Christmas is a Big Deal Because . . . It is the Fulfillment of God's Promise - Matthew 1:18-25 (and others)

ãCopyright December 9. 2018 by Rev. Bruce Goettsche

A number of years ago we were eager to welcome a family to the church who had no background in the church at all (they have since moved away). They were sporadic but enthusiastic. They agreed to help one of their friends with the Sunday School Christmas Program. During the practices this woman listened with rapt attention. After one practice she asked, "if this is the Christmas story, where are the elves?"

I don't say this to ridicule this person at all. I say this because it is a reminder we are living in a secular culture. Not everyone knows the true story of Christmas. Even if a person knows it is about the birth of Jesus, it does not guarantee they understand the story. So, these Sundays leading up to Christmas we are going to address this reality by completing this statement: "Christmas is a Big Deal Because. . ." There will be four messages in the series:

It is the Fulfillment of God's Promise

It is God's Remedy for Man's Alienation from God

It is the One Way to Peace on Earth

It is the Solution to the Heartache of Death

God's Promise of a Messiah

If you want to learn about Christianity it is a good idea to start reading in the "New Testament" of the Bible. The New Testament is the story of the beginning of Christianity. The Old Testament points to the beginning of God’s work through the Jews who would ultimately bring the Messiah into the world. We see this from the very beginning of the book of Genesis in the Old Testament.

The first book of the New Testament is the Gospel of Matthew. As soon as you start reading Matthew you are confronted with a bunch of names . . . a genealogical record. The reason these names are there is to show Jesus was descendent of Adam, Abraham and King David. This was important because from his very first words, Matthew was trying to show Jesus fulfilled the requirements of the One God promised would come.

The word "Messiah" means anointed One. It was the title given One who would come and reign as the supreme King of Israel and the world. The term Christ is the Greek form of the Hebrew word "Messiah." Christ is not Jesus' last name, it is His title.

All the way back in the book of Genesis, God predicted the coming of Jesus to the serpent (Satan),

"And I will cause hostility between you and the woman,

and between your offspring and her offspring.

He will strike your head,

and you will strike his heel.” (Genesis 3:15)

God told the serpent that an offspring of Eve was going to defeat Satan even though Satan would strike a blow (the arrest and crucifixion of Jesus). The coming rescuer would strike Satan’s head with a death blow and fully defeat him. The person God was talking about is Jesus. In the list of names in Luke, he traces the ancestry of Jesus all the way back to Adam and Eve.

When God chose Abraham to build a people for God (which later became Israel) he made this promise to him in Genesis 22,

I will certainly bless you. I will multiply your descendants beyond number, like the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will conquer the cities of their enemies. 18And through your descendants all the nations of the earth will be blessed—all because you have obeyed me.” (Genesis 22:17-18)

The key phrase there is through Abraham's descendants "all the nations of the earth will be blessed." In other words, this Jewish Messiah was not only going to bless Israel, he was also going to bless the whole world. We believe Christmas is the celebration of that Messiah.

In Genesis 49 we read this promise to Judah, one of the sons of Jacob:

Judah, my son, is a young lion

that has finished eating its prey.

Like a lion he crouches and lies down;

like a lioness—who dares to rouse him?

10The scepter will not depart from Judah,

nor the ruler’s staff from his descendants,

until the coming of the one to whom it belongs,

the one whom all nations will honor. (Genesis 49:9-10)

This verse is significant because we are starting to narrow down the specifics of who this Messiah was going to be. It was going to be a descendent of Judah. Later one of the most notorious descendants of Judah, King David, was told the Messiah was coming through David's line. (see Psalm 132:11)

Specifics about His birth There were additional prophecies (predictions) about how the child would be born. These are among the most famous of the prophecies of the Messiah.

He Would be born of a Virgin. (Isaiah 7:14)

All right then, the Lord himself will give you the sign. Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel (which means ‘God is with us’). 15By the time this child is old enough to choose what is right and reject what is wrong, he will be eating yogurt and honey. (Isaiah 7:14)

The Moody Bible Commentary writes,

The sign the Lord promised the house of David was that “the” virgin would conceive. The use of the definitive article (frequently untranslated in modern English versions) with the word ‘almah indicates that the Lord had a particular woman in mind. She was not some nameless woman in the court of Ahaz, but one whom the prophet specifically saw.[1]

Much has been made of the fact that the Hebrew word for Virgin here could also mean "young woman." However, EVERY SINGLE TIME the word is used in the Bible it is used of a woman who was a virgin. When this verse was translated into Greek a little before the time of Jesus, the word they chose was the word that meant "virgin." This means that people before Jesus even came on the scene, understood the word to mean a virgin!

But what about the rest of the verse?

So in this passage, curds and honey do not represent the food of royalty, but rather the food of oppression. The point then of v. 15 describing the future virgin-born Davidic king eating curds and honey is not to emphasize His royalty, but to accentuate that he would be born during a time of political and economic oppression.[2]

The account in Matthew about a Virgin being with child is underscored because everyone knew the promised Messiah would be born to a virgin.

He would be born in Bethlehem of Judea. In Micah 5:2 the prophet wrote,

But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah,

are only a small village among all the people of Judah.

Yet a ruler of Israel

whose origins are in the distant past,

will come from you on my behalf.

There were two Bethlehem's in Israel: one in Ephrathah and one in the tribe of Zebulun. The prophet is specific about where the future King would be born. This town was a small village (think of La Harpe in comparison to Chicago). This coming ruler would have origins in the distant past (in other words it was something God planned long ago).

