Prophesies Fulfilled!featured

Over the last week or so, I have been thinking about how the events of Holy Week so clearly reflect the fulfillment of Old Testament prophesies about the coming of a Messiah.  This last Sunday, Palm Sunday, I was reminded of how passionately the Jewish people longed for the fulfillment of those prophecies.

Jesus was pretty clear that He, indeed, was the promised Messiah.  In Matthew 26:56, as Jesus was being arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane, he said, “But this has all taken place that the writings of the prophets might be fulfilled.”   After He was resurrected and was walking along the road to Emmaus, He had another opportunity to explain how His life had been foretold.  Luke 24:27 says, “And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, He explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning Himself.” 

As we approach Good Friday and reflect on His sufferings on the cross, the words of the Prophet Isaiah remind me of how God fulfilled the promises that He made hundreds of years earlier. 

• Isaiah 53:5: “But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on Him, and by His wounds we are healed.”
• Isaiah 53:12, “…He poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For He bore the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors.”

Through the fulfillment of these prophesies, God provided the ultimate love gift to mankind. God didn’t send the Messiah to solve a specific political problem or even to alleviate the legitimate physical suffering of His people.  God provided a Messiah to solve the chronic human problem of sin.  While God is concerned about our political messes and physical well-being, He is even more interested in our souls; so much so that He sent His Son to pay the consequences for our sin.

It is easy for me to look back at those first century folks and wonder how they missed this fulfillment of prophecy.  How could they not see clearly that Jesus was their spiritual Messiah?  Why couldn’t they looking beyond their desire for a warrior type Messiah who would rescue them from the tyranny of Rome and would restore the Temple and their homeland?

Perhaps we too suffer from those same kind of “Messiah” expectations!  How often do we want God’s answers to our problems and concerns to be answers that we can see and touch – right now!  I know my preference is for God to, “poof”, remove a problem rather than to walk beside me through the problem.  And a blessing is just so much easier to recognize if I can touch it or taste it or hear it.  When we read Psalm 37:4-5, “Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.  Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him and he will do this…”, do we sometimes think like Janis Joplin, “O Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz …”?

Back to those promises in Psalm 37!  Perhaps a shift from fixating on the “desires of my heart” to focusing on “delight in the Lord” and “commit your way to the Lord” and “trust in Him” might begin to alter my perspective.  If I delight in Him and am committed to Him and trust in His ways, my concerns are likely to move from the temporary physical things of this earth to those things that have spiritual and eternal value.  These “heart’s desires” are God’s extravagant love gifts – available to us because of Jesus’ death and resurrection.  This is cause for joyous celebration!  May you have a blessed Easter![jetpack_subscription_form]