Exploring My Strange Bible - I am who I am Part 3: Jesus' Family Story

Episode Date: November 15, 2017

This teaching is more like story time rather than a lecture. I wanted to try to capture the story that is driving the fist three quarters of the Bible. I begin on page one of the Old Testament and narrate the story as different people contribute with scriptures. The goal of this was to help us rebuild our portrait of God by grounding it in the actual biblical story.

Tim Mackey, Jr. utterly amazing and worth following with everything that you have. On this podcast, I'm putting together the last 10 years worth of lectures and sermons where I've been exploring the strange and wonderful story of the Bible and how it invites us into the mission of Jesus and the journey of faith. And I hope this can be helpful for you too. I also help start this thing called The Bible Project. We make animated videos and podcasts about all kinds of topics in Bible and theology. You can find those resources at thebibleproject.com. With all that said, let's dive into the episode for this week. All right, well, this is episode three of a 10-part series. It represents a number of teachings that I did years ago. It was a big series at our church that we did,

trying to help people rebuild from the ground up our very understanding of the character and identity of God as represented in Jesus and in the story of the scriptures. And so this teaching was, after completing the number of teachings on God's character represented in the story of the scriptures. And so this teaching was after completing the number of teachings on God's character represented in the story of the Hebrew scriptures or the Old Testament, we got to the Jesus part of the story. And what I wanted to do before we even really start talking about Jesus was just in one teaching to capture the heartbeat of what the story is driving the first three quarters of the Bible, namely the story of the

Old Testament. And so this is a little bit different. It wasn't just me giving a lecture, rather it was me kind of sitting in a stool in the role of narrator or storyteller. And so what I do is just begin on page one of the Bible and retell the story of the Old Testament. And what you'll hear is that at a number of points, I just wanted the biblical text to speak for themselves. So it's kind of me narrating. And then I had a series of readers who just came up at different points and read long passages of scripture to kind of let the story tell itself. So this is like story time. So maybe if you're able, like, you know, sit down, make a cup of tea, curl up with a blanket or on an Adirondack chair with iced tea,

I don't know, whatever you do to relax and get cozy, do that because it's story time. And the goal of this was to help us once again, rebuild our portrait of God by grounding it in the actual biblical story itself instead of a story that we have imposed onto the Bible from our own Western cultural or Christian traditions. So I hope this is helpful for you, thought-provoking, and let's just dive into the story together and let the scriptures tell themselves. We're going to talk about Jesus. Go to page one of the New Testament, right? And we look at page one of the New Testament. It's the Gospel of Matthew. There's four ancient biographies of Jesus in the New Testament. We call them Gospels. And all of them have as their main burden to share some key events about the life and the death and resurrection of Jesus

and to unfold the implications of that for you and every human being who hears about it and that it has huge significance. And so all of the four Gospels in the New Testament are trying to introduce you to this figure, Jesus of Nazareth. So look at Matthew chapter 1, first page of the New Testament. And Matthew begins with a thrilling roller coaster of a beginning here, right? So look at how Matthew begins the story So, genealogy, a long, long, long list of lots of names. Now, I don't know, if you went to PSU and you took creative writing or something like that, my guess is that, like, how should you begin a really good story? And it would not be this technique right here. Like, okay, not a way to grab at least modern readers' attention.

And so we might think, like, man, what's happening right here? Now, so we always have to remember, this is an ancient biography. It's a 2,000-year-old biography. And the way people wrote in this setting and time is very different than the way that we think about writing. What Matthew wants to do, first of all, as he introduces this story of Jesus of Nazareth to you, he wants to, first of all, tell you Jesus' family story, the story of Jesus' family.

Because if you know the story about someone's family, all of a sudden who they are takes on three dimensions, as it were. And if you stop and think about this, this is the most intuitive thing that we all know from our own lives and relationships. Anyway, so think about, for example, like your best friend. Think about like one or two people that you would say are in your inner circle or whatever. They've known you the longest, you know them the best,

they're your closest, best friends. Now, here's probably how the history of your relationship has gone. That's quite presumptuous of me, isn't it? So, at some point, you met this person, and you had common interests. You liked each other or something like that. You got to know each other, and hey, we like hanging out. And you get to know that person. But there's something that happens when you meet a good friend's family. You guys know what I'm talking about. And there's something, and my guess is that if you have someone in your life that you call your closest friend or your best friend, that you've met their family, that you know their family in some way. If it's possible, you know, there might be exceptions and so on, but you've

likely met their family. And what happens when you meet your friend's family, especially if you've built some history together already, you meet their parents, right, their siblings or whatever, and it's kind of like, oh, you don't know what I mean. It's like, oh, I get it. That's why they're always so defensive when this topic comes up or something, or that's why they talk like that. You guys know what I'm talking about here. This is totally intuitive. This is the way we relate to people. People that we're close to, that we want to get to know more,

meeting and knowing their family plays a huge role in how we go about developing those relationships. Now, can you know someone without knowing their family? Yes, of course you can. You can know someone pretty well without knowing their family. But it introduces this depth and this three-dimensional view of their character and their story and why they are the way that they are. And in my mind, what Matthew's trying to do right here is exactly that. It's exactly the same with Jesus.

