The One We’ve Been Waiting For
Matthew 2:13–23
© Mike Riccardi
Introduction
Well, what a glorious time to be together, as the people of God in this place, celebrating the birth of our Savior and offering worship to God through Him, on this Christmas Sunday! A very Merry Christmas to our dear church family here at Grace Church, and a special welcome to all of you who are visiting with us this morning; we are so grateful you’re here.
Christmas, of course, is the “season of giving.” We give gifts to our loved ones at Christmastime as an echo of the gift that the God of heaven has given us: the Lord Jesus Christ, who saves us from sin and punishment through faith in Him alone! the One “who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel” (2 Tim 1:10). Eternal God the Son, takes on a human nature like our own, to stand in our place and bear our curse, to rise from the grave in victory, and to take into heaven with Him everyone who turns from their sins, and trusts in Him alone for righteousness and forgiveness. That is the greatest gift that’s ever been given. With the Apostle Paul we say, “Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!” (2 Cor 9:15). And so we seek to imitate the love of our Father by giving gifts to those we love, as an echo of the greatest gift ever given.
But we might also describe the Christmas season—not only as the season of giving—but as the season of waiting. In most cases, the Christmas vacation provides a long-anticipated and much-needed break from a busy work schedule. We can’t wait for Christmas break! In some cases, Christmas provides an opportunity for family members who don’t live close by to see one another in person for the first time in a long time. We can’t wait to go home for Christmas!
For those with young kids like me, this expresses itself in the Christmas countdown. We have a little calendar by our kitchen table, and since Thanksgiving, every once and while, we’ll get an update: “Dad! Only 13 days until Christmas! Mom! Only eight days until Christmas!” And sprinkled in there is, “I can’t wait until Christmas!” They are in a season of waiting for the season of giving! And parents are in a season of waiting, too. I can hardly wait to see the kids’ reactions to opening their presents. It’s hard to describe that feeling when your kids say, “Oh, this is the one I wanted!” or “This is the one I’ve been waiting for!”
And just like the season of giving points us to God’s greatest gift in the Lord Jesus, the season of waiting points us Godward as well. As we return to our series in the opening chapters of the Book of Matthew, we find that the promise of God’s “indescribable gift” is something the people of God had been waiting for for quite some time. From the moment that Adam and Eve sin in the Garden of Eden, and plunge the human race into sin and the present creation under the curse of God, God promises in Genesis 3:15 that the Seed of the woman will come to crush the head of the serpent. A son will come and destroy the work of the devil, and set the creation free from its curséd slavery. He will “come to make His blessings flow [as] far as the curse is found”!
And the story of the whole Old Testament is: “Who will this ‘seed’ be?” In Genesis 12, we find that this seed will not only be the seed of the woman, but also the seed of Abraham, who will come from the “great nation” of Abraham’s descendants and bless all the families of the earth. But the entire Old Testament documents how faithless that nation is to the God who cared for them so graciously. As soon as they enter the land God had promised them, they turn from Him and worship the idols of the pagan nations.
In 2 Samuel 7 we learn that the seed of the woman and seed of Abraham will also be the Son of David. God promises to raise up David’s seed and set Him to reign over an everlasting kingdom. But that king was not David, the man of bloodshed. It was not his son Solomon, who turned away to the foreign gods of his many wives. And those who came after them were constant disappointments. Twenty-seven times in the Books of 1 and 2 Kings we read of the kings of Israel: “He did evil in the sight of Yahweh, and walked in the way of his father and in his sin.” When would a righteous king come, and save God’s people from their sins and enemies, and establish righteousness among them?
They waited, literally for centuries, even enduring exile into Assyria and Babylon—but always with promises of restoration through this Seed. There’s going to be a New Covenant: God will restore Israel to her land; He will put His law in their hearts; He will make them walk in His statutes; He will forgive their sins and put His Spirit within them, so that they would become obedient from the heart!
And so the people wait, and they pray, and they look, and they wonder: “Who’s it going to be?” First Peter 1:10 says the prophets “made careful searches and inquiries,” trying to discern who this Messiah would be and when He would come. And that posture of anticipation remains through to the opening chapters of the Gospels. Luke 2:25 tells of Simeon, who “was righteous and devout, looking for the consolation of Israel.” He was waiting! And in Luke 2:38, 84-year-old Anna “continued to speak of [Jesus] to all those who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.” She was waiting! And you remember John the Baptist’s question to Jesus, even as late as Matthew 11: “Are You the Expected One, or shall we look for someone else?” They were all waiting!
