The Prophesied Birth
Author: Pastor Ryan Bing
December 20, 2024
Due to my quiet and introverted nature, I have learned that I have a very strong and active internal monologue. While, I know everyone’s internal monologue or lack there of works differently, I find myself often going down random rabbit holes of thoughts on various things from replaying conversations and imagining them differently, to thinking about different problems or scenarios. One of the most common ones I catch myself thinking about is what life would be like if I was born either in a different time period, or in a different place. I place myself throughout history and imagine a life for myself there, thinking about how different it would be compared to today. Would I have the same temptations as I do now? What would I do for work? What kind of food would I enjoy and eat? Thinking about the things that might be easier or harder; such as probably a lot easier to get to bed at a good time because of no electricity, but much harder to learn a new language or deal with an illness. I also imagine my life in current time but being born somewhere other than the United States, being raised in a different culture with another language. What aspects do I take for granted in my current life? What kind of things would I miss? What would I enjoy and find better? While these thoughts can be interesting and fun to daydream about they don’t necessarily add much to my life as I won’t ever really be able to know or experience these things since I can’t change when or where I was born. The most these thoughts can do is be used as a tool to come up with things I am grateful for. I can be grateful that I was born when and where I was, for the life I was given, and so many more things.
This makes Jesus’ story all the more interesting to me, throughout the Bible and especially around Christmas time we hear and read about all the different prophecies that are in the Old Testament that refer to Jesus’ life and birth. When we read this we often focus on how powerful and amazing our God is. From knowing and communicating his plans so far in advance and having them all come true; the life of Jesus is truly amazing. We also use it to verify and confirm the identity of Jesus, to show how He was really the Messiah that the Israelites were promised so long ago, that He is God. Yet there is another side of these prophecies that I think reveal an even more amazing picture of who our God really is.
From the very first prophecy of Jesus’ coming we see this picture; “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” - Genesis 3:15 Jesus is hinting here at coming and crushing the head of Satan, yet within this verse, Jesus will not do this unscathed. This point is made clearer in later verses concerning Jesus such as Isaiah 53:5-7-“But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.” These verses describe what Jesus will have to go through hundreds of years before they will ever happen, the hardships and pain. Satan’s strike on Jesus’ heal seems much worse in this context. “Led like a lamb to the slaughter,” “Pierced… crushed for our iniquities.” This is a pain hard for any of us to truly imagine, suffering beyond our comprehension, and yet this is all predicted and written long before Jesus ever has to endure it.
For humans the anticipation of pain and hardship is often much worse than the pain actually ends up being. I know for myself I can dread and fear even something as small as a difficult conversation I need to have and end up suffering much more than the actual conversation will cause due to the anticipation of the pain. I’m sure many can remember messing up as a child and stressing all day about how your parents would react, fearing the punishment that is sure to come, the pain you will feel. There are studies that show this, there is one experiment conducted where “subjects got to choose between receiving milder shocks after an interval as long as 15 minutes or stronger shocks more immediately. Most subjects opted to receive the more-intense stimuli right away rather than experience the dread of waiting for less intense ones.” Yet Jesus had had thousands of years to anticipate this pain, his pain and suffering was prophesied and he signed up knowing he would have to anticipate the pain for that long.
Which leads to Psalm 22, a Psalm of David that Jesus quotes from while he is on the cross. Psalm 22:1 “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from my cries of anguish?” Throughout this chapter David prophetically shows the pain and suffering that Jesus will go through, and I invite you to read the full chapter. He continues on in Psalm 22:14-15 “I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart has turned to wax; it has melted within me. My mouth is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth; you lay me in the dust of death.”
While we often might daydream and imagine what life would be like somewhere else, in a different time, we won’t ever be able to change when or where we are born and can only imagine what it would be like. Yet Jesus who had the ability to choose when and where he was born, knew exactly what his life would be like. Knew the pain he was signing up for, knew the cry for help he would cry out while on the cross. Still chose to be born, still offered himself up for us. From the very beginning he knew what it would take to save humanity, and he willingly took it upon himself. I think revealing a love that is truly incomprehensible, truly awe inspiring, that our God would be willing to give his life in place of ours, willing to anticipate the pain and suffering he would go through, knowing his friends would reject him, that he would be like a lone sheep led to slaughter all to save you and me. Christmas to me highlights this point in seeing all of the many prophecies that his birth that night met and set into motion. So, as we celebrate this holiday I ask that you reflect on what this side of the prophecies of Jesus’ birth teaches us and reveals to us of the God that we serve.
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