Podcast: Play in new window | Download (7.6MB)

“God works in mysterious ways!”

You hear it all the time. Sometimes you hear it from people you’re pretty sure don’t even believe in God. It’s become an expression people use when things go very unexpectedly, but turn out well. It’s like saying, “Boy, I didn’t see that coming,” but since things turned out okay, you chalk it up to mystery… God.

And one thing’s for certain: we don’t have Him figured out.

He, by the way, agrees with that assessment; saying through the prophet Isaiah:

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” declares Adonai. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8-9).

But is it possible to glean something of His ways and His thoughts as we look back on Israel’s history; how in situation after situation, we survived circumstances that by all rights ought to have resulted in annihilation? Is it possible, as we read in the pages of Scripture how God accomplished our rescue, to detect a pattern? To learn something of His ways? I think it is, and I think it’s what He wants us to do.

Since we are coming up on both Chanukkah (begins tomorrow evening) and Advent, I thought that, for a few minutes this morning, we should consider how God has, invisibly, orchestrated some of the unlikeliest victories, in the unlikeliest of ways, for us, the unlikeliest of people. And then ask ourselves, “Why?”

I’m going to focus on two events, separated by approximately 1,500 years, which in such remarkable ways parallel each other, like bookends, that we cannot help but see the fingerprint of God on it. Before we talk about those tandem events, let me share just a small sampling of some of these potentially deadly scenarios which, remarkably (through God’s invisible intervention), ended in great victory.

• Abraham’s 318 men vs. the combined armies of 5 powerful kings
• Gideon’s 300 men vs. the entire Midianite army
• Young shepherd boy David vs. 9’6” professional warrior Goliath
• Jonathan & his armor-bearer vs. an entire Philistine garrison
• King Asa’s army vs. a 1,000,000 man Ethiopian army (2 Chron. 14)
• The multiple unlikely circumstances / reversals (nahafoch) in Esther

And, of course…

• The rag-tag Maccabean army vs. the vast armies of Antiochus

During his d’rasha, Rabbi Jerry will share more of the historical background of Chanukkah, with which most of us are already well-familiar. But now let’s think about these two parallel events, occurring in the midst of dire and deadly circumstances yet turning out for the deliverance of our people. They are: the birth of Moses and the birth of Messiah Yeshua.

The Birth of Moses

This, of course, took place during Israel’s painful 400-years’ affliction in Egypt. We recall that Joseph died, and all that generation of the sons of Israel who had journeyed down to Egypt. Not many years later a new pharaoh ascended to power, one who had no regard for the memory of Joseph. Instead of appreciating that fact that Joseph had literally saved the lives of everyone in Egypt, this pharaoh became consumed with paranoia at the growing Jewish population, and viewed us as enemies. Hoping to diminish our numbers, he abruptly decreed that our people be enslaved. But his population control plan didn’t work. Far from shrinking, our numbers increased – dramatically.

Pharaoh, now in a panic, issued a wicked edict, directing the Jewish midwives that all Israeli newborn boys were to be put to death. We read about how the midwives, because they feared the Lord, bravely defied the king, and allowed the boys to live. Their courageous action, which could well have cost them their lives, is something to be admired and, should similar circumstances arise again, be emulated. In fact, it is only through having the fear of the Lord that we will stand firm in troubled times and not capitulate. More on that in a bit…

But it is at this most perilous moment in time that Moses is born, and his birth is kept hidden from Pharaoh. But eventually it becomes impossible to conceal his existence, and so his mother, Yocheved, places him in a basket, committing him into God’s hands. Those are powerful, invisible, hands!

God steered that basket down the Nile, and right into the presence of Pharaoh’s daughter, who opened it to discover this beautiful baby. She drew him out (hence the name ‘Moshe’ – from masha ‘to draw out’) and adopted him as her own son. Without knowing it, she even ended up paying Moses’ mother to nurse him. This Jewish boy Moses was raised in the royal palace of Egypt. Talk about flying under the enemy’s radar – one of the very ones condemned to death becomes one of the royal family! And, of course, God later summoned Moses to return to Egypt, confront Pharaoh, and deliver our people.