And after centuries of waiting for this Savior—after all this anticipation—the Gospel of Matthew begins by saying: “The One we’ve been waiting for is here!” “Christmas has come! God’s gift has been given! And He is Jesus of Nazareth, born of a virgin to Joseph and Mary. He is the promised seed of the woman, the seed of Abraham, the Son of David, the King of Israel!”
And Matthew’s entire Gospel is designed to present Jesus to Israel as her promised King. And he does this, in these opening chapters, by presenting Jesus as the fulfillment of five prophecies, promised to Israel in the Old Testament. He’s saying, “Our God has spoken to us through the many prophets He’s sent to us throughout the ages, who told us who the Messiah would be and what He would do, so that we could recognize Him when He arrives. Well, He’s here, because He’s fulfilling prophecies that predicted what’s happening hundreds and even thousands of years before they happened!”
And so, after the genealogy in chapter 1 verses 1 to 17, starting in Matthew 1:18 and running through to the end of chapter 2, Matthew gives us five prophecies to prove to Israel that Jesus is their promised King. The first was the prophecy of the Messiah’s being born of a virgin from Isaiah 7:14, fulfilled in Jesus in chapter 1 verses 18 to 23. The second was the prophecy of the Messiah’s birth in Bethlehem from Micah 5:2, fulfilled in chapter 2 verse 6. The final three prophecies come to us in verses 13 to 23: the calling of the Son of God out of Egypt, in verses 13 to 15; the weeping at Ramah, in verses 16 to 18; and that the Messiah would be called a Nazarene, in verses 19 to 23.
And as Matthew presents Jesus as the fulfillment of each of these final three prophecies, he does so in a remarkable way that leads us to worship: to worship God for the wisdom of His plan of salvation, and for the treasured gift that His Word is to us. And it leads us to worship Jesus for being the King of Israel, who brings salvation to us His people, and who is the One in whom all of history climaxes and culminates. The way Matthew presents Jesus as the fulfillment of these three prophecies teaches us to set all of our affections on Him; to rest all of our confidence and trust in Him; to receive Him with all of our heart and soul as the One we’ve been waiting for.
I. A New Exodus (vv. 13–15)
The first prophecy that we’ll consider, I am setting under the following heading. (I know these are long titles for main points, but I’ve found that if people write down anything during a sermon, it’s usually the main points, and I don’t want you to miss this.) Number one: the Son of God redeems God’s enslaved people unto a new Exodus. And I hope to make sense of that from verses 13 to 15.
Verse 13 begins, “Now when they had gone.” And this is speaking of the magi, verse 12, who were warned by God in a dream not to return to Herod to inform him of the whereabouts of this Child-King; because, despite what he said to them in verse 8, he did not want to worship the Child as the magi did; he wanted to kill Him, and stave off any rival to his throne. And so, after the magi had given their gifts to Jesus and went on their way, “behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, ‘Get up! Take the Child and His mother and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is going to search for the Child to destroy Him.”
And it’s difficult to imagine what could have been running through Joseph’s mind. “Destroy Him? This child that was announced by angels, and born of a virgin, and worshiped by magi—who is ‘God with us’? How could a mere man, even if he is king, destroy this Child? Why wouldn’t an angel just strike Herod dead? Why wouldn’t God Himself send legions of angels to intervene? Is the only means of protection to flee in the middle of the night? And to Egypt, away from our home, virtually exiled from God’s nation, cut off from God’s people, away from God’s temple, which was the sole place to draw near to God in fellowship and worship?” The great commentator Matthew Henry observed, “How early was the blesséd Jesus involved in trouble! … His life and his sufferings began together.” And it truly is a cause for admiring the humility of God the Son. Henry went on to say, “As there was no room for him in the inn in Bethlehem, so there was no quiet room for him in the land of Judea. Thus was he banished from the earthly Canaan, that we, who for sin were banished from the heavenly Canaan, might not be for ever expelled.”