You could read, you know, just the stories about Jesus in the New Testament, and you could, not knowing anything about the first three quarters of your Bible, and you could just read it and be like, this guy's awesome. He's compelling, and he's incredible in his love and his heart for people. And he believed and claimed that what he was doing was for everybody, and that his death was for the sins of the world and for me, and that his resurrection was done on my behalf, and that he says he's present with me to forgive me, and so on.

You can pick all of that up from reading the Gospels, and just from knowing Jesus and reading the stories and talking with people about him. But what Matthew is inviting you into right here is to take another step in the depth of your connection and your relationship with Jesus and knowing his family story. Because when you know Jesus' family story, all of a sudden it's exactly the same. It's like, oh, that's why he talks about the kingdom of God like all the time. Like never not talking about the kingdom of God.

Like what's that all about or whatever? And why is he always using these like phrases and poetic images and so on? Like why is he like this? And why is he always using these, like, phrases and poetic images and so on? Like, why is he like this? And why does he always move towards these certain kinds of people and so on? It's like, dude, well, you need to know his family story. And then all of a sudden, Jesus becomes even more vibrant than he already is in these stories. And so that's what Matthew's trying to do. And so as we move into this series where we're going to take a month to explore the

character and the identity of Jesus as the Messiah and the Son of God and so on, I thought what we should do this Sunday is learn Jesus' family story. The storytelling day. You guys with me? It's story time. It's like you showed up at the library with the tiny chairs, right? And it's story time. It's story time. And we're going to, I mean, we call it the Old Testament. Jesus' family story is the first three quarters of your Bible. And the more we immerse ourselves and understand the dynamics of this story, the more Jesus comes into full resolution for us. And so what we're going to

do today is we're going to retell that story from 30,000 feet, and we're going to just zoom in on key moments in the story that I think unlock the heart of who Jesus is and what he came to do. So it's story time. You guys with me? Great, cool. I have two storytellers that I recruited, Josh and Holly. Think of how this story begins. For an Israelite, you begin the story in a very different way than your Canaanite or your Babylonian neighbors would begin the story. For them, they would tell the story about lots of different gods who are really competitive and that the world around us exists because of some cataclysmic ego battle of the gods ripping each other into pieces and so on, if you read the Babylonian stories.

And so the Israelite story is very different. It's based on this claim about Yahweh, that Yahweh is a being of utter creative generosity and that out of a watery, dark, chaotic wasteland, which is how Genesis 1 begins, God, through his royal creative word, spins into being a garden that's packed full of potential for flourishing and life and beauty and goodness. That's my summary of the two first pages of the Bible. And so that all is very good, and it's awesome.

And what Yahweh does is he appoints a unique creature over his good world. And again, that's very different if you're an Israelite from your Canaanite or Babylonian neighbors, because for the Babylonians, the humans are just kind of this incidental thing that the gods came up with to do their work for them, because they don't want to dig canals and farm and work and stuff. So they'll make these slaves the humans and do it. And they do it by slitting the throat of one of their gods and mixing it with the blood and the dirt and make the humans and so on. That's how the Babylonians tell the story.

The Israelites tell the story as Yahweh taking dirt. The idea that humanity has this intimate connection and origin from the earth itself, that we're dirt, which is not an insult. It's actually quite an honor to be from the dirt, because creation is really good and beautiful. And so we're dirt, but then we're also dirt and divine breath. There's this capacity that human beings have to relate in covenant relationship to each other and to the creator. And these beings are given a unique responsibility in God's world. This is how the wording of the story goes, a little poem in Genesis chapter 1. So God created humanity in his own image. In the image of God, he created them. Male and female, he created them.

God blessed them and said, Be fruitful and increase in number. Fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground. So God appoints this unique creature made in God's own image, and an image is made for reflecting and representing.

And so, God, he both, yes, he's the king and ruler and creator of this world, but he makes these creatures that are like these little mini-creators, mini-representations of God's own self. these little mini-creators, mini-representations of God's own self. And God commissions them to go about, first of all, He blesses them. Do you see this here? This is the first thing God does for human beings. He blesses them, which is all about generous giving and giving and wishing and planning abundance and flourishing for another being. And so God blesses them. He says, go be like rabbits, right? Just increase the number, go spread, spread, spread.

