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Thursday, December 23, 2021

David's Horn Exalted

One of the passages of scripture I often read at Christmastime is Psalm 89. Jesus' Davidic ancestry is a prominent theme in the infancy narratives, as well as in the accounts of Jesus' adulthood. Psalm 89 says a lot about how David's throne will be eternal (verses 3-4, 29, 36-37). Yet, the psalm concludes mostly with despair:

But You have cast off and rejected,
You have been full of wrath against Your anointed.
You have spurned the covenant of Your servant;
You have profaned his crown in the dust.
You have broken down all his walls;
You have brought his strongholds to ruin.
All who pass along the way plunder him;
He has become a reproach to his neighbors.
You have exalted the right hand of his adversaries;
You have made all his enemies rejoice.
You also turn back the edge of his sword
And have not made him stand in battle.
You have made his splendor to cease
And cast his throne to the ground.
You have shortened the days of his youth;
You have covered him with shame.
How long, O Lord?
Will You hide Yourself forever?
Will Your wrath burn like fire?
Remember what my span of life is;
For what vanity You have created all the sons of men!
What man can live and not see death?
Can he deliver his soul from the power of Sheol?
Where are Your former lovingkindnesses, O Lord,
Which You swore to David in Your faithfulness?
Remember, O Lord, the reproach of Your servants;
How I bear in my bosom the reproach of all the many peoples,
With which Your enemies have reproached, O Lord,
With which they have reproached the footsteps of Your anointed. (verses 38-51)

A lot has changed since then. The Messianic kingdom hasn't been implemented in full, but the Messiah has come and has transformed much of the Gentile world. We're at a sort of midway point, having seen the fulfillment of much of what the prophets foretold, but with a significant amount still to come. It should be joyful and encouraging for us to look back at what's happened over the centuries, how much has improved since those verses of Psalm 89 quoted above were written. That also gives us further hope for improvement in our personal circumstances.

"It is too small a thing that you should be my Servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved ones of Israel; I will also make you a light of the nations….he will sprinkle many nations, kings will shut their mouths on account of him" (Isaiah 49:6, 52:15)

"he will be great to the ends of the earth" (Micah 5:4)

"Name for me one other human being (let alone one other Jew) who has come anywhere near fulfilling these verses. There is none….Just consider how utterly absurd it would have seemed if as you stood at the foot of the cross as Yeshua suffered a torturous, ignominious, shameful death, someone told you, 'Two thousand years from now, this man will be the world's most famous Jew and world history will be divided into the years before his birth and the years after his birth. Hundreds of millions of people from all world religions will forsake their idols and their dead traditions and will instead become followers of the God of Israel through him.' Yet this is literal truth, without a hint of exaggeration. We dare not downplay the significance of this." (Michael Brown, Answering Jewish Objections To Jesus, vol. 3 [Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books, 2003], 160)

"The stories of Jesus's birth are the foundation of the world's most widely observed holiday. Christmas is celebrated by the world's two billion Christians, a number about twice that of the next largest religion, Islam. Moreover, because of the cultural and commercial importance of Christmas in Western culture and beyond, it is observed by many non-Christians as well. Indeed, no other religious holiday is so widely commemorated by people who are outside of the tradition that originated it." (Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan, The First Christmas [New York, New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2007], vii)

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