Well, whatever temptations may have been in Joseph’s mind, he didn’t give expression to any of them, but, just as he did before, he obeyed the angel’s instructions immediately. Verse 14: “So Joseph got up and took the Child and His mother while it was still night, and left for Egypt.” The closest border of Egypt was about 75 miles from Bethlehem, and it would have been another 100 miles before they could find a reasonable place to settle (MacArthur, 40). And so historians estimate that it would take about a week to make this trek (France, 79). Like Abraham, Joseph left the land of his fathers in faith, without knowing the details of what would happen, but trusting that his God would care for him and his young family. And tangible evidence of the Lord’s providential provision likely encouraged him, as the gold the magi had brought would be put to good use in sustaining them on their journey.
And verse 15 says, “He remained there until the death of Herod,” implying that when Herod died, Joseph would bring the Child and his mother back into the land of Israel from Egypt—even as verses 19 to 21 record for us. But then Matthew says, “This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: ‘Out of Egypt I called My Son.’” Now, this is a quotation from the prophet Hosea, in chapter 11 of his prophecy, and verse 1. The context there is the nation of Israel’s persistent waywardness and unfaithfulness to Yahweh. And in Hosea 11 God says, “When Israel was a youth I loved him, and out of Egypt I called My son. … [But] they kept sacrificing to the Baals and burning incense to idols. Yet it is I who taught Ephraim to walk; I took them in My arms. … I led them with … bonds of love. … I bent down and fed them.” It’s as if God is a rejected parent, heartbroken over an adult child who has grown up to become a grief to Him. It’s as if He’s reflecting on better days gone by—of His dear son’s birth and happy childhood, who has now disappointed Him so greatly.
Well, when was Israel born, as a nation? It was when they labored under the bondage of slavery in Egypt, and God as it were drew them out from the death of their captivity into the light of life, and dwelt among them in the Tabernacle, and led them into their own land. In Exodus 4:22, God says, “Israel is My son, My firstborn. So I said to you, ‘Let My son go that he may serve Me.’” And “by a mighty hand and outstretched arm”—the ten plagues and the parting of the Red Sea—God redeemed His son, the nation of Israel, out of their slavery in Egypt. “Out of Egypt I called My son.”
But in what way does the Messiah’s flight to and return from Egypt “fulfill” Hosea 11:1—which was not a prediction about the Messiah, but a historical reference to Israel’s exodus? Well, Matthew uses the term “fulfill” in different senses in his Gospel. And of the 90 times he uses it, only eight to ten speak of what we might call a “direct literal fulfillment” of an Old Testament prophecy (Vlach, 139–40)—like Zechariah 9:9 predicting that the Messiah would come humble and mounted on a donkey, or Psalm 22:18 saying that they would cast lots for the garments of the Son of David.
More often, Matthew uses “fulfill” to speak of events in Jesus’ life that correspond to events in Israel’s history—as if Israel’s life is recapitulated in her Messiah’s life. And Matthew does this to show that Jesus is the ultimate and perfect Israelite—the true and ultimate Son of God, who is the perfect embodiment (or fulfillment) of what Israel was always supposed to be. And so in Isaiah 49:3, for example, God can say to the Messiah, “You are My Servant Israel, in whom I will show My glory.” He calls the Messiah Israel. And then two verses later God says that He sends the Messiah “so that Israel may be gathered to Him.” So, Israel the nation is Israel, but the coming Messiah, the Suffering Servant, is also Israel!
The interchangeableness is meant to show that the King of Israel stands for and represents the people of Israel. The eternal “Son of God” stands for and represents the national son of God. The Messiah is the fulfillment of what Israel should have always been. And to teach that lesson, God determines that key events in the life of the nation of Israel will be recapitulated in the life of the true and ultimate Israelite, so that what can be said of Israel can be said of her King. And Matthew is providing the biblical justification for that very idea by speaking of events in Israel’s history—like their deliverance out of bondage in Egypt—as fulfilled (or filled up) in the life of Jesus the Messiah.
And what has that Messiah come to do? The eternal Son of God has come to redeem God’s people out of a slaveryand a bondage that was infinitely greater than the slavery of Israel in Egypt! And that is the bondage of slavery to sin. “Long lay the world in sin and error pining”! Jesus says in John 8:34, “Everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin.” Do you hear that? Gentle-Jesus-meek-and-mild says, “You are not a basically good person who just does some bad things once and a while.” He says, “If you commit sin, you’re a slave of sin.” And unless you are redeemed from that slavery, you will perish under the curse of that slavery, which is eternal separation from God and punishment in hell forever.