And subdue and rule. Do you see that right here? Subdue and rule. In other words, it's as if God packed creation full of so much potential, it just has all this raw materials that if it's not handled or harnessed in some way, of course, it'll make things like the Grand Canyon and big trees and sequoia forests. And that's awesome. Like, that's rad. But there's also all this other potential that can be used for the flourishing of creation and for human beings and neighborhoods and families. And so you subdue

and harness the potential. And you do it in a way that shows that there's this unique capacity. We're mirroring God when we create and we make new beautiful things that make friendships and families and gardens and so on. And it's amazing. It's a good scene. I'm just trying to say it's awesome. You with me? Okay, so it's good. It's not perfect because it's still moving and developing and going somewhere, but it's really good. It's really, really good. And so into this really good scene enters a very mysterious character, just right out of the blue, just there it is on page two or whatever, chapter three. And this mysterious character is a talking snake, which I'm sure is quite normal to most of us. You're like, yeah,

I see those all the time or whatever. Like what? This is a very strange. And, you know, don't think just because this is an ancient story that like talking snakes were common to people back then. You know what I mean? It's just like, this is alarming no matter what century you're reading the story is in, right? Snakes don't talk. So what is it? There's something very strange going on here, right? And so this is not just ancient stupid people or something. So you have this image of this talking snake. Where does it come from? We don't know. We don't know. It doesn't say. The story doesn't say. But this snake, there's something wrong. If there's something that's not good in Yahweh's world, it's this creature. It's presented as being in some kind of suspicion

or rebellion against Yahweh, the creator. And this is not equal to Yahweh. It's a created being that is in some kind of insurrection or rebellion against the good creator. And this creature is bent on getting humanity to doubt Yahweh's goodness and to doubt Yahweh's good intentions for them. And so he leads them on this mind trip to make them think that doing exactly what Yahweh asked them not to do is actually the right thing to do, which is to seize the knowledge of good and evil and define good and evil for themselves and make themselves like God. of good and evil and define good and evil for themselves and make themselves like God. And so they do this, right? Paradise Lost by page two. It's kind of a bummer. And so here's where the story goes. Yahweh's very hurt, and he's justifiably angry, although he doesn't actually

get angry in the story. What he does is show up and invite the humans to be truthful about what they've done, which they're not. They just want to hide from him and from each other. And what Yahweh ends up doing is informing them of the tragic consequences of their decision. Now, this is absolutely key. Yahweh's purpose is to bless. He never curses the humans. He informs them of the tragedy of what's going to happen because of what they've done, but he does bring a curse on the serpent. And he does it with a very mysterious poem, in my opinion.

And the words of that poem go like this. So Yahweh God said to the serpent, because you have done this, you are cursed more than all livestock and all wild animals. You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. And I will cause hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will crush your head and you will strike his heel.

All right, so this serpent, whatever this being is, it's presented to us as the origin of evil, which is suspicion of and rebellion and rejection of Yahweh and leading others down that same path. And so what Yahweh is doing here, he's first of all pronouncing the future destiny of the serpent. So, and also recognize this is poetry. This is not talking about how snakes used to have four legs and then they lost them somehow and now they crawl on the dirt, right? You with me? It's a poem. It's poetry. Do you see that it's poetry? Yeah, this is just good to communicate.

I think this is challenging, and this was a challenge for me as a new Christian trying to figure out the Bible. The majority of how, I said this a few weeks ago, of how Yahweh revealed himself to us in the Scriptures is through stories and poetry, narrative and poetry. So in any average room this size, there's about three people who read poetry avidly. It's just not that widely read or whatever, but if you want to learn Jesus' family story, you need to learn yourself how to read some poetry,

because Jesus' family story is chock full of really important poetry. So you have this cursed being who's the source of evil, and Yahweh, as if Yahweh is like shooing him away, crawl away. And the means of the serpent's movement becomes this image of the serpent's future destiny, which is to eat dust, which eating dirt means the same thing in the 21st century that it did back then. If someone, you know what I'm saying, shame and defeat all the days of your life. And so what's the future destiny of evil in Yahweh's good world?

Defeat and removal. Evil will not always have ultimate sway and it will not get the last word in God's good world. How? How is Yahweh going to defeat evil at its source here? Well, look at this here. So, I'll cause hostility between you and the woman, between your offspring and her offspring. So, it's as if you have two lines going out from the story right here. And this is not about baby snakes, by the way,

either, right? So this is about humanity is at a crossroads here. Humanity can choose to replay the garden in every successive human that's going to come and give in to the snake, as we all do, and that'll continue happening, but Yahweh's going to preserve this line, this promised line through the woman. There's also going to be this offspring here, and this offspring's going to go out from the line of the woman, and then, look at the last line of the poem.

This is so bizarre. He will crush your head. Now, who is that? Who's the he right there? It's the offspring. So we thought we were talking about baby snakes and like a bunch of kids or whatever. But no, what this poem's really,

we're talking about the future defeat of evil. Evil will continue to have influence as people give in to the servant, but God's going to preserve this line, and through that line of the woman, there's coming a he. And this he is going to crush, not baby snakes, he's going to crush evil at its source. You guys with me here?

