God's Promises Happen in God's Time
Nothing can stop them even us
There is an important message in today’s first reading (Micah 5:1-4a). First, let us remember we are on the cusp of Christmas and the first reading comes to us from the Prophet Micah. He is speaking to the people around the time of the Babylonian exile. We need to understand this in context. When Assyria defeated Israel, the nation destroyed the larger and more powerful of the two Jewish nations.
So the remaining kingdom obviously is greatly worried. It would be like if The United States was suddenly defeated by an invading army and the army was heading north, Canada would be greatly concerned. However, notice that this passage talks about the future of this little town of Bethlehem that would be the source of a great leader. Many people would read this passage as speaking of a military leader and that thought continued until Jesus’ crucifixion but we are learning of another type of leader.
Biblical Archaeological Review has an article this month that explains this fall of Israel. In fact, the Jews have twelve tribes who can trace their origin to each of the twelve sons of Jacob. When Israel, the northern kingdom, falls; ten of those tribes are basically eliminated, they are absorbed into the Assyrian culture and life by force. This leaves the smaller and almost insignificant kingdom of Judah which again according to the article has two of the twelve tribes but the only two remaining.
So the obvious fear is there is no hope for the nation of Judah. However, Micah explains that despite appearances to the contrary there is a hope for Judah and from this town of Bethlehem will come a great ruler.
Why is this important?
I am sure you know about Grand Canyon. Of course, it was carved out over the millennia by the Colorado River. Slowly, behind the scenes the river water carried bits of rock along and carved out the whole Grand Canyon.
This is kind of like God’s plans. Nothing is going to interrupt God’s plans. We are just not big enough to foil his plans and they will happen. His plans are for our salvation and for the redemption of the world. However, they happen in God’s time and not ours just as the Grand Canyon happened in its own time and not our own.
So we can see God is making it clear that his plans will come to fruition even though appearances to the contrary abound.
The importance of the movie Interstellar
You may know that I believe the movie Interstellar is a powerful movie in our time. It dramatizes Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. However, what is most important about the movie is its focus on understanding a huge universe and the fluidity of time. It gives us a way to expand our way of thinking beyond just focusing on this world and our environment and seeing the universe in a much greater and more accurate light.
Remember, during this time, people understood the existence of stars but did not understand much more. So all thoughts of the universe and the cosmos would have been extremely limited.
We can look at the same realities and see a truth of reality beyond what people could understand. God speaks through Micah of realities that will come true from a perspective far beyond our own understanding. We can now look at them and use them to expand our own understanding and build a trust and relationship with God.
The prophecy of Micah leads us to look back at the town of Bethlehem and now begin to see what happened there. Then we can look at other prophesies yet to be realized and ask, when will we see them and will we see them happen in our life time. Maybe they will or maybe not. What we do know is the stage is always being set for them to happen in God’s own time. We can take that to the bank and slowly, like the Grand Canyon they are happening bit by bit every day until all of salvation is completed and nothing can stop it. This is the ultimate Advent message.
Fr. Robert J Carr is pastor of St. Anthony Parish in Allston, MA
The parish podcast is at CatholicAudioMedia.com
The newest edition of Fr Robert J Carr's latest book is now available. Christ in Our Humanity. You can find it here.