Christmas really begins in the Old Testament. The promise of a coming Messiah filled the pages of the Hebrew Bible, and the Jews were watching for his coming. It is interesting that the Jews use a different arrangement of the Old Testament books than we do. After the first five books there is a mixture of history and prophesy, and then it ends with a number of books where God never speaks — his voice is never heard, and in two books, Esther and Song of Songs, he is not mentioned at all. There are long years of silence where God seems to be absent as you read through the Jewish arrangement of the Old Testament books. But all this is for a purpose. It is designed to create a holy longing for God’s return to his people. The promise of the restoration of Jerusalem and the coming of the Messiah grew as the Jewish people agonized over their condition of exile and the occupation of their homeland. By the time the New Testament opens with the arrival of Jesus, Messianic hopes were at a fevered pitch.
In his excellent book on the Old Testament, entitled The Bible Jesus Read, Phil Yancey tells of a Jewish friend of his who leads tour groups in Israel. As he was growing up his parents had forbidden even the mention of the name of Jesus. But in order to accommodate the Christian groups he was leading, he was forced to read the New Testament and study the life of Christ. He was struck by how the Jewish and Christian faiths intertwined. Yancey writes, “He learned that the conservative Christian groups believed world history was moving toward a culmination in which Israel would play a crucial role. They kept talking about the ‘second coming’ of Jesus, quoting the prophecies he had learned in Hebrew school. As he listened to them, he realized that he and they were waiting for the same thing: a Messiah, a Prince of Peace, to restore justice and peace to a badly fractured planet. The Christians anticipated Messiah’s second coming; as a Jew, he was still looking for the first coming. ‘Wouldn’t it be amazing,’ he once told me, ‘if we found out we were all waiting for the same person?’”
And, of course, we are. We worship the Jewish Messiah, prophesied about in the Old Testament who came to the world 2000 years ago, and will return to the world to establish his righteous kingdom on earth. In the Old Testament, he was anticipated; In the New Testament, he is realized. He is the One for whom the world was waiting. The world was waiting in response to a promise. As we celebrate an Old Testament Christmas, we do so because first of all: It is a Christmas of Promise. What was the promise? It was this: “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this” (Isaiah 9:6-7).
The Old Testament was the Bible of Jesus, and he understood that he was the fulfillment of its prophesies. He said, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them” (Matthew 5:17). When he came, he quoted the Old Testament to describe his ministry and its fulfillment of the promise. He said, “If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me” (John 5:46). Paul spoke of, “the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures regarding his Son, who as to his human nature was a descendant of David, and who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 1:1_4).
Why was a promise needed? Because these were the people who were living in gloom and walking in darkness. The great covenant of God and the promises of his blessings seemed to be derailed. They had not experienced the blessings of the covenant, and they were currently living under its curse. Because of Israel’s sin, their land had been overrun by her enemies. Jerusalem had been destroyed and the temple had been looted and burned. They had been taken by their captors and deported into a strange land with abhorrent customs. Psalm 137 describes the emotional condition of Israel during her captivity: “By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion. There on the poplars we hung our harps, for there our captors asked us for songs, our tormentors demanded songs of joy; they said, ‘Sing us one of the songs of Zion!’ How can we sing the songs of the Lord while in a foreign land? If I forget you, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill. May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth . . .” (Psalm 137:1_6). The Jews in exile clung to the promise of Messiah and the restoration of Jerusalem like a dying man clutches at each breath.
Dostoevsky, in his book The House of the Dead, tells the story of an orthodox Jew who had been placed in a Russian prison. In spite of his surroundings, he faithfully practiced the rituals of his faith. He covered a small table in the corner of his cell and opened a prayer book. He lit candles and fastened leather bracelets on his arms and forehead while he prayed. He would begin to read from the sacred book, but all at once he would cover his head with his hands and begin to sob out loud, his body convulsing with grief. The other prisoners were astonished when suddenly his sobbing would cease and he would break into laughter and recite a psalm of triumph. When his fellow prisoners asked him what this meant, he explained that his tears were brought about because of the destruction of Jerusalem. The law required him to groan and beat his breast. But at the time of his greatest grief, he was to remember the prophesies that the Jews would one day return to Jerusalem and this would send him into an emotional state of irrepressible joy. The promise overcame his despair. Someone has said, “Like a bell tolling from another world, the prophets proclaim that no matter how things now appear, there is no future in evil, only in good.”
These were the promises of the Old Testament prophets, for the Bible says, “Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow. It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you, when they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even angels long to look into these things” (1 Peter 1:10-12).
The second thing we realize as we celebrate an Old Testament Christmas is: It is a Christmas of Presence. The presence of Jesus was a promise fulfilled. One day Jesus stood in the synagogue and read the scroll of the prophet Isaiah which said: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Then he looked at those around him and said, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:17_21).
It was necessary that the Old Testament promise be fulfilled. Philip Melanchthon once wrote: “Of the whole of Scripture there are two parts: the law and the gospel. The law indicates the sickness, the gospel the remedy.” The law told us about our sin and how far from God we were; the gospel told us about a Savior and how near God was to us. The Bible says, “In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe” (Hebrews 1:1_2).
