The Birth of Jesus and the Bigger Picture

More To The Story

Something I’ve been learning lately is that there is always more to the story that what we first get. I have found that my ‘enquiring mind wants to know’ the More. I want to understand that bigger picture. So I ask for revelation and understanding, and God says Great–let’s go! and He takes me on a journey. This month, as I was in Isaiah, reading the Messianic prophesies foretelling the birth of Jesus, I started wondering. What was happening when Isaiah foretold the coming of the Messiah? The Holy Spirit took me back into the chronicles of the kings of Israel and Judah.

In the Days of the Kings of Israel

After the time of king David and his son, Solomon, Israel was divided into two kingdoms. There then became a Northern kingdom (Israel), and a Southern kingdom (Judah). The pattern in recording the reign of each king reads:    

In the ___th year of King Thus-n-Such, king of ______ (Israel or Judah),  So-n-So became king of _________ (Judah or Israel). And King So-n-So did what was _________ (right or evil) in the eyes of God.   

Now there were lots of evil kings and there were some kings who did the right thing, or tried. but even the good kings were often only kind-of good. They were not always passionate to obey God’s instructions. Maybe they were just trying to be good human beings, but they didn’t really have a heart that was toward God and wanted to truly please Him.

For example, some kings “did what was right in the eyes of God” but didn’t bother to take away the high places, so people continued to burn incense and make sacrifices on pagan altars. Or the king did right for a time, but then turned proud, and turned away from God. And whatever the king was doing, the people were mostly following him. If God wanted to have a working love-relationship with people, this was not a very reliable system. 

 

Moses Tried to Tell Them

Deuteronomy 10, 11

Listen to how Moses addresses the children of Israel as they prepare to go into the land God promised to give them: 

And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways, and to love Him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments of the Lord and His statutes which I command you today for your good? 

And it shall be that if you earnestly obey My commandments which I command you today, to love the Lord your God and serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul, then I will give you the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the latter rain that you may gather in your grain, your new wine, and your oil…

If you carefully keep all these commandments which I command you to do—to love the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways, and to hold fast to Him—then the Lord will … put the dread of you and the fear of you upon all the land where you tread…

Take heed to yourselves, lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and serve other gods and worship them. (Excerpts from Deuteronomy 10 and 11)

Notice any repetition here? Moses was emphasizing this over and over: If you will just love God and obey Him.

God Gave His Law Out of Love

We love our kids and want to see them succeed and live meaningful, prosperous lives and have loving relationships and compassionate hearts.  And just like us, God wanted that for His children. If we didn’t give our kids any instructions, if there were no consequences for misbehavior, if we let them decide what’s “right for them” and let them make their own rules, so to speak, without interfering…we would not be loving them. In fact, this would be the opposite of love—this would be neglect.

God didn’t give the people rules because He was a mean, angry tyrant. Rather, He gave them rules because He loved them—instructions that would lead them to life. Rules like “don’t murder” and “don’t steal” and “don’t commit adultery.” But no matter how fervently or how often they were instructed to love God and follow Him, they could never seem to keep it up.  And as time went on, the people got more and more lost. They just could not get it right. God’s instructions were good, and for their own good. The Law was good and right and just, but it could not keep men good, righteous, and just. It could only reveal the hopeless plight of men trying on their own to be good, righteous and just.

Isaiah 60:2

Over time, things got very dark. And those whose hearts were toward God understood that the darkness was only getting darker.  Isaiah prophesied, For behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and deep darkness the people. Is 60:2. 

The Days of Isaiah the Prophet

It was in the days when the kings were doing evil in the sight of God and the people were following the kings instead of following God, and things were not going well, and getting very dark, that the prophet Isaiah lived among the people and watched what went on, and spoke and wrote down what he heard God say. 

I’d imagine he experienced many of the emotions that God had through this time. He probably felt broken-hearted and angry at their wayward hearts, and their betrayal. And He probably felt saddened at the depravity they were subjecting themselves to, hardening their hearts and embracing evil ways.

God was sticking with them though because He had made a covenant with Abraham. I don’t think He was caught by surprise that things were going to happen this way. It is hard to watch people you love turn away from light and truth and blessing, toward ways of darkness, and depravity. But He knew it would happen.

Isaiah Prophesies the Birth of Jesus

So, as people were becoming more and more depraved, as they were giving themselves over to deception, as they were rejecting God and His ways, as they were closing their ears and eyes to truth and wisdom and justice, and embracing evil, when it seemed like the light was going out and darkness was beginning to cover the earth and deep darkness the people, in the very midst of this, God deposited these beautiful, hope-filled words into Isaiah’s heart and onto his lips:

Isaiah 9:6,7

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, upon them a light has shined…for unto us a Child is born. Unto us a Son is given; and the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name 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, upon the throne of David and over Him kingdom, to order it and establish it with judgment and justice from that time forward, even forever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this. (Isaiah 9:6,7)

Prophecy of Zacharias About the Birth of Jesus

Luke 1:76-79

Isaiah lived about 700 years before the birth of Jesus. When Mary was pregnant with Jesus, a priest named Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist, prophesied about Jesus. After the birth of his son John, Luke records that Zacharias, filled with the Holy Spirit, prophesied, saying: Blessed is the Lord God of Israel, for He has visited and redeemed his people, and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of His servant David, as He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets who have been since the world began …

And you, child, [John] will be called the prophet of the Highest; for you will go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways, to give knowledge of salvation to His people by the remission of their sins, through the tender mercy of our God, with which the Dayspring from on high has visited us; to give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace. (Luke 1:76-79)

The Birth of Jesus Brings Our Dayspring

God’s tender mercy toward the people of Israel, and toward us, meant Jesus came as our Dayspring—our heaven-sent Sunrise. The Hebrew word for Dayspring is Anatole (a rising of light or dawn). It can be traced back to two Hebrew words: Ana which means “into the midst” and telos which means “the end to which all things relate, the aim, the purpose” (as in a goal). Today, the word Dayspring is used to mean ‘a new era’ or ‘a new order of things.’

So today, as we celebrate the birth of Jesus, we are remembering the ‘Dayspring from on high’—the rising Light (sent from Heaven) that dispels the darkness and brings a new order to things. We might even say that with His arrival, the Most Important Thing (the end to which all things relate —the purpose of all things) has come into our midst. 

And the darkness within us that deepens—with our sins and failures, our unsatisfying successes, and the reality of our emptiness apart from the Life-Giver—that darkness is dispelled as we invite the Dayspring in—in the very moment that we admit our sin and our need for saving. In that moment, God floods in with His love, His forgiveness, His truth, His hope. A heaven-sent Sunrise breaks in and gives us a brand new beginning.

Thank you Father for Your tender mercy toward us, and your great love. My heart wells up with love for You! Thank You for coming into our midst. Thank You for making a way for us to have a Life-giving Love-relationship with You that will never end. 

Blessed is the Lord God of Israel, for He has visited and redeemed His people. Luke 1:68