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“‘The days are coming,’ declares the Lord, ‘when I will fulfill the good promise I made to the people of Israel and Judah.
“‘In those days and at that time
I will make a righteous Branch sprout from David’s line;
he will do what is just and right in the land. In those days Judah will be saved
and Jerusalem will live in safety.
This is the name by which it will be called:
The Lord Our Righteous Savior.’”
~ As dictated by the Holy Spirit to the prophet Jeremiah, some 600+ years before Jesus’ birth
I’ve been reading the “-Iahs” lately. You know, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Obadiah… those famous prophets of old whose works crowd the oldest part of the oldest best-seller of all time. Realizing they only had snatches of the book of books we enjoy today, only the Torah, and nothing of the Jesus we are so familiar with — has me intrigued. These prophets knew very little, all things considered, of God’s promised Savior. But they were given missions from God himself, messages for their contemporaries and those who would later read their works. They were conduits of the Holy Spirit’s urgent press to scribe what they couldn’t help but write. Thru them God told His people of the Promised One to come. The One they would never see on this Earth.
Now Jesus always existed as the Son, present with the Father from before time began. He knew before the foundations of the Earth were set the full extent of His suffering and the joy it would bring His heart (and, one day, ours). He knew. He was there. And He couldn’t help Himself. He came to Earth in His pre-Incarnation, appearing as the Angel of the Lord, as recorded throughout the Old Testament, carrying messages and encouragement. He frequently interacted with Earth’s inhabitants, though not as one of them… yet.
But those He visited? They crouched in terror, and with increasing wonder watched His word made into events that shaped them and their descendants. Shaped us who read of them in His Word thousands of years later. We read of these looking back, seeing with eyes greater than our own, with Holy Spirit-energized understanding. We see the prophecies of the coming Messiah and wonder at their precise fulfillment.
But those who were writing all of this down? What of the men experiencing the pain and joys of citizenship in this broken nation? This stripling of a country whose men, women and children, through the centuries, have been hunted down, persecuted, killed in the millions, these citizens of a barely preserved Israel? They caught glimpses. They studied, digging deep as the Holy Spirit came on them, to understand more of the blurred images handed them.
They faithfully wrote all they could, knowing they would likely never see any of its fulfillment in their lifetime. They wrestled with the anguish of apostasy in their brethren, marveling at God’s persevering mercy and grace. The Israelis would be broken down to almost extinction. They would be punished severely for rejecting their own God. But they would be restored as they turned from their wickedness, tear-soaked faces, eyes barely able to gaze into the eyes of a forgiving Dad. And to them Messiah would come — as one of them.
They would someday, as their Messiah did, as we do now — call Him Abba, Daddy. This shocking familiarity would rock the world around them, the audacity of running into a holy God’s throne room, leaping into His open arms, cuddling in His lap. They would flock to Him, reject Him, slowly trickle back to Him in deep humility. The end-times will see the nation of Israel recognize their Messiah at last.
But those to whom the prophecy was given? All those “-Iahs”? They peered into the mists, writing feverishly, anticipating what they would never see on Earth.
But several hundred years after they died, those faithful soothsayers would follow the risen Christ out of Paradise, the singing and dancing spoils of war won on the cross, a shouting train of captives, following His shining form into Heaven itself. They are the good and faithful servants of old, who gave us the promise of the Promised One to come.
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I can’t help but think how ungrateful I often am of the treasure I hold in the Word of God. This book of 66 books, each one carefully crafted, Holy-Spirit breathed: I have more at my fingertips than any of the writers of this book. For I have all, from Genesis to Revelation, beginning and end. I have this gift to savor, a book many are killed for possessing — all over the world — right now. Oh God, forgive me for taking this invaluable book for granted, for pushing it away for temporary pleasures. Teach me to love it, to live in its ageless truths.
And let me never forget those who scribed it. They stand in your presence, basking in Your pleasure and approval. They who only caught glimpses now see fully what we will also someday share. And we, together with them, have all eternity to grasp what we can only catch now as bright, beautiful glimpses.
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Leoa, in the Wild 