He's going back to the source, and he's going to crush evil. Now, this is very important and it's poetry, which means it's full of ambiguity, but look at it. So he'll crush your head. So the image is of this foot of this he coming down to just splatter the head of this serpent. But as the foot of the victor comes down, do you see this serpent is going to create the strike right on the foot of the victor comes down, do you see this serpent is going to create this strike right on the foot as it gets crushed. It's kind of a gory image here. And so you have, and this is not a garden snake.

You know what I'm saying? This isn't like, oh, ow, that kind of hurt or something. You know, this is like, this is the source of evil. This is a venomous snake. It kills you. source of evil. This is a venomous snake. It kills you. And so you have this idea of the wounded, the wounded, fatally wounded victor. His defeat of evil will be by itself succumbing to this wound that evil inflicts on the victor at the same time. Come on, right? So come on. It's like page three, you know. And so it's good. When I said,

who is that? The room didn't erupt with Jesus like it did at the 9 a.m. And so, and that's good because, and I do believe it's Jesus. But the whole point is for your, if you're reading the story a thousand years before Jesus, you don't know that, right? All you know is there's just somebody coming, which compels you to do what as a reader of the story? Turn the page. Turn the page and keep going. It's called plot tension, right? It's called the driving the story forward. So what's, okay, we got to keep reading in the story. So the seed of the woman and the line of the woman goes on from here,

and humanity continues to give in to the serpent more and more and more and corrupting God's good world and corrupting each other, and it's the sad, tragic stories of the early part of Genesis. But God plucks this random guy out of corrupt humanity given to the serpent, and he starts having this conversation with him. Yahweh is going to set in motion a plan to bring deliverance and rescue for his world and for humanity. And he does it by having this conversation right here in Genesis chapter 12 that also consists of a whole lot of poetry. What do you want? This is what he says. Yahweh said to Abraham, go from your country,

your people, and your father's household to the land that I will show you. I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you. I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you. I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you, I will curse. And all the people on earth will be blessed through you. So do you remember just pages ago in Genesis 1, what was Yahweh's first move revealing his heart and purpose for humanity? He's blessed them. And so here we see Yahweh's heart to keep his blessing for humanity alive amidst all of the corruption.

And he's going to do it by blessing this one guy. Now what's up with this guy? Is he good looking? Does, is he good-looking? Does God like people named Abram? Like, what's so special about him? And the story doesn't tell you. The story just says, in God's freedom and mercy, this guy. I'm going to start with this guy.

It's like this counter-movement against the evil and corruption of the servant. And so he picks this guy and he just says, first of all, I'm going to make you into a huge, huge nation, huge family of people, which we're already scratching our heads because we just learned, you know, sentences ago that this guy is really old and so is his wife, and they've never been able to have kids for decades and decades. So how is this going to work out? And so, but nonetheless, like that's the promise that God makes. And he's going to bless him, give him a huge family, make him a great reputation among the nations. He's going to protect this family.

Bless those who bless you, curse those who curse. He's going to protect it for this core reason for why Yahweh has chosen this guy in the first place. And it's not just to hook this guy up so that he can have a great life. Look at the last two lines right there. What's Yahweh's ultimate goal? It's the nations. Somehow through this family, this blessing for humanity is going to be released out to all of the nations once more. All of the nations that are currently lost and giving in to the serpent and in rebellion and screwing up each other in God's

good world. What does Yahweh do with people who hate him and who rebel against him? He sets in motion a plan to rescue them and bless them. That's just what Yahweh does. And so the story goes on from here, and the promises come true. They have a first child, and then they have a whole bunch of other kids, huge, huge family, dozens of people, hundreds of people, then thousands of people. And through a crazy series of events, they end up, because of a food shortage, wandering down to the country of Egypt.

You guys know this part in the story? You've seen the movie? Maybe you have this part of the story. So do things go good or bad for them in Egypt, the family of Abraham? It goes bad. It goes bad. They are doing the be fruitful and multiply thing, multiply like rabbits. And the Egyptians, especially the rulers of Egypt, they're freaking out about, they have this immigrant population that's exploding and they see it as a potential threat. And so they begin to enslave them, enforce labor, and just going to grind them into the dust.

And so Yahweh sends a deliverer to save the family of Abraham, Moses, and he brings them out of Egypt and so on. And so now Yahweh doesn't have just Abram. He has the whole family of Abraham rescued out of death and slavery, and Yahweh brings them to the foot of this mountain. And at the foot of this mountain, the story takes a huge, huge leap forward here. What Yahweh did for Abraham, singling him out among the nations, Yahweh is now going to do for this whole group of people and continue his commission to bring blessing to all of the nations. And here's how Yahweh sets it all up in Exodus chapter 19. So you have these redeemed people out of slavery. They owe their lives and their family existence to Yahweh, to His grace.