But Matthew says: the One who can redeem you from that slavery is Jesus! The Son of God, called out of Egypt, is here to redeem God’s enslaved people unto a new exodus, because He brings a ransom price that can pay for an infinite debt. The Apostle Peter says you are redeemed “not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.” Dear Christian, the most precious metals and stones on earth could not redeem us from our slavery to sin. But God’s Son does not bring perishable things for the ransom price. He brings His own precious blood, through His death on the cross: the blood of a sinless Substitute—the blood of the God-man—which rescues everyone for whom it is shed. And so you must trust in that blood. Trust in that Savior. The Son of God, who redeems God’s enslaved people unto a new exodus. He is the One you’ve been waiting for.
II. A New Covenant (vv. 16–18)
Well, Matthew goes on to a second prophecy that Jesus fulfills. And this one we’ll consider under this heading: the hunted Child delivers God’s exiled people unto a New Covenant. And we find this in verses 16 to 18.
“Then when Herod saw that he had been tricked by the magi.” Bethlehem was only about six miles from Jerusalem, and so when Herod didn’t see the magi after a day or two, he concluded that they had deceived him. But that refers only to his perception of their motives. There was no guile on the part of the magi; they were just doing what God had commanded them in verse 12.
But either way, when Herod realized that he wasn’t going to be able to exploit the magi in order to kill this Child-King who had rightful claim to the throne of Israel, “he became very enraged,” or you could translate it, “exceedingly furious.” He was flying off the handle, losing all self-control. When a prideful and insecure man believes he’s been deceived in such a way that his power is threatened, the result is, as one commentator put it, “the most absurd and unreasonable instances of cruelty” (Henry). And that is what we find in verse 16: Herod “sent and [killed] all the male children who were in Bethlehem and all its vicinity, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had determined from the magi.”
And it’s almost unthinkable even to read those words. Imagine the cowardly desperation, the criminal indifference, the heartless cruelty that it takes to murder dozens—or maybe even hundreds—of defenseless children, all so that Herod, who didn’t have many more years to reign, could pass his crown to whom he wished. But this was characteristic of Herod the Great, who killed three of his own sons because he suspected them of plotting to seize his throne. History records that Herod gave orders that upon his death one member of each family was to be executed, “so that the whole nation would really be in mourning” for him (Morris, 45). And even though his was an uncommon cruelty, it wasn’t novel. Having just mentioned the exodus in the previous verse, I believe Matthew wants us to remember Pharaoh’s command in Exodus 1 that every Hebrew son be killed. And yet God providentially protects Moses from such murderous cruelty, just as He does Jesus—which is a subtle hint from Matthew that this Jesus would be a new Moses, a covenant mediator for the people of God He would lead out of slavery.
But this reminds us, friends, that the Christmas story isn’t all sunshine and rainbows! It’s not merely about sweet carols and swaddling cloths! Herod reminds us of the very sin and wickedness—resident in every human heart—from which this Child has come to deliver us.
It also reminds us that the kingdom of darkness did not hesitate to unleash full force against our Savior, assaulting Him even in His infancy—which is another testimony to Jesus’ true identity as Savior. When Satan rages most fiercely, you can be sure he feels himself in God’s crosshairs. No reason to kick up a fuss over a phony. But the Son of God, the true Messiah, draws out the fullness of hell’s fury. And so these precious children become the world’s first Christian martyrs, giving passive testimony to the truth of Christ. Matthew Henry said, “They shed their blood for him, who afterwards shed his for them.” And in a play on words he calls them “the infantry of the noble army of martyrs.”
“Then,” Matthew says in verse 17, “what had been spoken through Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled: ‘A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children; and she refused to be comforted, because they were no more.’” This is a quote from Jeremiah 31:15. And you can turn there. It mentions the town of Ramah, about five miles north of Jerusalem, which, according to Jeremiah 40 verse 1, was where the captives of Israel were assembled for deportation and were marched in chains to Babylon at the time of the Babylonian exile in 586 BC.
