Daily Devotion, December 23, 2020

 

Devotion: Read Micah 5:1-7.

Time and Hope. In a nanosecond these days, we can hear news from anywhere in the world. And in a nanosecond, if things don’t go the way we expect, we can easily give up hope.

But during the prophet Micah’s day, time held different meanings. Micah is speaking words of hope three hundred years after the days of King David, and approximately seven hundred years before Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem. That’s a long time to keep hope alive!

These words were spoken during very difficult times. Jerusalem is under siege, and the people see no hope. But Micah sees hope. Micah sees beyond the current circumstances to what God is promising to do and has already begun to do. Micah is able to speak of this hope because of God’s presence in his life. Micah knows God and knows the character of God in such a way that Micah knows that God is bringing salvation to the people.

Micah’s words were not what the people were expecting! “Bethlehem? A shepherd king? One who would reach out to the ends of the earth and be their peace?” Even Jewish teachers and priests of the first century AD would read and expect from this prophecy a very different kind of Messiah than they saw in Jesus of Nazareth. But God kept Micah’s words in the hearts of the people such that Micah’s words are quoted in the gospels that Jesus’ birth fulfills the words of the prophets.

Even in the midst of great despair, Micah’s hope was in God and who God is. Micah invites us to follow his gaze and turn our full attention to God. Micah’s words call us to see, hear and to open our hearts to expect the unexpected, to listen to the least likely voices and to stay awake with wonder of all that God is doing in our midst, even in difficult times. Personal Worship Option: Three years after Rev. Phillip Brooks’ trip to the Holy Land, (which was during December after having given the funeral sermon for President Abraham Lincoln in May), he wrote the poem for the Christmas carol, “O Little Town of Bethlehem.” Pause and reflect on the words of the third stanza: “How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given; so God imparts to human hearts the blessings of his heaven. No ear may hear his coming, but in this world of sin, where meek souls will receive him still the dear Christ enters in.” Never, ever give up hope, for God is present and at work in our midst. Amen.