Emphasis Preaching Journal

The ideal characteristic of the forthcoming shepherd of Israel was to be righteousness. "This is the name by which he will be called: The Lord is our righteousness" (v. 6). And this would be the aim of the new leader of the people, namely, to be righteous in character and to promote righteousness throughout the realm. But no ordinary person by himself or herself can reach this ideal, for -- as Seneca once confessed -- "None of us has strength to rise. Oh, that someone would stretch out a hand." Paul, for example, tried it on his own, but sensing his own failure he discovered a better way: "That I may be found in him [Christ], not having of my own ... but one that comes through faith in Christ ..." (NRSV, Philippians 3:9). Florence Nightingale remarked: "It is strange that it was not happiness Paul wanted; not nest, not glory that was thought of in that glorious man's mind, when at the end of the greatest of his labors, all desires were so swallowed up in the one craving after righteousness that it was mightier within him than even the desire for peace."
-- Macleod