But you Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are least among the tribes of Judah yet out from you, will come for me one who will one who will be ruler over Israel.
Oh come on! This really should give you a little shiver down the spine. This is a tingly moment for all Christians – this is one of those Really Specific messiah prophecies.
Lots of prophecies are full of hope and powerful – Isaiah tells us that the Messiah will be “Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God the everlasting Father the Prince of Peace” – and he tells us that the messiah will be called Immanuel, which means God with us, and will be born from a virgin.
So when Micah says Bethlehem and then the Magi come to Herod and Herod asks the Scribes Where is this King of the Jews supposed to be born, and the Scribes say Try Bethlehem.
You can see why we get a little excited.
Lots of the prophecies that point to the birth of Jesus are nice and general but here’s a real x marks the spot.
But you like the book of Micah for more than that. You like Micah because he appears quite frequently at Remembrance Sunday – the promise that God will gather the nations together and God will settle the disputes, He will be the Judge, and that means
“They will beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation nor will they train for war anymore. Everyone will sit under their own fig tree and no one will make them afraid anymore”.
A second dose of shivers! What do the angels say to Zechariah, to Mary, to Joseph to the Shepherds, – Do not be afraid –
And there’s a third reason why you should really really like Micah. Because here we find that wonderful memory verse – God has shown you O mortal, what is good, and what does the Lord require of you – To act justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
Awesome. Three very good reasons to get excited about Micah.
Micah was there at the beginning of the end. His words cover three kings, about 50 years. Alas the 12 tribes of Israel have split and are 10 northern tribes and 2 southern tribes and given the short nick name of Israel and Judah.
God is preaching Judgement to the north and warning to the south. What’s lovely about that, – seems an odd thing to say – God warns of Judgement – ah that’s nice – that’s because God hasn’t given up on them, He doesn’t separate out the northern tribes from the southern, they might be under different kings but to God they are the same family.
And what’s really important, at least in terms of how Judaism has come to understand some of their ancient sufferings is to see them as coming from God.
This is God chastising us, God disciplining us, God calling us. That’s a really difficult thing to say – but the problem with reaching any other conclusion is that you’re saying that God doesn’t care, God isn’t able to save us, that the gods of these invading enemies their gods are bigger and more powerful than our God and that means that our God is not the God of the whole earth, of all the nations.
So in Micah we – we don’t have a section on Oracles Against the Nations – which means that there are at least two prophets who skip over this bit.
In Micah we have this strong sense that God knows what he is doing, that He cares for His people so much that He does not want them to build their own little private hell.
And So here Micah takes up the theme that we will see in Zephaniah who is a prophet after the fall of the North and just as we come to the fall of the south, and we will see echoes of it in the prophet Malachi who is preaching perhaps a 100 years after the tribes have returned to rebuild the land and the temple.
Micah has a concern for the Common Peasant, the farmer, the poor, the oppressed. So remember the fun thing about when a preacher preaches on a Really Really Old OT prophet – here we’re thinking 700 bc – you’re allowed to say This is so irrelevant, so unrelatable, these people don’t have wifi, they are stuck in the horse-age for goodness sake.
Micah says the problem with you is that you rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. And the Rich find ways to get around the law with bribes and things and the Poor find that they are losing what little land they had – Rich people can lie on their beds all day and dream schemes for how to steal more land off poor hard working salt of the earth people.
And you wonder why God is bringing his judgement – its because you’re so determined to make this place a waste, your own private hell, that I am going to remove you from the land, I will bring my judgement upon you before you can make a complete ruin of it.
Because the key difference with me, God, is that I will keep back a remnant. I will not completely destroy, I will keep a hold of hope. I will restore, I will rebuild.
Whereas last week Zephaniah was ch1 we’re doomed, ch2, we’re all doomed, ch 3 here’s some hope,
Micah has little bits of hope threading through the whole thing. Constant whispers and reminders that God hasn’t given up on you, glimpses of hope. When you read it, take a colouring pencil and make a note of the glimpses of hope throughout. Perhaps we can learn to see more hope in our lives!
Do you remember that weird bit in the bible where it says And behold they woke up in the morning and found that they were dead?! 2 Kings 18v35. This is one of those reasons why I like any bible translation other than the KJV and why a little context and punctuation goes a long way.
The Southern tribes have been invaded by the Assyrians, they get as far as the gates of Jerusalem, but then – we don’t know – the bible says An Angel of the Lord went out and put to death 185k Assyrians – (that may in its own way explain why when an Angel does appear you want to check if it’s come to do some Judging or if it’s come to bring some Good News) – so the rest of the army retreated back to Assyria – others talk of a sudden disease that just ran through the enemy camp and wiped them out.
So what it means is that the trapped inhabitants of Jerusalem went to bed one night afraid for their lives and the certain death that was coming to them imminently, and they woke up the next morning to find that the enemy camp had fled and half of them were dead already.
Micah sees this moment. Ch1v9.
I’ve spoken to people who have had a TIC – Tachycardia-induced cardiomyopathy – a sort of heart attack – and they have said Gosh that was close I am going to rethink some of my life’s priorities, If I am to leave a legacy, leave this world better than I found it, I’m going to get my affairs in order, I’m going to get a will sorted (see Lucy) and I’m going to leave a residual to the Church (see Paul Waller, treasurer)!
But the other option is to say – Gosh that was close I’d better hurry up and get through the list of fun things that I want to do. And alas that’s what the Rich are choosing to do. Bribes and Oppression and Schemes and injustice.
But God says Its really not that difficult. What I’m calling you to do? Act justly, Love mercy, Walk humbly with your God. That’s all. Its not complicated. Its not a philosophy, a 10 step programme, a regime, a diet or anything. It’s a relationship. With the living God. Who calls us to Act Justly, Love Mercy and Walk humbly with our God.
And now hear again the words of Mary as she sings the Magnificat – and remember how she is so excited that God exalts the poor and the humble and sends the rich away empty. God is remembering Mercy as he has promised time and again. This is Micah all over.
We love Micah because he has these three great verses for us. The promise of what this Kingdom of God is supposed to look like – where swords are melted down into farming equipment – where God is the judge, not us, we don’t judge.
We love Micah because God calls us to Act Justly Love mercy walk humbly with your God. Its not that difficult. It’s a call to connect to God to relate to God.
And here we find this is where God will come, or from our perspective actually came to earth and dwell in our midst, where the word became flesh and made his dwelling among us – in this moment of Bethlehem – here the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight. Amen. //