And He wants to enter into a covenant with them. And it's this relationship where if they honor Him as their rescuer and as the creator and so on, and if they keep the terms of his covenant, what's going to follow from right here? The Ten Commandments, you know, that are kind of so famous and controversial and so on, whatever. So they come like just right after this right here. The Ten Commandments and all of the laws that come to follow, they're all part of this just basic heart of Yahweh, which is to have a nation of people who will trust him, trust his wisdom and his guidance, not like Adam and Eve rejected, but actually trust his definition

of good and evil. And he reveals his justice to them and how they're to live as a nation of people and the laws and so on, the Ten Commandments. And so he's like forming the special covenant people. And notice what he calls them right here, right at the very end. This is totally crucial. He says, you're going to be for me. The whole earth is mine. In other words, all of the nations are on my mind here. But I've singled you all out as a unique holy nation, as a kingdom of priests.

Do you see that right there? Now, just stop and think about that. This is a huge category for understanding Jesus. Now just stop and think about that. This is a huge category for understanding Jesus. So priests, and this is not just in the Bible, in many cultures all over the world, priests are these mediating figures, their go-betweens between the gods and the people. And so in this case, you have Yahweh, the God, the creator and God of all the nations. And then you have the family of Abraham, who's a whole nation of priests. So they're called both to represent, who are they representing to God? Well, it doesn't actually say right here, does it? But you have, you know, passages like Genesis 12 in the back of your head and you know, well, this people group, this family exists solely for the purpose of Yahweh's blessing to reach all of the

nations. So they're called to be a nation of priests among the nations. It's as if they're to be in such close proximity to Yahweh, and shaped by His Word, and shaped by His justice, and His character, that they, and how they organize their life together becomes this beacon to the nations of how Yahweh called humanity to be in the first place. And not just to be his lackeys or whatever, Yahweh actually wants to come take up personal residence in Israel in this thing called the tent or the tabernacle. And Israel's obedience and trust is to be generated out of this loving response to his grace and so on. And so this is the picture. Yahweh is going to create this beacon to the nations through forming a covenant people who are close, close to his heart.

You guys with me? Here. Good story so far? Great story so far. So here's how the story goes from here. They go on from here. They go into the land. They set up a kingdom, and the tribes unite into a kingdom, and one particular king comes along who unites

all the tribes. He makes Jerusalem the capital. He's Israel's most famous king, anybody, and so he's the one who put Jerusalem on the map of world history. He made it the capital of the tribes of Israel, so David comes along. Things are going okay in the covenant, really. Actually, things are not going well at all, at all, in Israel's relationship to Yahweh. But David comes along, and we like him. We think he's pretty cool. And so he gets this idea. He says, you know, Yahweh redeemed us and so on, and here I am. I now live in this royal palace in Jerusalem, and Yahweh, he's our covenant redeemer and so on, and he lives in this tent.

It's a nice tent. It's nicer than an REI tent or something like that. But, you know, it's full of jewels and gold and stuff. But I want to build Yahweh a house, a big fancy temple, just like the house that I'm living in. And this is Yahweh's response to David. And the story just moves and leaps forward here in a big way with these words. I declare to you that Yahweh will build a house for you.

When your days are over and you go to be with your ancestors, I will rise you up from your offspring to secede you, one of your own sons, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for sons, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for me, and I will establish his throne forever. I will be his father, and he will be my son. I will never take my covenant love away from him, as I took it away from your predecessor. I will set him over my house and my kingdom forever. His throne will be established forever. forever. His throne will be established forever. Yes. Yes. Do you see it? It's all coming together here. Do you see it? All the pieces. So you have this. You have David. Yahweh says, you want to

build me a house, David. That's very nice. I appreciate the sentiment. No, thank you. So I'll let your son do that for me. But here's what I'm going to do for you. I'm going to build a house for you, a dynasty. And from you, David, is going to come a whole lineage of kings. And when it says, you know, I'll raise up a son after you from one of your own sons, we're talking about, you know, however long the lineage is here until the son comes. And there's coming a son who's this offspring. Hmm, offspring, right? And God's going to establish this offspring's kingdom. He's going to build, this offspring is going to build the ultimate temple. This temple as a place where Yahweh and humanity can meet together. Temples are where priests do their work of mediating and bringing God and humanity together.

This king's going to come and build the ultimate temple. He's going to have this intimate covenant love relationship with Yahweh that's so close, Yahweh uses the language of father and son to describe the bond between Yahweh and this king. And this will be an unbroken, eternal bond of Yahweh's covenant love. And he's going to set him over a kingdom, and it's going to be awesome, and it's going to be great. That's the promise he makes to David. And we're thinking money. This is money right here. This is, right? This is all, who is, so who's this guy? I mean, who else could this be? Snake crusher. You have the family of

Abraham is somehow going to bring blessing to the nations. You have the whole nation called into this vocation of mediating and displaying Yahweh to the nations as a kingdom of priests. And then you have the one king who's going to come and build the true temple, and surely he's the one who will lead all of these promises to come into fulfillment and so on. And so we're just like, okay, you know, for the first time ever, you're reading Chronicles with eager expectation. You're like, yes, this is the most awesome book ever, right? Because you would never read Chronicles otherwise.

