Four hundred years of history transpires between the last promises made by Yahweh to his people and Yahweh’s next move. Yahweh has promised to completely reverse the current world order that his people, Israel, are living in. No longer will they live on a planet that his hostile against them. No longer will the nations rule over them. No longer will they be a nation that is a point of laughter to their neighbors. No longer will they be ruled by a king who leads them astray from blessing and into curse. No longer will they disobey their covenant, and bring upon themselves the wrath of their God. God is going to recreate the world, raise up a Servant-King-Priest who will reign over Israel in this new earth. And Israel will be a light that will draw the Gentiles out of their pagan darkness and back to their Creator. Yahweh has promised and Yahweh is about to deliver.

The Cousin
An angel appeared to a family from the Israelite tribe of Levi, a priest and his wife, Zechariah and Elizabeth. They were barren and very advanced in age, beyond the normal age for childbearing. An angel, a divine messenger, appeared to Zechariah while he was on duty at the Temple and told him that he and his wife will have a son that is to be named John. Zechariah didn’t believe the angel and was struck mute until the child was born and named John.

But Elizabeth became pregnant and she gave birth to a baby boy. When it came time to give the baby a name, Zechariah named him John. And at that moment Zechariah could speak again, just as the angel said would happen. John grew up became a very powerful preacher. He challenged the people of Israel with a message of repentance because someone was coming. One who was before John was coming after him, the Lord. He pleaded with the people to change their lives so that they would be ready to meet the Lord when he comes and be ready to follow him.

This message did not sit well with those in power. The ruling family over Israel, the Herods, did not like how he called out one of the leaders for an affair he was having with his sister-in-law. He was arrested and later executed for his preaching.

The Birth of the New David
About the same time Elizabeth became pregnant, the same angel appeared to Mary. She was pledged to be married to Joseph, from the family line of Judah and David. The angel told Mary that the Messiah would be her son. The Holy Spirit would come upon her and she would conceive a son. When this happened Joseph planned to quietly end the betrothal with a certificate of divorce, but the angel told Joseph the nature of the child’s birth and to take Mary as his wife and to name the child Jesus because he will save his people from their sins.

So when there came time for the child to be born, Joseph had to travel to the town of Bethlehem, where his family is from, to register for a census put in place by the Roman government. When they got to town, all the available rooms were full and so they had to stay in a stable with the animals. Mary gave birth to a son, and they named him Jesus. That same night a whole company of angels appeared to the shepherds outside of Bethlehem to inform them that that their Messiah had been born. They came to the stable where they worshiped their Messiah.

A couple of years later some Magi from Parthia came to Jerusalem to find this King who was to be born. Herod the Great, patriarch of the ruling Herod family, pointed them towards where the child was to be born using the prophets of old. However his goal was to find the child and to kill him so that his own throne could be established and protected. When the Magi found Jesus and offered their gifts the were warned to leave for Parthia along a path away from Herod. When Herod found out he ordered the death of all male children in Bethlehem two-years of age or under. Joseph, by a dream, took his family to Egypt until the threat of Herod had past. When the time came, Joseph and Mary relocated back to Nazareth.

The Ministry of the New David
Growing up, Jesus demonstrating a wisdom and knowledge beyond his years. When John was preaching by the Jordan in the Judean countryside, baptizing those who came and repented in the Jordan River, Jesus went to be baptized as well. John refused and said Jesus, being the one of whom he spoke being greater than he, should baptize him. After John agreed to baptize Jesus and Jesus came up out of the water, the sky opened and the Spirit descended upon Jesus like a dove and a voice from the heavens declared Jesus to be its Son. Jesus was led into the wilderness where he encountered the devil and was tempted by him for forty days and nights.

Jesus then began to preach in Galilee about God’s kingdom. He preached that it had drawn near and they needed to believe this good news and repent of their sins. He performed many miracles, healing the sick and lame and injured, casting out demons, restoring the world to what it was supposed to be. He taught what life would be like in the kingdom of his Father. Jesus defied the established religious leadership with his teachings on ethics and who God is and how they interpreted his covenant law to maintain their power and prestige. Even Herod was afraid of Jesus for he believed that Jesus was John the Baptizer come back to torment him.