And the prophet Jeremiah poetically describes that time of mourning and lamentation in Israel as “Rachel weeping for her children.” Rachel was the wife of the patriarch Jacob, and Jeremiah presents her as the personification of motherhood in Israel. And that’s fitting, because in Genesis 30 verse 1, she said to Jacob, “Give me children, or else I die.” Genesis 35:18 records that Rachel died while giving birth to Benjamin, which becomes perhaps the pinnacle illustration of motherly love: giving your life away to give life to your child. And Genesis 35:19 says that Rachel was buried “on the way to…Bethlehem.” First Samuel 10:2 adds that it was near the border of Benjamin, which means it would have been very close to Ramah (cf. Carson and Beale, 9). So, as the nation mourns its exile into Babylon near the grave of the archetypical mother of Israel, Jeremiah elegantly pictures this as Rachel weeping for her children.
Now, Matthew isn’t suggesting that the weeping in Ramah was somehow a prediction of Herod’s slaughter. He’s making the same connection that he did with Hosea 11:1—that key events in the life of the nation of Israel correspond to and are recapitulated in the life of the true and ultimate Israelite. So: the weeping and lamentation amidst the tragedy of Israel’s exile corresponds to the weeping and lamentation amidst the tragedy of the massacre in Bethlehem.
But that’s not all. Jeremiah 31:15 isn’t only a lament. It is a lament in the context of immense hope. In fact, every other verse in Jeremiah 31 is an exuberant promise of hope for restoration from exile. In the next two verses, God says, “Restrain your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears. For … they will return from the land of the enemy. There is hope for your future, … and your children will return to their own territory.” Back up to verse 10: “He who scattered Israel will gather him and keep him as a shepherd keeps his flock.” And how is He going to do that? If you skip down to verse 31, you find that famous promise of the New Covenant. “‘Behold, days are coming, declares the Lord, ‘when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant…which they broke,” but, verse 33, “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.” Verse 34: “I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”
And so, it’s as if Matthew is anticipating the objection, “Can we expect salvation from a Child-King who not only was forced into His own kind of exile into Egypt at the hands of a wicked ruler, but whose birth was the occasion of the kind of bitter weeping and lamentation that the people of God experienced in the Babylonian exile?” And he’s saying, “Yes we can! Because just as Jeremiah, in the very midst of that lamentation, promised a restoration from exile through a coming new covenant, Jesus’ birth, though an occasion of lamentation, is to be the cause of greater rejoicing, because He is the very fulfillment of that New Covenant promise of restoration from exile! And so you mothers of Israel who are weeping for your children: ‘Restrain your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears.’ The Messiah who will forgive your iniquity and write the law of God on your heart, and who will raise those precious babies to everlasting life on the last day: He is here!”
Dear unbeliever, as much as our sin left us in the bondage of slavery, it had also sent us into the exile of alienation from God. Sin banished Adam and Eve from God’s presence in the Garden. Romans 5:10 describes men and women in their natural state of sinfulness, apart from faith in Christ, as enemies of God. Isaiah 59:2 captures it well: “Your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear [you].” We who were created for intimate friendship with our Creator have been exiled from Him. Ephesians 2:12 calls us “strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.” The broken law of God stands hostile to us.
But the hunted Child delivers God’s exiled people unto a New Covenant, because, having escaped Herod’s grasp, He grew up and fulfilled the Law of God on our behalf, and went to the cross to bear our alienation in Himself; to be forsaken by His Father, so that we who deserve to be forsaken might be received as sons and daughters. He “cancels out the certificate of debt consisting in decrees against us.” “He has taken it out of the way,” Colossians 2:14, “having nailed it to the cross.” And He calls you to look away from yourself and your attempts to earn your own righteousness, and to trust in His life, and in His death, and in His resurrection alone for the forgiveness of sins and the renewed heart that are promised in the New Covenant. Trust in the One who said, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood.”
III. A Final Atonement (vv. 19–23)
The Son of God redeems God’s enslaved people unto a new exodus. And the hunted child delivers God’s exiled people unto a New Covenant. We come now to a third prophecy that Matthew says Jesus fulfills. And the heading for this one is: the Man of Sorrows identifies with despised sinners unto a final atonement. This comes in verses 19 to 23.
“But when Herod died.” The one who seethed so earnestly after the death of Christ, and who caused the death of so many others, now succumbs to death himself. And a particularly horrific death. The historian Josephus records that Herod’s last days saw him afflicted with burning fevers, intolerable itching, swollen feet, ulcerated intestines, putrefied privy-parts, foul breath, difficulty breathing, and constant pain (cf. Gill). That reminds me of Psalm 37:12–13: “The wicked plots against the righteous and gnashes at him with his teeth. The Lord laughs at him, For He sees his day is coming.”
