The prophet Micah called the people
of Judah to focus hard on finding a thin place in the midst of the thick and
foreboding threat of foreign invasion.
Like a raging storm, the Assyrian
invaders were bearing down on Judah to sweep them away. Assyria had become an
instrument of God for judgment against the people of God. The time was around 701
BC. It was a tough siege, but they escaped. However, about one hundred years
later, another empire, that of Babylonia, would carry them into exile.
In one sense, they thought of God
as distant, for Micah and Isaiah both tell us of the corruption of Judah during
this time. They thought there was a thick wall between God and them, and they could
get away with doing whatever they wanted. They had become the instruments of
the oppression of the people. Yet, God would break through the wall in
judgment. For these prophets, God would destroy the old Jerusalem and the old
Temple before the new could come.
In another sense, the leaders of
Jerusalem and the Temple thought they were the thinnest places around, so thin
that God and their places were identical. They could not imagine God allowing
anything bad to happen to the city or the temple, or even to the descendent of
David, regardless of how unlike David he was. What they did not realize was
that their salvation would not come from the present experience of king, city,
or Temple. They will not find security there. What I find remarkable here is
that this prophet will boldly proclaim that salvation will come in a little
town about five miles from Jerusalem. All it had was a few shepherd families
and many sheep. It reminds me of a
biblical theme. God often chooses the unlikely and the small. Bethlehem was insignificant as a town in
terms of size. In Bethlehem, in a place few expected, God was going to bring
the life of heaven to Earth in a very personal way. Help would come from a
small clan, Ephrathah, the ancestor of whom was apparently the wife of Caleb,
son of Hezron. The clan settled around Bethlehem. David would be from among
them.
The contrast was sharp. David was
the great pattern of what a king should be, while the present kings were little
more than a territory of the Assyrian Empire. Samuel anointed the shepherd-boy
David in Bethlehem and he would rule Israel and Judah. The promise of God to
David would find fulfillment, but in an unexpected way, by going back to Bethlehem.
The hard thing said here is that God
would give up his people to exile until that king would be born. The king will
bring the people back from distant lands. The shepherd-king will feed the flock
properly. Of course, about thirty years before this, we find another prophecy
of the birth of a child. In Isaiah 7:14, the prophet informs the king that he
will have a sign. “Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son,
and shall name him Immanuel.” Later, in 9:6, he refers to a child born for us,
a son given to us.
All of that would happen because
God was going to create a thin place where the people did not expect it, right
there, in Bethlehem. Instead of a temple, the place where heaven and earth came
together, the place where God would dwell with his people, was going to be the
feeding trough in a back alley of the tiniest and most insignificant of places.
Now, the beginning of verse five
says simply, “he shall be the one of peace.” The people of God have longed for
peace in this land. The
ancient story of Gideon, probably around the 1200’s BC, says that Gideon built
an altar and gave it the name, “The Lord is peace.” (Judges 6:23) During this
season, we remember the promise of a child in the prophets.
.
Isaiah 9:6
6 For a child
has been born for us,
a son given to us;
authority rests upon his shoulders;
and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Colossians
1:20 refer to Christ as “making peace through the blood of his cross.”
Ephesians 2:14 begins simply, “For he is our peace.” Of course, the angels
would say to the shepherds,
Luke 2:14
14
"Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace among those whom he favors!"
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