How easily that might not have happened, had God not intervened. During a time of great danger, the Holy One of Israel concealed, protected and watched over that vulnerable child who, in the fulness of time, would return to redeem His people.

The Birth of Messiah

Fast forward 1,500 years, and the Jewish people, though living in our own land, nevertheless found ourselves once again in a woeful situation. We were oppressed under the powerful and ruthless authority of Rome. But like a tender shoot, and like a root out of parched ground, despite the darkness of those days, an incredible event was about to take place.

As the Prophets foretold, a child would be born to a virgin, and this would be no ordinary child. This human child would somehow also be the Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Father of Eternity and the Prince of Peace. It was the birth of the Messiah, who was named Yeshua (“salvation”) because He would be the One to Ye-shu-ah (“save”) His people from their sins.

Matthew tells us that some time later (about two years), a group of eastern wise men – magi – arrived in Jerusalem, asking about the birth of the One they called “the King of the Jews”. These were learned men, who tracked the movement of stars and constellations, and who would be familiar with the sacred texts of other nations. Because this was now centuries after the Babylonian exile, during which Daniel rose to prominence, and later Persia, during which Mordecai rose to prominence, and given the continuing Jewish presence in Persia, it is almost certain that the scrolls of the Jewish prophets were available, and these magi would have been familiar with some prophecies of a coming King Redeemer to Israel.

But as far as Herod was concerned, he was the king of the Jews.

So, when word reached him about these wise men inquiring about the birth of a Jewish King, he was upset. And if you know your history, you know that Herod the Great was obsessive about his authority, paranoid about anyone and everyone, and would have people executed on even the slightest suspicion that they might be a rival, including his own Jewish wife, Mariamne! That’s why when Matthew tells us that when Herod was troubled, all Jerusalem was troubled with him.

He summoned the wise men and determined when they had first seen the heavenly sign. He asked the Torah teachers, who informed them of Micah’s prophecy about the Messiah being born in Bethlehem. Herod asked the wise men to return to him once they had found the child, deceitfully pretending to want to come pay homage himself. It was really so that he could have the child, his political rival, executed.

The story is familiar to us. The wise men found Yosef and Miriam and Yeshua, and presented their costly gifts and worshiped Him. But being warned by God not to return to Herod, they went home a different way. As soon as they left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Yosef in a dream, warning the family to flee immediately, because Herod was intending to search for the child to destroy Him. So the family fled to safety.

And where were they told to flee? To Egypt. How ironic is that? The very place in which our nation had been oppressed and endangered, and from which we departed in haste, would be the place to which the family of Yeshua would flee in haste, and there find protection.

Of course, Matthew also tells us that after some time passed, and Herod realized the wise men weren’t coming back, he was enraged, and sent his soldiers to kill every single Jewish male baby two years of age and younger in Bethlehem and the surrounding towns. It is a terrible but historically authenticated event known as ‘the slaughter of the innocents.’

Once Herod was dead, the angel of the Lord again spoke to Yosef and let him know it was now safe to return to Israel. God directed them to settle, not in Judea, but in the Galilee, and specifically in Nazareth… Yeah, as in “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” Only the greatest thing in all the world!

But once again, how easily that might not have happened, had God not intervened during a time of great danger. The Holy One of Israel concealed, protected and watched over that vulnerable child who, in the fulness of time, would return to redeem His people.

It’s really a remarkable parallel: by the unseen hand of Adonai, Moses survives a massacre of Jewish boys, and returns to deliver Israel. By the unseen hand of Adonai, Yeshua survives a massacre of Jewish boys, and returns to deliver Israel and the nations; and He will return in all His power and glory in a very short time.

If, in our estimation, Adonai seems to do things in mysterious ways, one thing we can affirm: He does them well. And He uses the unlikeliest people to accomplish His good and wise purposes. And why?

“So that the world may know…”

By observing, through the Scriptures, God’s hidden hand in human history, we learn to properly acknowledge Him.

We also learn how vital it is, and that it is possible, to stand firm and not compromise what is right, even when we find ourselves in perilous circumstances.

We learn gratitude.

We grow in our faith and confidence in Him, trusting Him for the end-game; that He will bring all things to a good and proper conclusion.

And these things will help us to be zealous, exuberant in our proclamation of Him.