Well, “when Herod died, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, and said, ‘Get up, take the Child and His mother, and go into the land of Israel; for those who sought the Child’s life are dead.’” The hunted Child lives by the providential preservation of God, while those who hunted Him lie in the grave they prepared for Him.
And it’s interesting: this is almost an exact quote from the Greek translation of Exodus 4:19, where the Lord says to Moses, who was hiding out in Midian, “Go back to Egypt, for all the men who were seeking your life are dead.” Just another confirmation that Matthew wants his readers to see Jesus as a new Moses, who may now safely return to where He will mediate God’s work of redemption. Moses to Egypt, Jesus from Egypt.
“So,” verse 21, “Joseph got up, took the Child and His mother, and came into the land of Israel.” Now, the angel hadn’t specified any particular part of Israel to return to. He just said, Go back to Israel. “But when [Joseph] heard,” verse 22, “that Archelaus was reigning over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there.” And Archelaus was his father’s son. One commentator said, “He was noted for his cruelty even in an age when cruel men were not scarce” (Morris, 48). An insurrection had broken out at Passover time, and Archelaus slaughtered three thousand Jews—many of whom had taken no part in the rebellion (MacArthur, 46–47). So, Joseph’s fears were warranted.
“Then after being warned by God in a dream, he left for the regions of Galilee, and came and lived in a city called Nazareth.” Galilee was a politically independent region, an obscure and overlookable place, north of Judea and Samaria, and ruled by another of Herod’s sons: Herod Antipas, who was of a much milder temper than his father. Nazareth was a small, out-of-the-way and unimportant village in the hills of Galilee, population under 500, and overshadowed by a growing neighboring city that Antipas was rebuilding to be the capital of the region. And Luke 1:26, along with Luke 2:4 and 2:39, tell us that Nazareth was Joseph and Mary’s “own city,” even before they returned from Egypt.
And Matthew says, verse 23, that their settling in Nazareth “was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophets: ‘He shall be called a Nazarene.’” Now, what’s interesting about this fulfillment is that, unlike the previous four prophecies Matthew has discussed, we don’t find this exact phrase anywhere in the Old Testament. This is also the only place in the entirety of Matthew’s Gospel that he speaks of “the prophets,” plural. And so, to speak of “the prophets” saying what is not in any single verse of the Old Testament suggests that Matthew is speaking of a common theme of severalprophetic texts, rather than an exact quotation.
But what theme is that? No prophetic texts mention Nazareth at all, let alone that the Messiah would be called a Nazarene. But, ironically, that’s the key to understanding it. Nazareth was “a scriptural nonentity” (France, 94). It was, as I said, an obscure and unimportant town. Everyone—even the magi from the east—knew that the Messiah was to be born in Bethlehem: in the city of David, the king! “Jesus of Bethlehem” would have made sense for someone making a Messianic claim. But to be “Jesus of Nazareth” and claim to be the Messiah was laughable. One commentator said it was “to invite ridicule: the name itself is a term of dismissal” (France, 94).
And we see evidence of that in John 1:46, where Philip tells Nathanael that they have found the Messiah whom the Law and the Prophets foretold: “Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” And Nathanael replies, “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” Galilee had a nickname. Do you remember what it was? Matthew 4:15 quotes Isaiah 9:1: “Galilee of the Gentiles.” In John 7:52, when Nicodemus reminds the Pharisees that their Law requires that they hear the witness before condemning, they reply, “You are not also from Galilee, are you? Search, and see that no prophet arises out of Galilee.” And so, as Matthew Henry put it, It is “a name of reproach and contempt. To be called a Nazarene was to be called a despicable man, a man from whom no good was to be expected, and to whom no respect was to be paid.”
And that is a theme of Old Testament prophecy: that the Messiah would be despised. Turn with me, briefly, back to Psalm 69. Several verses from this psalm are applied to Jesus in the Gospels, and they give us something of the internal monologue of Jesus that He never speaks out loud but we know was in His heart. In John 15:25 Jesus applies verse 4 to Himself: “Those who hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of my head.” Verse 7: “For Your sake I have borne reproach; dishonor has covered my face. I have become estranged from my brothers and an alien to my mother’s sons.” And that makes me think of John chapter 7: “For not even His brothers were believing in Him.” Verse 9 is quoted of Jesus in John 2 and Romans 15: “For zeal for Your house has consumed me, and the reproaches of those who reproach You have fallen on me.” Verses 21 is quoted in Matthew 27:34. Start in verse 20: “Reproach has broken my heart and I am so sick. And I looked for sympathy, but there was none, and for comforters, but I found none. They also gave me gall for my food and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.”
