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Intro - Peace
As we approach Christmas—this time when we celebrate the coming of God to rescue broken humanity—we reflect on four great themes of Jesus’ coming: Hope, Peace, Love and Joy.
Last week Graham looked at Hope, and this week I’m looking at Peace.
Perhaps one of the the most famous passages pointing towards the peace that Jesus in particular brings is in Micah.
Micah is a difficult little book, but let’s try to tackle this passage anyway, because it turns out to be very beautiful and profound.
Let’s read it now.
Bible
Context of Micah 5: judgement
Hmm...
To understand this passage, we really need to understand the context.
Fortunately, this passage has a very specific context: a well-known event.
This first verse is referring to the famous siege of Jerusalem by the armies of Sennacherib, king of Assyria.
You may remember the story from 2 Kings, where it ends with God sending an army of angels to defeat Sennacherib’s army.
But that’s much later in the story than when Micah gave this oracle, this prophecy.
Over twenty years earlier, the prophet Isaiah—a contemporary of Micah—had been prophesying the fall of the northern kingdom of Israel, and, just twenty years before this passage, Isaiah’s prophecy had come true.
He had also warned that this justice would be visited on the southern kingdom of Judah, and on its capital, Jerusalem.
In fact, Micah’s own prophecies were very similar to Isaiah’s.
He, too had prophesied against the northern kingdom of Israel.
In fact, the book of Micah starts with a confronting prophecy about both Israel and Judah, Samariah and Jerusalem.
He said:
It’s pretty clear that Micah’s role as prophet was to warn Israel and Judah about the consequences of their rebellion against God.
But what was this rebellion that God was judging?
We just need to read on for a few verses to find out.
See, Micah’s not that hard!
The people were putting their faith in buildings and idols and treasures.
Micah’s reference to “her prostitution” is a common Biblical metaphor for people valuing false gods, including money, wealth, and security, over the true God.
That was the problem.
If you read through Micah, you’ll find that, like Amos, he rails against the rich and the way they exploit the poor.
God’s nation is filled with greed and injustice.
How can he bring about peace?
First, God must sweep away the wickedness, and so he uses Assyria and its king Sennacherib to sweep away the wicked society that had grown up in Israel and Judah.
Indeed, immediately before the prophecy of peace in our passage, Sennacherib’s army had been approaching Jerusalem from the south-west, destroying all the towns as they went.
That included Bethlehem, which Micah prophesied was the source of God’s redemption.
And finally Sennacherib’s army laid siege to Jerusalem, with King Hezekiah, the prophet Isaiah, and probably Micah himself trapped inside.
That is the context for this passage.
Story - Gardening
Let my tell a story that might help explain what God is doing here, because it’s a long way outside our modern, Australian experience.
A few days ago I took advantage of the wet weather, and the moist soil that results, to do some gardening.
Something that good gardeners know, but which I struggle with, is the idea that gardens need to be dug up regularly.
I struggle with this, because I look at the plants that seem to be thriving, and I don’t want to unsettle them.
But my approach doesn’t work.
It leads to this.
That’s supposed to be a herb garden, but it’s actually a weed garden with some herbs in it.
The weed (mostly couch grass) can’t be pulled out without pulling out the herbs as well.
But the herbs can’t flourish and be fruitful unless the weeds are dealt with.
What to do?
This!
I have to dig everything out, leaving bare earth behind.
Then I can replant the herbs that remain (the remnant) and nourish them back to life.
And also plant new herbs.
This brutal approach is the only way for herbs to have a peaceful, nurturing environment in which to flourish.
Anything less than this will simply result in more weeds and fewer, more stressed herbs.
The same is true of wicked people and systems—the weeds—and good people—the herbs.
Fulfillment of Micah 5: peace for all men, not just Israel
With that in mind, let’s continue looking at our passage, because, as I said, it’s quite profound.
Micah’s prophecy here makes it sound like God will send a ruler from Bethlehem to rescue the people from Assyria right away.
But from our perspective 2700 years later, we know that didn’t happen.
In fact, when Jesus was born, the Jews were still waiting for this ruler, who they now identified as the Messiah.
King Herod discovered this after the wise men sparked his interest and the Jewish scholars quoted Micah to him:
So, what then does it mean, in verse 3 of Micah 5, when it says that the fellow countrymen will return to their own land?
After all, by the time of Jesus, the Samaritans were either hopelessly corrupted (as the Jews believed) or had been in their home land for centuries.
There was certainly no possibility of the northern tribes rejoining with Judah as the unified nation of Israel.
Let’s see if the rest of the prophecy can help us understand.
Well, it seems both the promise of reunification, and the promise of peace here, turn out to be bigger promises than even Micah expected.
It’s quite common for Biblical prophecy to have a small, immediate context, but God is actually pointing to a much bigger reality.
Jonah fixates on the miraculous plant that shelters him and then dies, but God is pointing to the grace he is showing Ninevah and, ultimately, the whole world through Jesus.
God promises Abraham more descendants than the stars visible in the sky, but he means descendants via faith as well as blood, extending his promise to the whole world.
In fact, Jesus took all of God’s plans and promises for Israel and extended them to everyone, and Christians have followed in his footsteps.
So when we read Micah’s prophecy we can see how God is bringing the lost brothers of Israel—the Gentiles, the rest of the world—back into unity with him.
In the same way, the promise of peace applies to the whole world.
Jesus is the source of peace for us all, protecting us from tyrannies like Assyria’s, even when they seem to be overwhelming us.
Judgement for all men
Of course, if God is extending these promises of peace to the whole world, then he must also extend the threat of judgement to the whole world, right?
After all, peace is only possible in the context of judgement.
And, of course, that is exactly what God will do.
After many great judgements John’s Revelation concludes with the ultimate judgement:
And, as you would expect, the result is universal peace.
Experiencing peace today
But, of course, we live between these two realities.
Between the time of Jesus coming to save the world and his coming to judge the world.
We live in a time when God dwells in our hearts, but not in the world around us.
How then, can we experience peace today?
Must we wait for Jesus’ second coming?
Praise God that he has given us the possibility of peace today, even in the midst of his, and our, enemies.
Judgement on our own sins
The key to experiencing peace in our lives is the same as the key to bringing peace to the world: we must ruthlessly dig out the weeds, and only then can we replant the herbs.
What are the weeds?
In Micah’s time it was the temptation to rely on great homes in the capital city and the temptation of wealth.
Guess what, that’s our weeds too!
Think about it: we Australians are obsessed with building or owning our own homes.
They are our refuges, our castles, our protection from the storms of life.
Tragically, while a home can be that, if we value our home over the God of the universe, we become a slave to our home.
We become mortgage slaves, or DIY drones, or we have breakdowns because the stress of keeping a roof over our family’s head, or keeping our family under that roof, becomes too great.
But if we place God first, then he promises that he will give us all we need.
If we give up our home Jesus promises us a hundred in its place.
This is a weird promise, but how many of us have tried claiming it?
All I know is that if we value our home above God, it will rule over us as a cruel slavemaster.
But if we value God above our home, being prepared to give it up for his sake, then God will care for us.
I’ve previously mentioned the family in Hong Kong who sold their enormous home in America, in obedience to God, and moved to a tiny, rented apartment in the slums of Sham Shui Po.
They found themselves freed, and we can too.
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