Christmas Truth - Day 2

"A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit. The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him- the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of power, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord- and he will delight in the fear of the Lord. He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, or decide by what he hears with his ears; but with righteousness he will judge the needy, with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth. He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth; with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked. Righteousness will be his belt and faithfulness the sash around his waist." Isaiah 11:1-5

Such is the word from Isaiah the prophet sometime close to 700 B.C. Some 750 years later, Matthew records the lineage of Jesus of Nazareth in the opening of his gospel and we read:

"A record of the geneology of Jesus Christ the son of David, the son of Abraham...Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth, Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of King David...Thus there were fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon, and fourteen from the exile to the Christ." Matthew 1:1-17

History is important in the prophetic scheme and as we see from this example the fulfillment of the prophecy that the lineage of the Messiah would be preserved. This is even more significant when we consider the tumultuous events that took place in the time period between Jesse and Jesus. We look at God's judgement of disobedience on the part of His people, the Babylonian captivity and exile from the promised land and see an example of God's faithfulness toward His covenants.

The passage in Isaiah also speaks to the responses of the Messiah when questioned by the people. It says He will not judge by what He sees with His eyes nor by what He hears with His ears. We see this very thing time and again in the gospels when Luke, for example, records things like "When Jesus saw their faith...", "Jesus knew what they were thinking...", "But Jesus knew what they were thinking...", "He saw through their duplicity...They were unable to trap him in what he had said there in public. And astonished by his answer, they became silent."

And so we remain today; silent and astonished before a man who did not judge by what He saw with His eyes, nor with what He heard with His ears, but who knew the very heart of man and spoke the truth with righteousness, precisely because this was no mere man, not just another great teacher, but because this was the Messiah son of David, son of Abraham, a shoot from the stump of Jesse.