While Jesus was happy to tell the Samaritans that he was their Messiah, a prophet who would lead them into all truth, he would not do so for the Israelites. They correctly believed him to be the coming Davidic Messiah, but they did not understand the kingdom he was to rule over and that they were to take part in. It is the kingdom of his Father in heaven breaking into this world to defeat evil, end Israel’s exile, forgive sin, recreate the world, and draw the Gentiles out of their dark pagan ways. It was not a kingdom that was to make Israel its own nation again. Jesus’ kingdom was something otherworldly. So he would not acknowledge their naming him Messiah.

In fact, while he told his disciples, his closest followers that he was the Messiah, he spoke of being Messiah in a way they too did not understand. He was to be handed over to the ruling authorities, both Hebrew and Gentile, be mocked and flogged and rejected, crucified, and resurrected on the third day. In the minds of his followers and their contemporary Israelites, that did not compute with their understanding of the Messiah.

The Death and Resurrection of the Davidic Messiah
So Jesus preached the gospel of the kingdom of heaven and of God. He lived it out, showing what this kingdom would look like in this world. He preached and ministered for three years, three Passovers. During the third Passover, Jesus was welcomed into the city as a heralded prophet, riding on a donkey. When he entered the city he went to the Temple and saw how perverse the Hebrew people had become. He totally destroyed the corrupt system they had, removing the moneychangers and those who were trying to make a buck off of the worship of their God, Yahweh. Between this and the Messianic fever the people had about Jesus as a result of his ministry like raising his friend Lazarus from the dead, the leaders of Israel decided they wanted to kill Jesus and fast. They recruited one of his followers, Judas, for thirty pieces of silver.

On the night of the Passover, Jesus and his followers shared a meal together. It was the Passover meal, but Jesus reinterpreted the bread and wine to point to his own death–his broken body and spilled blood. It was to be repeated by them to remember what he was about to do. That night, Judas went to the priests and the Hebrew leadership to help them arrest Jesus. Jesus went to the Garden at Gethsemane to pray for the anguish he felt as he knew his time was short. Judas and the Jewish authorities met Jesus in the Garden and arrested him.

Jesus was tried for crimes he didn’t commit by the Jews. He was handed over to the Romans and to Herod for trial. Eventually, the Roman governor, Pontus Pilate, agreed to have Jesus crucified to appease the Hebrew people and their leadership. Jesus was led outside the city and promptly executed so that his dead body did not defile the city during their Passover holiday. Jesus died at the same time the priests were slaughtering the Passover lambs for the people.

During this time his followers ran and bailed on him. Some dared to watch the crucifixion but all in his movement were saddened by the death of their Messiah. However on the third day, having been buried in the tomb owned by Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, some of the Jesus’ women disciples went to visit his tomb and found it empty. An angel told them that Jesus had risen. On their way back they encountered Jesus and thought he had taken the body, not knowing that it was indeed their Messiah. When they saw it was him they ran to the other disciples and informed them that he had risen like they had been told. He was alive.

Over the next forty days Jesus appeared to his disciples and began to teach them about the kingdom. He ate with them and fellowshipped with them. He told them that the same Spirit that had empowered him and raised him from the dead would come upon them as well and that they were to take the story of Jesus and the message of his kingdom to their fellow Hebrews and into the whole world of the Gentiles as well. They shall baptize those who become Jesus’ disciples and teach them to obey all that Jesus taught.

Taking the Message to the World
After the forty days, Jesus was taken up into heaven. And his followers did exactly that. They waited in Jerusalem for the Spirit to indwell them. Then they began to teach their fellow Israelites about the resurrected Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth. And they also began to preach this Jesus to the Gentiles as well. They began churches all over the Roman world.

And these followers continue to this day to tell the old old story of how Jesus came down from glory and ushered in the kingdom of his Father that will recreate this world and restore it to what it was supposed. He will reign over it and all will be as God intended it to be when he created it.

Now that I have told the story, in the next post I will begin to get more specific about what is the good news, the gospel, that the we are to share from this story of Jesus.