But even when the promise was fulfilled, it seemed too good to be true. And God came in a form which they were not expecting. Jesus did not seem like the picture they had in mind from their understanding of the Old Testament prophesies. He had to explain that he was indeed the One of whom the Scriptures spoke. He said to them, “You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life” (John 5:36_40).
There were several things that created this problem. The Jews read the scriptural prophesies about Messiah coming as a great king, the son of David, who would deliver Israel from her enemies and establish Israel as sovereign among the nations. When they thought of the Messiah they thought of power and politics. They were pushed to a new nationalism. By the time of Jesus there was a large group of zealots ready to die fighting for the independence of Israel — with hopes of being in Messiah’s army.
But Jesus did not come as a warrior King. He was a humble teacher. He did not come to establish the political security of Israel, he came to establish a spiritual kingdom. He did not come to overrun the Romans. He was born in a stable instead of a palace. Why, he didn’t even have a place to rest his head. Except for his clothing, he did not own a single possession. Of all the things the people of Jesus’ day could not understand, this was the hardest of all. They could accept a Messiah who would kill his enemies, but they could not understand one who would allow his enemies to kill him. They understood power, but they could not understand weakness. Paul wrote: “Beyond all question, the mystery of godliness is great: He appeared in a body . . .” (1 Timothy 3:16). The scandal of God is that he came as a baby.
Fifteen centuries ago, Augustine tried to capture this mystery in words:
Maker of the sun,
He is made under the sun.
In the Father he remains,
From his mother he goes forth.
Creator of heaven and earth,
He was born on earth under heaven.
Unspeakably wise,
He is wisely speechless.
Filling the world,
He lies in a manger.
Ruler of the stars,
He nurses at his mother’s bosom.
He is both great in the nature of God,
and small in the form of a servant.
The third thing we realize as we celebrate an Old Testament Christmas is: It is a Christmas of Peace. When the promise is made we have hope, but when the promise is fulfilled we have peace. A quiet settledness comes to our hearts. The promise is realized. It is ours! He has come and because he has come we can live. God’s Messiah has come and all is well. Though it did not appear so, he conquered the world and defeated death. Our peace comes from that confidence. What the world did not understand at the time was that the birth of that baby shook the foundations of the universe. It was the sign that God had won. He had won even if the world did not recognize his victory. The Lord spoke to the Old Testament prophet saying, “In a little while I will once more shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land. I will shake all nations, and the desired of all nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory . . . . And in this place I will grant peace” (Haggai 2:6_9). God’s scandalous baby would be the sign that everything would now be different. Isaiah wrote: “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:14). What appeared to be weakness on the part of Jesus was instead divine confidence. He had no need to overpower his enemies because he knew they were already defeated. Even though they killed him they could not stop him, they would only promote his cause.
When Jesus met the woman at the well, she said to him, “I know that Messiah (called Christ) is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” Then Jesus declared, “I who speak to you am he” (John 4:25-26). In that simple statement he declared that he was the fulfillment of all the Old Testament prophesies. She could rest in the joy of his presence and be at peace. When Andrew brought his brother Peter to Jesus, he said to him: “We have found the Messiah (that is, the Christ)” (John 1:41).
Here is the peace that we need in our hearts for today: It’s over; Christ has come and he has defeated the evil in the world. Evil finds its power in appearance. It is like a movie set of an old western town that is all front with no real buildings. It is propped up with sticks. Jesus did not need to come with a great display of power because he was real. Evil always has to put up a front of power, but it is only pretense. Since the day Christ came the reign of evil was over. What this means is that even when it appears evil is winning, it is in reality losing. It is a false edifice propped up with sticks and it will be blown over with one word from Messiah’s mouth. What we are seeing are the dying fits of the kingdom of evil, like a rat trapped in a corner which knows it is about to die.
There is an amazing scene in the book of Revelation. The great armies of the world, under the leadership of the Antichrist, gather for battle at the close of history. There is an ominous display of power by these evil forces as they come to oppose God. Then the book of Revelation says, “But the beast [antichrist] was captured, and with him the false prophet who had performed the miraculous signs on his behalf. With these signs he had deluded those who had received the mark of the beast and worshiped his image. The two of them were thrown alive into the fiery lake of burning sulfur. The rest of them were killed with the sword that came out of the mouth of the rider [Christ] on the horse, and all the birds gorged themselves on their flesh” (Revelation 19:20_21). What surprises us as we read this is that there is a frightening display of force posed by the enemies of God, but there is no battle. They are totally defeated by the word which proceeds out of the mouth of Christ.
As Martin Luther wrote in his great hymn:
The Prince of Darkness grim,
we tremble not for him;
His rage we can endure,
For lo, his doom is sure;
One little word shall fell him.
God has come to the world. It was the promise of the Old Testament. He was present in the New Testament, and he will reign eternally. We have peace in our hearts because he is in control and the battle has already been won. The angel says to us, as he said to those simple shepherds on the first Christmas: “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger. Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests’” (Luke 2:9_14).
May the Promise, the Presence and the Peace of Christmas be yours.
Rodney J. Buchanan
December 10, 2000
