Episode Transcript
PRAYER OF CONSECRATION
Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.
Jesus, I belong to you.
I lift up my heart to you.
Help me to eagerly desire spiritual gifts, especially the gift of prophecy.
I set my mind on you.
Help me discern your thoughts.
I fix my eyes on you.
Help me to see more than I can see.
I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice.
Help me to sense your presence.
Jesus, we belong to you.
Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.
Matthew 2:3–12
When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. When he had called together all the people's chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born. "In Bethlehem in Judea," they replied, "for this is what the prophet has written:
"'But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for out of you will come a ruler
who will shepherd my people Israel.'"
Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. He sent them to Bethlehem and said, "Go and search carefully for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him."
After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.
CONSIDER THIS
Kathie and I pastor at Towerview Church in Bangor, Northern Ireland. Bangor is a beautiful small city with gorgeous beaches and beautiful walks. One of our favorite walks is to Skipping Stone Beach. It's tiny, and, yes, the sea regularly washes up the wonderful flat rocks ideal for skimming over the waves. It's a fun place to visit.
After forty years of prophetic ministry and through reading Scripture, I've concluded that prophetic messages often skip through time, just like these stones skip over the water. A prophecy can touch down again and again, at different times and places, to different people in different circumstances, and each time, it can breathe the life of God afresh into the people in need.
If we examine Micah's prophecy a little more closely, we will see this process at work. Let's begin by comparing Micah's prophecy with the version quoted by the chief priests and teachers of the law in Matthew 2.
“But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah,
though you are small among the clans of Judah,
out of you will come for me
one who will be ruler over Israel,
whose origins are from of old,
from ancient times.”
Therefore Israel will be abandoned
until the time when she who is in labor bears a son,
and the rest of his brothers return
to join the Israelites.
He will stand and shepherd his flock
in the strength of the Lord,
in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God.
And they will live securely, for then his greatness
will reach to the ends of the earth.
And he will be our peace
when the Assyrians invade our land (Micah 5:2–5b).
Now, let us compare it to the extract quoted by the chief priests and teachers of the law in Matthew 2:6.
“‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for out of you will come a ruler
who will shepherd my people Israel.’”
The information about Bethlehem is found in verse 2, and the shepherd analogy is from verse 4. However, the chief priests omit the rest of the prophecy, which rooted its message in Micah's own time before the exile. For example, Micah 5:5a talks about the Assyrians invading the land, while Micah 5:3 speaks of Israel being abandoned. The peoples' chief priests and teachers of the law omit these sections.
Here's what happened. Micah brings a prophecy. It touches down when the Assyrians invade Israel, and it is abandoned. Then, it skims across time and finds its fulfillment in Christ. This prophecy skipped across the waters of time to speak to the people's chief priests and teachers of the law, Herod, the Magi, Matthew the Gospel writer, countless Bible translators, and now to us. It will go on skipping through time until Jesus returns.
The prophecy contains another theme that skips across time. The line "though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel" is but another in the long list of times when the underdog, the runt of the litter, is raised up and honored. Consider Jacob, Joseph, and even King David, whose father Jesse didn't even bother to present him to Samuel when he came to anoint a new king. There's Bethlehem, and there's "Can anything good come from Nazareth?" And, then, more than likely, there's you and me.
But there's one final skip. This time, we don't find it in Micah's passage but in the Magi's gift of myrrh. The burial of kings was a big deal in the ancient Middle East, so the gift of myrrh was appropriate for the future embalming of the new king. And it was, indeed, used in his burial. John 19:38–42 records Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus wrapped Jesus's body in linen, aloes, and myrrh.
But the Magi could never have imagined the other time Jesus was offered myrrh; this time, on the cross, mixed with wine to dull the pain of crucifixion (Mark 15:23). You'll know that Jesus refused to drink it. When he bore our sins and sicknesses on the cross, he did so without any palliative. He bore them fully. The Magi’s prophetic act, this prophetic gift, touched down again at a moment that changed our lives.
Tomorrow is New Year's Day. Happy New Year. Happy birthday to my wife, Kathie, too. John David will return with his New Year, New Word series. It's going to be great.
This year, the Wake-Up Call was read or listened to more than 8.2 million times. That’s a lot of seed that J. D. and others have planted deeply in our hearts, homes, and churches. Thank you to our founder and sower-in-chief, J. D. Walt, and the Wake-Up Call team.
But you’ve been sowing too. You’re not done yet. A bag of seeds is right by you with 2025 written on it. There’s a lot of sowing still to be done.
Get your sack! See you on the field.
THE PRAYER
Lord, on this last day of the year, I bring my gifts to you and lay them at your feet. Use them today and allow their impact to skip across time and space, changing lives until Jesus returns. Amen.
THE QUESTIONS
Why does God keep choosing the runt of the litter? What does this teach us about God's nature and heart for the poor? The Magi had no idea that their gift of myrrh was a prophetic act. Have you had similar experiences when something you have said or done takes on a prophetic quality?