Turn back to Psalm 22. This is that famous psalm that begins with Jesus’ unthinkable cry from the cross: “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” But in verse 6, we again hear the inner monologue of Jesus, even during the crucifixion. He says, “I am a worm and not a man, a reproach of men and despised by the people. All who see me sneer at me; they separate with the lip, they wag the head, saying ‘Commit yourself to the Lord; let Him deliver him; let Him rescue him because He delights in him.’” That verse is applied to Jesus, in Matthew 27:43. “Worm.” “Reproach.” “Despised.”
And then, one more, turn to Isaiah 53. Verse 3: “He was despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and like one from whom men hide their face He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.” In the majesty of Heaven, to look upon this Savior would have been to feast our eyes on the epitome of all beauty! If we saw Him as He actually was, we would run through walls to catch just one glimpse of His lovely face! And Isaiah says He is despised, like One from whom men hide their face. He is the fountain of all joy, the wellspring of all pleasure and blessedness! And Isaiah calls Him a man of sorrows—as if He were composed entirely of sorrows!
Why? Look at verse 4: “Surely our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried.” Verse 5: “He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for our peace fell upon Him, and by His wounds, we are healed.” The Messiah-King would be despised and reproached and forsaken because the sinners He came to save deserve to be despised and reproached and forsaken! And He would save them by His substitutionary, sacrificialatonement on the cross! The Man of Sorrows identifies with despised sinners unto a final atonement.
You see, He would be called a Nazarene because you and I were Nazarenes! Because of our sin, we are despicable and dishonorable! We ought to say, “I am a worm and not a man!” We should say, “I am a reproach to my family!” They hated Him without cause, but I may be hated with just cause, because I’m a breaker of God’s law and have been defiled by my sin! But I’m not hated like I should be! In fact, I am loved, by the very One my sins are so offensive to! I am loved by loveliest Being in the universe! I am accepted by the fountain of all goodness, because this glorious Savior condescended from heaven to earth—from a throne to a manger—to identify with despised sinners! And He stood in my place, bore my sins in His own body, was punished for my crimes, and thereby accomplished a final atonement!
Conclusion
And that is the Christmas story, friends. This eternal God became a man like us, and was born in Bethlehem, and was called out of Egypt, and was hunted by Herod, and was despised as a Nazarene, so that He could grow into the Man who obeyed every word of the law of God that you and I have broken, and so that He could take our place and be forsaken of God on that cross, dying the death that we could not survive, paying for the sins we could not pay for, and so that He could rise again three days later in victory over sin and death. Dear people: He is the One you’ve been waiting for!
And so the call of Christmas is to rest your soul upon Him. Turn away from trying to earn your righteousness before God by the filthy rags of your own “good works.” You could never do it. Trust in Him for all your righteousness, for all your forgiveness. In this Jesus, there is a record of perfect obedience—there is a full and final atonement—that is offered to you freely, to be received by the empty hand of faith alone. And when you forsake all others and believe in Him alone, God says He will have treated Jesus the way you deserved on the cross, and He will treat you the way Jesus deserves by receiving you to Himself in heaven. Don’t delay. Receive the greatest of Christmas gifts this morning.
And to my brothers and sisters who are trusting Him: let Him have your whole heart. Set all your affections on Him. Let these wonderful portrayals of Him as the fulfillment of centuries-old prophecies—the climax of all of history— make your heart swell in admiration and love for Him every day of your life. Fill your soul with these truths of a new exodus, a new covenant, a final atonement until your heart soars in praise and worship for such a glorious King—until you sense that there no satisfaction to be found in sin, but that every pleasure worth enjoying is wrapped up in this indescribable gift of a Savior.
And continue to wait patiently for Him. He has ascended into heaven, where He reigns at the right hand of the Father, and from which He will soon return to rule this world in righteousness forever. He is still the One we’ve been waiting for! So wait upon Him. Love His appearing. And follow Him faithfully until He comes again for us.