It is a remarkable prophecy and an even more remarkable how it ended up that Jesus was in Bethlehem at the time of His birth. It took a census for the purpose of taxing the people to bring Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem!

Great people would come and adore him. Psalm 72 was known to refer to the coming Messiah. In verse 10 we read,

The western kings of Tarshish and other distant lands

will bring him tribute.

The eastern kings of Sheba and Seba

will bring him gifts.

11All kings will bow before him,

and all nations will serve him. (Psalm 72:10)

Of course, this was fulfilled by the coming of the Magi (or Wisemen) to see Jesus.

He would be preceded by John the Baptist. In Isaiah 40:3 we read,

Listen! It’s the voice of someone shouting,

“Clear the way through the wilderness

for the Lord!

Make a straight highway through the wasteland

for our God!

Then in Malachi 3:1 the prophet says,

“Look! I am sending my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. Then the Lord you are seeking will suddenly come to his Temple. The messenger of the covenant, whom you look for so eagerly, is surely coming,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.

The birth account in the gospel of Luke begins with the story of Zechariah and Elizabeth and the miraculous birth of their baby (John . . . he was nicknamed "the Baptist") some six months before the birth of Jesus. The reason he begins with this account is to show John was the one who was to prepare the way for the Messiah (Jesus).

The birth of the Messiah would prompt a murder of innocent children. When Jesus was born, King Herod found out about it and tried to kill the one He saw as a rival King. He calculated when the Magi had seen the star and how long it took to get there and then made that time a little longer and then sent soldiers to Bethlehem to kill all the boy babies who were within that time period. Matthew pointed to Jeremiah 31:15

This is what the Lord says:

“A cry is heard in Ramah—

deep anguish and bitter weeping.

Rachel weeps for her children,

refusing to be comforted—

for her children are gone.”

This is not so much a prophecy as an illustration. In Jeremiah this referred to the time of the people of Israel being forced in to exile. Rachel was seen as the "mother of Israel." Matthew understand this to be another time when Rachel would have wept for her children

Conclusions

There are many more prophecies related to the life, ministry and death of Jesus. However, Peter Stoner and Robert Newman, in their BookScience Speaks, demonstrate the statistical improbability of any one man, accidentally or deliberately, from the day of these prophecies down to the present time, fulfilling just eight of the hundreds of prophecies Jesus fulfilled. They demonstrate that the chance of this happening is 1 in 1017power. Stoner gives an illustration that helps visualize the magnitude of such odds:

Suppose that we take 1017silver dollars and lay them on the face of Texas. They will cover all of the state two feet deep. Now mark one of these silver dollars and stir the whole mass thoroughly, all over the state. Blindfold a man and tell him that he can travel as far as he wishes, but he must pick up one silver dollar and say that this is the right one. What chance would he have of getting the right one? Just the same chance that the prophets would have had of writing these eight prophecies and having them all come true in any one man, from their day to the present time, providing they wrote using their own wisdom.

It is mathematically absurd to claim that Jesus accidentally or deliberately fulfilled Old Testament prophecy.[1]

I think we can draw two very important applications from this text. First, the King God promised, has come! Because he has come, we should follow Him. Jesus is the One God's people were waiting for. He is the Redeemer. The birth of Jesus was a big deal because this was not just the birth of a baby, as marvelous as that is, it was the birth of the promised King!

Since this is true we should note this. We should give at least as much attention to the birth of Jesus as people do the births in the royal family in England! They are excited about the fact that one of these children will be a future King. How much more should we be excited about the one Isaiah talked about when we said . . .

For a child is born to us,

a son is given to us.

The government will rest on his shoulders.

And he will be called:

Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,

Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

7His government and its peace

will never end.

He will rule with fairness and justice from the throne of his ancestor David

for all eternity.

The passionate commitment of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies

will make this happen! (Isaiah 9:6-7).

I hope you see we should be VERY interested in this King.

God Keeps His Promises

On a personal level what makes these prophecies so relevant is what it tells us about the character of God. God keeps His promises. He does not function by our timing, but He does keep His Word.

This is important as we go through our daily lives. Think about the various promises of God we depend on,

Whoever believes in me will live even though he dies. (John 3:16, John 11:25)

All sins can be forgiven (Mark 3:28)

He will never leave us or forsake us (Hebrews 13:5; Matthew 28:20)

The world cannot overcome us as long as we are with Him (John 16:33)

He will supply all our needs (Philippians 4:19)

The Holy Spirit prays for us in groans too deep for words (Romans 8:26)

Nothing can ever separate us from His love (Romans 8:31 ff)

When we are put on the spot for our faith, the Holy Spirit will give us the words we need. (Luke 12:11-12)

He goes to prepare a place for us (John 14:2)

The list could continue for pages. The point is this: if God was faithful about His promise of a Redeemer, He will also be faithful about these other promises because He is true to His Word.

Christmas is a big deal not because of Santa Claus, the reindeer, or the elves of Santa's workshop. It is a big deal because it was an event that had been anticipated for centuries. It shows God's promise is dependable, His power is great. The birth of Jesus is the one of the most significant acts of history (along with the resurrection and second coming.) We celebrate it because it is worth celebrating. In fact, if you understand the true message of Christmas there HAS TO BE a celebration.

It may not play well in retail sales, but the truth is this: the greatest gift is not the gift purchased on Cyber Monday, Black Friday or on Amazon . . . the greatest gift is Jesus! And one of the great things about this gift - you don't have to depend on the elves to get it!

[1] Michael A. Rydelnik and James Spencer, “Isaiah,” in The Moody Bible Commentary (Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 2014), 1020.

[2] ibid, 1021.