And so you're reading through Chronicles, and you're just like, is it this guy? Is it Solomon? Is it the next one? His grandson or whatever? And you read through these stories with just grave disappointment, because each generation of David's sons gives in to the serpent the way that most of the rest of Israel has already for a long time, and the way that all of humanity has since the garden incident. And so you're like, what's happening? What about this promise here? Like, when's this son going to come? And the sons of David do such a horrible job of mismanaging God's people,

of mismanaging the kingdom. They give in to the serpent in every way you can imagine that kings would, money, sex, and power. And they run the kingdom right into the ground. And they get way too big for their britches. And they think like, hey, we're going to take on the biggest empires of the day. And they rebel against the kingdom of Babylon and Egypt and so on. And they get hammered. They get absolutely hammered. Babylon shows up 500 years after David received this promise, and they tear Jerusalem down, they burn the temple to the ground, they take David's son, they gouge his eyes out, and they take him in chains to Babylon, and they just wipe him out. And so we're left wondering, like, what about Yahweh's promise? What about the whole point of the storyline? Like, where is the story going now?

And in these very dark days in Israel, there was this group of very eccentric individuals who were called prophets. And they, among other things they did, they kept alive this promise of this king and of the snake crusher and of the promise given to Abraham that somehow through this family, even though they're super screwed up, Yahweh's going to bring somehow blessing to all of the nations. And so the prophet Isaiah was the most eloquent, beautiful of the poets and the prophets. And he has these poems that brim with this eager anticipation and expectation of these coming king and of the promises and so on. And I just want you to hear the words

of one of his most powerful poems as he looks to the fulfillment of Yahweh's promises. A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse. From his roots a branch will bear fruit. The spirit of Yahweh will rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the spirit of counsel and of might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of Yahweh, and he will delight in the fear of Yahweh. He will not judge by mere appearances or make judicial decisions

based on hearsay, but with righteousness he will bring justice to the needy. With full integrity he will contend for the poor of the land. He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth. With the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked. Righteousness will be his belt and faithfulness the sash around his waist. The wolf will live with the lamb. The leopard will lie down with the goat. The calf and the lion and the yearling together and a little child will lead them. The cow will feed with the bear.

The young will lie down together and the lion will eat straw like the ox. The infant will play near the cobra's den. The young child will put its hand into the viper's nest. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain. For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of Yahweh as the waters cover the sea. And that day the root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples.

The nations will rally to him, and his resting place will be glorious. Yes, dude. Isaiah is absolutely brilliant. This is so awesome. So Isaiah, are you guys with me? This is so, do you see it? It's so amazing how he brings it all together. So you have this king coming.

Jesse is David's dad. And so he's saying it's as if the lineage of David has been like chopped down. The sons of David all failed. We're just going to off to Babylon, start this thing over. And out of the dead stump of David's family, there's this little sprout of new growth coming out of the stump. And then just the metaphors are spilling off the page. And then the sprout is all of a sudden this person who's endowed and empowered with the spirit of Yahweh himself. And he's going to be this king who brings justice to the poor, right, and protects the oppressed and so on. And so he's going to be a really good king. And we're like, that's awesome.

That's really great. That's incredible. But then it's even bigger. Like the vision is even bigger because it's not just that he's going to, you know, rule in Israel or something. Their creation itself is going to undergo a healing transformation because of the rain and the coming and of what this king is going to do. And so there's all these poetic images of these, you know, the most tame, innocent, weak, and the most powerful, potentially violent creatures in nature and so on. No, it's poetry, right? So I don't know, is it saying the food chain is going to break down or something? No, stop. It's poetry, for goodness sake. Learn how to read poetry.

So the whole point is that we all sense that there's these rifts, not just in humanity, but in the creation itself. There's these deep cracks and wounds that the world is grounding, as Paul the Apostle put it in Romans chapter 8. And that these deep rifts, that whatever it is that's wrong with our world that's bigger than just human beings, that it's going to undergo such an utter transformation that the created order itself is going to be healed. You guys with me here? It's so powerful. And it's as if all of creation will be flooded with the knowledge and presence of

Yahweh like the ocean covers the world. And then you have the root of Jesse, this king, who's going to come and all the nations are going to rally to him and hear his teaching and experience, his healing and just rule. I mean, what do you want? This is like the pinnacle of Messianic prophecy in the Old Testament. And so Isaiah kept the dream alive. He kept the promise alive in these very dark days. But you know the people of Israel, they came back. Some of them came back from Babylon and they started the kingdom again.

But this king, this guy, this never happened. And so the story of the Old Testament just comes to a conclusion with all of this momentum, all these promises just completely unfulfilled. All of the loose plot threads just dangling, like what about the priest and the blessing and the snake crusher and the king, and just there you go. And here's what's interesting, is that the people of Israel and the prophets, they struggled with God's timeline. Maybe you're familiar with that in your life, right? They struggled with the fact that

this was going on for centuries without resolution. And so within Isaiah, the book of Isaiah itself, you hear also these laments, these prophetic laments, like the Psalms calling out to Yahweh, lamenting the state of the world and wondering what Yahweh is going to do. I want you to hear this poem from Isaiah 59, that I think it captures not just the lament of Israel, but it's the lament of the human condition as we wait to see some healing brought to our world. And just get into the pathos of the poem. It's really, really beautiful.

