like to categorize our Savior, to pin him down to a definite definition, to be able to say clearly and boldly just exactly who and what he is. But we cannot do that with this promised Messiah. His "origin is of old," says our text, "from ancient of days" and that latter phrase is used of God in the Book of Daniel (Daniel 7:9, 13, 22). The promised Messiah, Micah is telling us, will come not just from a small clan in Judah. He will also have his origin in God, and his birth will have been planned by God a long time ago. This ruler of the world, whom God will send to save his world, will be a man and yet more than a man, will come from Judah but also from God.
So it is that when the early church wanted to tell who Jesus Christ is, in A.D. 451, it formulated what is known as the Creed of Chalcedon, to which the church has agreed ever since. "We, then ... all with one consent, teach men to confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the same perfect in Godhead and also perfect in manhood; truly God and truly man ... Only begotten, in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably...." Our Messiah, as Micah promises, is both God and man, both divine and human.
The God of the Bible not only does things in his own way, however. He also does them at his own time. We think sometimes that God should do some particular act right now, or at a time that we choose. The Judeans undoubtedly wanted God to save them in the eighth to sixth centuries B.C. But verse 3 of our text tells them that first they would have to go through the humiliation of their king in 597 B.C. and the deprivations of the Babylonian exile in 587 B.C. and following. The Messiah would not immediately appear on the scene. First, Israel had a chastening for her sins and a discipline to undergo, as we do also so often before we know our Savior to be with us. God prepares our hearts in many different ways before we are ready to receive him.
But the Messiah will come, Micah promises -- that anointed one of the house of David, sent from God, raised up from the people, to do away with evildoers and to bring to the faithful a realm of justice and righteousness, of peace and security and wholeness (cf. Micah 4:1-4).
The promised Messiah will "stand," said the prophet. That is, his reign will be forever. Despite all of the opposition to his rule; despite the fact that he will be "despised and rejected by men" (Isaiah 53:3); even if he should not be at all what anyone expects; indeed, even if we condemn him to death and hang him on a cross, his kingship shall be forever, and his rule shall never be defeated.
And what will the Messiah do? He will be a shepherd to us. "Shepherd" is another name for "king" in the Bible. But he will be a loving king, a shepherd who feeds his flock. That is, he will provide us with the necessities of life and guide us in the right paths and protect us from all harm (cf. Psalm 23). Under his protecting rule, we will know peace in our lives, though all the world be in an uproar. We will know ourselves forgiven and accepted into his flock, our past sin and guilt done away by his mercy and renewal of us. We will find ourselves part of a new flock, of a new people, who trust in the Shepherd's rule. And we will find that nothing can separate us from the Shepherd's love for us.
All this will come to pass, says Micah, because the Shepherd will be given God's power, and all the wondrous acts that the Shepherd does will glorify his majestic Father God.
The Messiah will come -- and he has come in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ -- not for our sakes alone, however. Micah says that the name of the Messiah will be great in all the earth. In short, the Messiah's rule will extend over all people in his everlasting kingdom. This Son of God and son of man comes not just to bring us salvation. God gave his Son because he loves the whole wide world. And there shall come a time, Micah is saying, when our Lord will be known to all, and when his forgiven and saved people shall cover the face of the earth. To that promise given us by Micah, and to the beginning of its fulfillment in the birth of Christ, all of us, with all the faithful, can say, "Amen" at this Christmastime.
