Grandpa Lake’s Weblog

O little town of Bethlehem,
How still we see thee lie!
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
The silent stars go by.
Yet in thy dark streets shineth
The everlasting Light;
The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee tonight.

How many centuries, millenia really, did the Jewish people look forward to the coming of Messiah? Some (the Sadducees) had ceased believing that He would literally come. The leaders among the Pharisees knew that He’d come, but they had fixed ideas of how He would come and what He would be like. Jesus did not fit their preconceived ideas, so they rejected Him.

The simple people, who heard and believed God’s Word every Sabbath continued to hope for Him, but they didn’t have the Pharisees’ preconceptions, so they were open to Whomever God might send. Still, under Roman oppression, they feared that He would not come or that He would not come in time to deliver them.

Imagine the joy of the shepherds when they were told that the Object of their hopes and fears was fulfilled in Bethlehem. That He was lying in a manger meant that He was accessible to them, the lowest caste of Jewish society in that day. The Lord said nothing to the spirit of the High Priest, but He did to the spirit of Simeon, who had been promised that he would see the Lord’s Messiah as well as to Anna, an otherwise unknown prophetess. (Reference Luke 2)

In the years that followed, people received Jesus on the flimsiest evidence. Nathaniel acknowledged Jesus because the Lord saw him before Nate was within Jesus’ vision. People rejected Him who got the strongest evidence. The Pharisees, who could not deny the resurrection of Lazarus, thought to deal with the situation by killing Lazarus.

Fast forward two thousand years (give or take a few years) — to now. There are great theologians who deny that Jesus will come again. Do you think that the pope or members of the college of cardinals are sitting with baited breath waiting for Jesus to come and occupy St. Peter’s throne? These and other amillennialists aren’t looking for Him. They have things under control. Evangelical leaders who teach that the Bible is God’s Word aren’t looking for Him. Pre-tribs believe that He’ll come some day, but they have no idea when. Mid-tribs and post-tribs know that we’re not in the Great Tribulation, so He can’t come now. They exercise their ministries as though He weren’t coming.

So, who is looking for Him? The nobodies. The simple folk. Those who believe that something is true just because it’s in the Bible. Those who long for God’s righteousness to rule in their world. Those who love Jesus as a bride does her groom. We know that He will come. We hope that He will come soon. We fear that He won’t come soon. The world that we know is so much like the world that Jesus came into. Some things just don’t change.

Maranatha!