So justice is far from us, and righteousness does not reach us. of the poem. It's really, really beautiful. So, justice is far from us, and righteousness does not reach us. We look for light, but all is darkness. For brightness, but we walk in deep shadows. Like the blind, we grope along the wall, feeling our way like people without

eyes. At midday, we stumble as if it were twilight. Among the strong, we are like the dead. We all growl like bears. We moan mournfully like doves. We look for justice but find none. For deliverance but it is far away. For our offenses are many in your sight and our sins testify against us. Our offenses are ever with us and we acknowledge our iniquities. Rebellion and treachery against Yahweh, turning our backs on our God, inciting revolt and oppression, uttering lies our hearts have conceived. And so justice is driven back, and righteousness

stands at a distance. Truth has stumbled in the streets. Honesty cannot enter. Truth is nowhere to be found. Yahweh looked and was displeased that there was no justice. He saw that there was no one. He was appalled that there was no one to intervene. So his own arm achieved salvation for him, and his own righteousness sustained him. You can see the angst and you can see the pain. I think as we read words like that, we could echo those as we read newspapers of the state of our world today. And how many of you have been in this place where it's like we're looking for God in our lives and we're looking for evidence that he's working in the world, but it's like darkness and it's like truth has lost its way in God's world, and I don't know where he is or what he's doing.

And the voice here is fully aware of the human contribution to this whole scenario and the horror of it, that it's about human sin and selfishness, and it's about that we've all given in to the serpent so deeply, whether it's in these really big dramatic ways of oppression of the poor and stuff like that, or whether it's these small, the little flaws and cracks in our integrity and the little ways that we fudge and blur the lines for our own kind of self-advantage and our way forward or whatever. All these degrees to which we're deeply flawed and screwed up. And you multiply that by a whole nation of Israel and by nearly seven billion human beings on the planet, you

just end up with this mess of the human condition. And so here's what's amazing. The poem ends with a little ski jump. It's really bad, right? And then there's a little ski jump right at the end. And it's Yahweh looking out at humanity. He's looking out at these image-bearing humans. And the whole point of the story was that Yahweh gives the keys to humanity that they may trust and obey and become mature and wise and rule God's good world. And instead, we've made it what it is today. And so he looks out for just one human being who's fully and faithfully the human being that Yahweh made us to be, and he just, he doesn't see anybody.

He looks at the nation of people that he redeemed and called out and gave his covenant and the laws and so on, and there's no one, there's no one to intervene. And so what is Yahweh's response? no one to intervene. And so what is Yahweh's response? It is not like, okay, I'm just really through with this story, right? This is exactly not what he does. Instead, he says he was so disturbed that there's no human to do what he called humans to do. He, so to speak, rolls up his sleeves and will personally get involved. Do you see that right there? His own arm, Yahweh will personally come and do what no human or Israelite or son of David was ever capable of doing

because we give in to the serpent and so on. And that's where the poem concludes. And that's where the story of the Hebrew Bible and that's where Jesus' scriptures concluded. And so when the New Testament authors pick up the story, these are the images. This is the family story that should be ringing in our ears. Let me close by turning back to Matthew 1 for a couple minutes together here. Let's thank our readers here. Thank you, guys. Turn back to Matthew chapter 1 with me.

So we get this genealogy summarizing the family history of Jesus. Look at verse 18 of Matthew chapter 1. This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about. His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. It's quite exceptional. Because Joseph, her husband, was faithful to the law, to the Torah, he was a good, faithful Jewish man, he didn't want, however, to expose her to public disgrace.

He was going to sever the engagement, divorce her, but do it quietly. After he considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, Joseph, son of David, ding, ding, ding, son of David, don't be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. And there's also this echo, as we introduce the story of Jesus, there's this echo back to the first sentence of the Bible, when all was dark, watery chaos, and who's there in the midst of the darkness, hovering, ready to bring light and flourishing and beauty and so on. This is the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God. And so as the story takes this huge leap forward

right here, you have God's Spirit fully present bringing new creation, a new, literally the creation of an utterly unique human being. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. Now, look at, some of you might have a little footnote there that tells you something about the name Jesus, and this is significant. So Jesus is the English form that we've gotten from the Greek pronunciation of his name, Jesus. In Aramaic or in Hebrew, the way you pronounce his name is either Yeshua as a short form or Yehoshua as a long form, where we get Joshua. Yeshua or Yehoshua.

