As you know, I’ve moved around some in my life. I’ve never lived outside of South Dakota, but
I grew up in Delmont, went to school in Vermillion for seven years, lived in
Pierre for six and a half years, lived in Wessington Springs for almost
seventeen years, moved to North Sioux City for three years, and now have been
here for about two and a half years.
That experience is not all that unusual any more. Lots of people move a few times in their lives. Depending on whose figures you rely on, the
average person moves anywhere from nine to sixteen times in their lives.
But there are some people who don’t move at all. Some people, including some of you, have
lived pretty much on the same place their entire lives. In fact, some people live in the same house
all their lives. When you do that, it
has to make you feel a real connection to your past. You must feel connected both to that certain
place and to those people who’ve gone before you.
We talked a little about the connection to a place last
week, when we talked about the Savior being born in Bethlehem. But today, we’re going to talk about the
connection to the people who’ve gone before.
As we continue to look at the Old Testament prophecies about the Savior,
today we’re going to look at the prophecy that the Savior would be a descendant
of King David.
The book of Jeremiah, to the best of our knowledge, was
written around six hundred B. C. In
other words, it was written six hundred years before the birth of Jesus. You may have noticed that we’re moving
forward about a hundred years at a time with these prophecies. Our reading from Isaiah, two weeks ago, was
written in about eight hundred B. C., our reading from Micah last week was
written in about seven hundred B. C., and today’s reading was written in about
six hundred B. C.
We are getting
closer to the birth of the Savior, although obviously six hundred years is
still a long time away. And as we get
closer to the birth of the Savior, the prophets are giving people more
information about him. First we learned
that he would be born from a virgin.
Then we learned that he would be born in Bethlehem. Now, we learn that the Savior will be a
descendant of King David.
And you’ve
probably noticed something else. At each
of the times that one of these prophecies is made, the nation of Israel is in
trouble. At the time of our reading from
Isaiah, they were under threat from two armies who wanted to invade. At the time of our reading from Micah, they
were essentially in control of Assyria.
At the time of today’s reading, Israel is in even more trouble. It is about to be taken over by Babylon and
the people are going to be sent into exile, away from their home.
Think what
that would be like. To be forced away
from your home. To know that you could
never go back. I mean, yes, I’ve moved
several times, but I’ve never moved that far away, and I’ve always know I could
go back any time I wanted to.
Think what it
would be like to be forcibly taken to a foreign country. Especially, those of you who’ve lived in this
area all your lives, think what that would be like, to have somebody come and
force you to go live in a completely different place, where nothing is going to
be familiar to you. And to know that,
once you leave, you’re never going to be able to go back. It must have been an incredibly hopeless
feeling.
It’s at times
like these, when things feel hopeless, that we need to find something,
anything, to give us hope. And so God,
speaking through the prophets, gave the people hope. God said yes, things look bad right now. And sometimes, God said, you know what,
things are going to get worse. But God
also said that things were not going to be that way forever. God said that God had not abandoned them. God said that someday, at the right time, a
Savior would come. God gave that message
to the people of Israel.
And what
better way to give the people that hope than to tell them that the Savior, the
King, would be a descendant of King David? After all, David had been the greatest king of
all. And God had promised David that
David’s line would never die out, that David’s descendants would rule forever. And everyone knew that. And now, with the people about to be sent
into exile, it looked like God’s promise had failed.
But it had
not. God, speaking through Jeremiah,
told the people that God’s promise would be fulfilled. David’s line had not died out. David’s descendants would rule forever. A King, a Savior, was going to come, and it
would be someone who was a descendant of King David. God would be faithful to God’s promises.
That’s why the
gospels go to such lengths to go through Jesus’ genealogy and show that Jesus
was, in fact, a descendant of David.
Both the first chapter of Matthew and the third chapter of Luke go
through a lengthy list of Jesus’ ancestors.
The list in Matthew starts from Abraham and goes forward all the way to
Joseph and then Jesus. Luke goes
backward, starting with Jesus, going back through Joseph, and then going back
all the way to Adam. The gospel writers
wanted to make sure everyone knew that Jesus was the fulfillment of God’s
promises. They wanted to make sure
everyone knew that Jesus was the Son of God.
When things
seemed hopeless, God gave the people a message of hope. And that’s what God still does. When things seem hopeless in our lives, God
gives us a message of hope, too.
It’s important
for us to understand that. Because it
seems like it can be really easy for us to lose hope sometimes. We humans, after all, can be pretty impatient
people. We want what we want when we
want it. We tend to think we deserve to
get what we want when we want it. When
we don’t get it, we can get upset. We
can get discouraged. And sometimes, we
can lose hope.
And that’s
especially true when we what we want seems, as far as we can tell, to be a good
thing. I mean, it would be one thing if
what I wanted was ten million dollars and I was upset when God would not give
it to me. But sometimes, what we want is
something simpler than that. Sometimes,
what we want is just to have enough money to buy food and pay the rent. Sometimes, what we want is just to have a
broken relationship with a loved one be repaired. Sometimes, what we want is to not feel sick
any more. And when we pray for those
things, and God does not seem to answer, it’s really easy for us to get
discouraged. It’s really easy for us to
lose hope. Because we cannot understand
why a good, loving God would not give us these things.
In Isaiah’s
time, in Micah’s time, in Jeremiah’s time, the people of Israel could not
understand why God was making them go through what they had to go through. And you know what? God did not tell them why. God, speaking through the prophets, did not
tell the people why they were having to go through this. What God said was that it’s not going to be
this way forever.
What God said
was that God had not abandoned them. God
said that, eventually, things are going to change. You’re going to have to go through some hard
times first. Things are going to be bad
for a while. And after that, things may
get even worse for a while. But
eventually, things are going to change.
Things are going to get better.
Keep your faith. Trust me. Don’t lose hope. I am going to send a Messiah to you. He is going to be born of a virgin, he is
going to be born in Bethlehem, and he’s going to be a descendant of David. And he’s going to save you.
And when we
don’t understand why God is making us go through what we have to go through,
when we start to lose hope, that’s what God tells us. God knows when we’re going through hard
times. And God tells us that God has not
abandoned us. God says that, yes, things
are going to be bad for a while. And in
fact, things may even get worse for a while.
But eventually, things are going to change. Things are going to get better. God tells us to keep our faith. God tells us to trust God. And God tells us not to lose hope.
The reason we
celebrate at Christmas is that this is when God’s promise came true. God did send a Messiah. He was born of a virgin. He was born in Bethlehem. He was a descendant of David. And he did save the people of Israel.
So if you’re
going through a hard time right now, know that God sees it. Know that God understands it. And know that God has not abandoned you. Things are going to get better. Keep your faith. Trust God.
Don’t lose hope. Jesus saved the
people of Israel. And Jesus will save
us, too.
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