Good evening. For those of you who don't know me I'm Karen, I'm a youth worker at St Hugh's and a member here at St Mary's. I have to admit right now that I'm not a biblical scholar. I didn't study theology at University. But please don't hold that against me as we begin to explore the Old Testament, what it said about Jesus and how the New Testament looks different in light of Jesus. Also as we approach Christmas how do the biblical text's inform our waiting and anticipation of Jesus coming again.
As I said I'm not a biblical scholar, however that doesn't stop me having a passion for the living word of God and trying to understand our historical context as Christians. I love the Old Testament, about 4 years ago there was some light shed on it for me, I lived in a dark world where I just read the New Testament. I think once it is put into a little bit of context we might start to look at it as a more relevant book to us than once imagined. It is often sold as the book of the Jews, text which has some lovely stories and poems, as well as the record of the judges and kings who ruled over the Jewish nation. If we start from this premise, we miss the point of the Old Testament and we won't get to the heart of what God is saying through the stories, poems and records.
So as with every good story lets start at the beginning. God creates the universe, the earth and Man, and He says “It's good”, then Man messes up big time and gets thrown out of the place where he can be in God's presence constantly. Of course, God is not going to give up that quickly on something he has created, there are various things that happen throughout the Old Testament which show us God's plan for restoring the relationship between God and Us. I'm just going to pick on a few, because if I could show you every one we'd probably be here all night.
The first one we'll look at is the story of Abraham and Isaac. This can be found in Genesis 22. God tests Abraham, who is very old, and asks him to sacrifice his only son. They travel for three days to a place where God had told them to go. Isaac is not stupid, he has a very wise father, recognises the set up for a sacrificial offering and quite rightly asks “where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” to which Abraham replies, somewhat cryptically “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son”. At this point, Abraham ties up Isaac and places him on the altar. This is how we often misinterpret the text, there's no elaboration and emotion. You can't imagine for a second that this wasn't done without some sort of a struggle, tears and utter pain on Abraham's part. He had given God years of faithful service and been so obedient, and this is how God repays him? At the very last moment God saves Isaac and a ram is provided to sacrifice instead. And Abraham's fear and obedience are rewarded by a promise from God, his descendants will be as numerous as the stars in the sky and sand on the beach.
The parallels between this story and Jesus dying on the cross are plain to see, especially when they are laid side by side. We often teach Old Testament as just a story to interest young children, or as a story for the Jewish people, but the meaning for us today is clear. John 3:16 reflects this: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son”. Isaac was given out of choice and obedience. Jesus was given out of choice and love for us that we might live and have eternal life. We begin to see God's salvation plan unfolding before our eyes with massive hints towards what will happen.
Another person who's life can be seen as a parallel for the life of Jesus is David, the shepherd boy born in Bethlehem and chosen as King even though he's the runt of the family. David defeated giants and won many wars and for all intents and purposes was a good king. The Jewish people expected their Messiah to resemble David. Well, we know now that he didn't, at least not in the way they expected. Jesus quoted David's Psalms several times throughout his ministry, Jesus knew his scriptures so well, they were woven into everyday speech. Again, when stories from the Old Testament and New Testament are laid side by side, we see things we may never have seen reading the stories separately.
In Jesus birth, life, death and resurrection he fulfils over 300 Old Testament prophecies. I choose one Isaiah passage because it's one of the verses used during advent. Verses 6-7 are used during this time of advent to show that Jesus is King over all and that for hundreds of years the Jews were waiting for someone to come and sit on the throne in Jerusalem and rule as a proper king should. This is one prediction they missed the point about. It's almost like when you get a text message from some one who has used predictive text, but they've forgotten to switch the word. I'm sure we each have a little bug bears with predictive text on a mobile phone. For me it's the shortening of “I have” I get “H've” every single time and it drive me up the wall. And believe me I've tried to teach my phone the right letters. If you know how to use predictive text it makes life easier and faster, if you don't it can be the most confusing and frustrating thing you've ever come across!
We find the same problem with the Bible, if we know how to use it and can begin to link all the pieces together we start to see with clarity and understanding of the wider picture, but if we miss a verse, or spell something wrong then we will struggle greatly and can change the meaning of the passage. A great way to do this is to grab a bible overview book that's really easy to read. I'm currently reading BOOK!
Back to the Isaiah passage, the Jews went down the line of the great kings and saw their Messiah as someone who would fit into their picture, but we know that's not the case. Jesus flipped the world on it's head, just by being born. There was nothing majestic about his birth, the first people to see him were the shepherds who spent their time away from any other human beings, they may well have been viewed as outcasts, not the kind of people you'd expect to be in the presence of a King.
This is not the only prophecy declaring the majesty of Jesus Daniel 7:13-14 and Zechariah 9:9, and there are the other prophets who told about the kind of king and person Jesus would be. So as the Jewish people miss the arrival of the coming King, everything for then on is a struggle. They've painted a wrong picture.
So here we see all the Old Testament points towards the coming of Jesus and the New Testament charts the life of Jesus, his death and resurrection, the restoring of God and Man into relationship again, and we have to live in the light.
Still today we get the interpretation of the text wrong. We take things said and done out of context and place them into our context where they can be more harmful than helpful. I'm just as guilty of this as anyone else. I was teaching the other day on 1 Timothy 4:12, which says “don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example to other believers in speech, in love, in life, in faith and in purity”. This verse has been underlined in my Bible for ages, but I'd only learnt the first part! How different does this whole verse sound, when you know that the example you set comes from Jesus, but also has wider implications for all the believers you come across. It's important for us to look at a verse in it's context, looking at who wrote it and who it was written for, and even the most basic knowledge can begin to help you see a bigger and clearer picture.
So I urge you to look deeper into the Bible this advent, as we await Jesus coming, we need to keep the main thing the main thing. We go back to John 3:16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him will not die but have eternal life” If we start from that point, we can't go far wrong. We need to take the bible as a whole book, as we apply it to our lives. We do love predicting stuff, whether it's Strictly, Xfactor or the Christmas number one. Lets not let our love of predicting things cloud our view of the Bible.
We know for certain that Jesus is coming! If we spend all our time trying to predict his return, we might miss it, just like some of the Jews did the first time around!