And what is the meaning of this name? Some of you might have a footnote that says it. The meaning of the name is Yahweh brings salvation. Yahweh brings deliverance. Now just stop. Just stop right there. When some of us, whether you've been a Christian for a while, or you're trying to figure out what it all is about, when the issue, the whole issue of is Jesus God, or Jesus is deity, is he God and is he human and how that works together? Or how for some of us that's just incredible, it's very difficult for us to believe.

So where we go often when we read the stories about Jesus is explicit statements where Jesus says things that address the very topic. You know, I and the Father are one, or you've seen me, you've seen the Father. But what's happening here in this story is that the whole fabric of this very story has woven into it this whole tension of, is Yahweh going to do it personally himself, or is a human

being going to be able to do it? Are you with me? That's what the whole story has been about up to this point. And so who is this guy? So this guy is Yahweh brings salvation. But wait, I thought Yahweh said he's going to personally bring salvation because there are no qualified humans who are here to do it. So who is going to bring salvation? This guy, Yahweh brings salvation, or Yahweh himself? In other words, it's woven into the story itself that whatever is going to happen,

Yahweh always purposed to do it through human beings right through the beginning of the story, but that no human beings are capable, so Yahweh has to do it himself. And so how is this is the paradox of Yahweh's salvation, is that it is a human being who does it, and it's Yahweh becoming a human being to do for human beings what we cannot do for ourselves. And it's not, Jesus' deity is not just some random little thing tacked on to the end or something.

Oh, he was a really great teacher, and then some people later thought he was God or something. It's woven into the story itself of Jesus' very identity. It's the meaning of his name. Are you with me here? It's the meaning of his name. As you read on in the story, he receives a second name, which is Emmanuel, which is God with us.

So who's going to bring salvation? Yahweh or God with us? Exactly. And every page of this story about Jesus is going to be inviting you to consider this stupendous claim. I mean, really, it's an unparalleled stupendous claim. This is not like the other stories that the Greeks or the Egyptians told about, you know, Zeus can kind of come down and be a human for a little bit and then go be Zeus again or whatever.

And this is not about the crazy guy in downtown Manhattan who's going around with a sign, of course I'm God, I'm God, you know, you're God. We're all God. This is totally, utterly different than that. And it's different because of the story. Jesus isn't just some random guy showing up. He's precisely coming, at least the claim of the stories that we're going to dive into over the next month, is he is the one in whom this ancient story and all these tensions come together. He is Yahweh bringing salvation. Are you with me? And so where we go on in the series from here, we're going to take four key ways that the Gospels portray Jesus as this meeting place of God and humanity. So we're going to explore next week how Jesus is a priest, himself mediating God and humanity together in his own being.

We're going to explore how Jesus is the divine expression of God's will to us. We're going to explore how Jesus reveals the heart of God to us as a suffering servant to enter into the suffering and sin of his rebellious creatures. And then how Jesus reveals the heart of the creator God to bring new life and resurrection out of the death that we've created in our world. And all of these are ways of looking at Jesus in this three-dimensional way of the meeting place of God and humanity together. So what does this mean for us as we go to worship and to the bread,

to the bread and to the cup? And here's where I'd encourage you to go. I'd encourage you, if you have a Bible, to sit with Isaiah 59 open in front of you. Because what this story is inviting us to do, it's inviting us to consider Jesus as this human who comes to be for us the kind of human that you and I perpetually are incapable or fail to be. I mean, think about the last week that you just had. Literally, just think through the last week that you had.

And think through the moments of failure. Whether it's things that you did that you know were failing as you did them, whether it's things that you didn't do but ought to have done. It's the myriads of ways that we, and it's not to just hate on yourself and self-loathing. It's taking this honest evaluation of the human, like we're screwed up. We cannot be what God has called us to be on our own steam. And to hold that in one hand, but also to hold in the other hand the very end of Isaiah 59 that says whatever good thing we have going for us in our future, it's going to be Yahweh coming to do it for us himself. And as we come to the tables and to the bread and the cup, we're coming

around this claim that Jesus of Nazareth, in his life and in his death and in his resurrection, he is being the kind of human being you and I are called to be but fail to be. And on our behalf, he gave his life for us out of an act of self-giving love so that we can be raised with him and experience full humanity of what God called us to be. And so I don't know your story. I don't know what failures you need to bring to the bread and the cup and ask him to forgive and to heal but to have hope

that this Jesus that we're coming around has power to forgive and to heal and to change us. Amen? Hey guys, thanks for listening to the Exploring My Strange Bible podcast. Every time I really sit down and think about the nature of the whole biblical story and how Jesus, you know, comes at this culminating point. It's always surprising to me. It's so counterintuitive and so strange, but yet also so beautiful and compelling.

Anyway, I just never tire of it, and I hope that rethinking through the whole story just at one go brings you to a place where you never tire of hearing the story that leads to Jesus too. So in future teachings, we're going to go on and explore some of my favorite stories in the New Testament about Jesus and how his actions and words reveal surprising and profound truths about God's character. So onward. We'll see you next time. Thanks for listening.