4.4

Out of a long silence

The last prophet recorded in the Hebrew Bible is Malachi, written around 400 BC. During those 400 years after Malachi, Israel warred with neighboring countries and was most often defeated. There is one memorable exception. The family of Maccabee led a notable victory over the Syrian-Greek Empire and was able to recapture the Temple and rededicate it to God. This victory is celebrated every year in Chanukah, the Dedication feast. But the victory did not last long. Israel was eventually invaded by the Romans who divided her land into territories they renamed Judea, Galilee, Samaria, Decapolis and Perea. The Temple then standing in Jerusalem was not Solomon’s that the Babylonians destroyed in 586 BC, but a second Temple identified with King Herod

These 400 years seemed to be a time of God’s silence, when “the spirit of prophesy departed from Israel” (Sabbath p. 96). The Jews learned to live in oppressed conditions as they grew accustomed to them and tried to avoid the displeasure of their Roman masters. At some point during these years, a new kind of religious leader rose to meet the changing needs of the Jewish people, called rabbi. The rabbi, Hebrew for my master or teacher, ministered outside the Temple to the many Jews who were in the diaspora and unable to regularly return to Jerusalem for worship and the feast days. Rabbis helped keep a form of Jewish identity and tradition not only for those who lived outside Israel but also for those who continued in the land during Rome’s occupation

Around 400 years after Malachi, strange events were happening in a small town of Galilee. Different people from different social groups and cultures were seeing strange deviations from their normal, revelations disturbing their predictable. A young woman was told by an angel she was pregnant even though she had never been sexually intimate with a man. Soon after, this young woman’s relative exclaimed that the baby in her womb was Lord, the title for God. Shepherds tending their sheep in the pasture were told by an angel that same virgin who conceived would give birth in a stable’s manger. After the baby was born, His young parents brought Him to the Temple to dedicate Him, as was the custom of devout Jews. When a priest in the Temple saw this baby, he praised God for letting him see His Messiah before he died. A prophetess who was also in the Temple thanked God for this baby who would redeem Jerusalem. Magi, wise men from other cultures of the east, saw a star journeying in the sky and followed its leading to Bethlehem to worship this same child with gifts and praises. All these events were relatively small deviations from the normal. Only a few witnessed this singularly ordinary wonder: the conception, birth and dedication of a life

These signs were not earthquakes erupting the order of all things. They were small details shifting the expected, circumscribed breakthroughs from the heavenly realms. A virgin is pregnant before intercourse and not after. A few shepherds hear the voice of an angel who promptly returns to the heavens. Magi see one star among millions in the sky that captures their attention and guides them in a different direction from the cosmic spheres. In the great order of the universe, these are small changes that the great majority easily ignored, but those who witnessed them were overwhelmed with wonder. These slight variations opened their eyes to God who was making His word real to them. His words of promise in the Hebrew Scripture were coming to life, taking on flesh in a way their senses could apprehend. These small and strange events barely disturbed the perceived order of things, but God’s presence captured the hearts of these witnesses. Out of a long and oppressive silence, God spoke to them in such a way that silenced any questions over His long delay or HIs sub-climactic entrance into His world. In God’s chosen moment, those who were chosen saw Him doing what He spoke long ago. The eyes of their heart saw the wonder of God fulfilling His living word