Were they prepared?

Christmas Day!

How was Christmas day for many of us?

I can see that there are those that are plump and satisfied?

Did you get the present that you have always wanted?

Indeed, Christmas is truly wonderful when you spend with family and with friends.

It’s what some of us have all been looking forward to, Christmas day, away from the office and readying ourselves for either Boxing Day or even New Year’s!

But again, let us not forget the real reason for the season, Christmas is truly about God’s give to humanity.

Christmas is a celebration that God came into this world, where Jesus was born, and humanity got the chance to experience God with us.

Joy to the World!

What great joy my friends to know that the King of kings and Lord of lords came to this world and to be like us, to be like you and me.

His coming has been told from days of old, and indeed God arrived at the right time and in the right place.

Here the Creator, the Redeemer of humanity came as a babe and revealed to us the plan of humanity’s salvation through Him.

Yet, Jesus’ arrival was only met by so few people, as exciting as a new born baby brought into the world. Only a few shepherds and a few wise men from the east arrived to bring homage to the Saviour of humanity.

Where was the high priest? Where were the priests and scribes who study the Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible? Where were the prophets, did God forget to inform them?

Where were the Jews when Jesus was born? Where was God’s people when God came to this world?

And it makes you think, why weren’t the Jews prepared for Jesus’ first coming? I mean, isn’t this something they were all looking forward to? Someone who was to save them from the Romans and establish an everlasting kingdom?

Wasn’t this something that they were preparing? Were they prepared?

This history thus far.

Before we answer this question, you have to go a bit back in time before Jesus’ birth.

You see, the people of Israel have been governed by many foreign powers in the past, first they had the Babylonians and from here the Jews were to receive more details of the coming Messiah through the various major and minor prophets.

Then after the Babylonians, the next kingdom took over, the Medo-Persians, and the Jewish people were content with the Persians because not only did prophecy foretell the coming of Cyrus but he and his predecessors freed the Israelites and helped them rebuild their home.

Eventually, another kingdom arose and conquered the Persians, the Greeks led by Alexander the Great swiftly conquered the known world with his kingdom extending as far as India to Egypt and Macedonia.

Alexander however would not live to see the maturity of his kingdom and the Greek kingdom would be broken up and divided into 4 kingdoms; Cassander, Lysimachus, Seleucus and Ptolemy.

Ptolemy would control Israel for a period of time but would later lose to the Seleucid kingdom, Israel will face religious persecution under this new management. But, out of great persecution a people would arise to oppose the tyranny and a family would gain a name for themselves and for the very first time. Israel will be free from foreign powers and self govern under the Hasmonean dynasty.

This kingdom won’t last very long, internal conflict took a toll on this dynasty splitting the religious political party into two; the Pharisees and the Sadducees, a civil war would erupt between the two parties eventually Rome would intervene and made Israel a protectorate of Rome allowing a king rule over the people and a governor of Rome to ensure Israel was administered by the Romans.

For the ordinary Jews, they had hoped that the Hasmonean dynasty would have been there opportunity for glory. They would have thought that the messiah would have come to free them from their oppressors.

You need to understand that throughout these periods, various people rose up to the oppression and were considered or misunderstood to be messianic figures.

False Messiahs

Around 4 BC, a man by the name of Judas, son of Hezekiah would rise after the death of Herod the Great, though he never claimed to be the messiah, the Jews at the time considered him to be one as he fought against the powers that be. Eventually, he would not last very long.

At a similar time, Simon of Peraea, or Simon son of Joseph, a former slave to the king Herod the Great. Would rise to power after the king’s death and would go and destroy the king’s property with fire. Eventually, his reign to free his people would end by the Romans. Some of the Jews would consider him to be the messiah.

But, you notice a pattern, these supposed messiahs are coming out at a time when Rome was in control and in power over the Jews.

People had hoped to look to someone, a messiah that would save them, it didn’t necessarily have to be someone of Jewish origin. Take for example, Cyrus.

Isaiah 45:1 NKJV

1 “Thus says the Lord to His anointed, To Cyrus, whose right hand I have held— To subdue nations before him And loose the armor of kings, To open before him the double doors, So that the gates will not be shut:

Who does God say Cyrus is to Him? His anointed, which in Hebrew means? Messiah/Christ! Cyrus according to God is His messiah, His christ.

In some way Cyrus is an anti-type of the True Messiah, through God’s will he freed the Jews from slavery from the Babylonians and through his predecessors allowed them to return home.

But even with these other messiahs why were they not prepared for the coming of Jesus?

Why weren’t they prepared?

I mean, the prophecy is in their scripture, for the Hebrew people, they take pride in the in the Tanakh and they revere God’s Word.

They’ve had the revelation from God about His first coming yet they weren’t prepared to receive Him or even accept Him as their Messiah.

The only thing they didn’t have is when Jesus would come, but they had the location, and the sign of a virgin birth.

So, why weren’t they prepared?

*** misunderstood who or what the Messiah was meant to really do.

Are we prepared?

What must I do to get ready?

The Jews weren’t prepared, will we be prepared?