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In the prophecies of Second Isaiah, the Lord God declares, "My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways" (Isaiah 55:8), and how true that is of the God to whom the Bible witnesses! In our society, we adulate those whom we think are successful or talented or distinguished in some way. Many teenagers look up to a famous sports figure and try to imitate him on their own playing fields. Many viewers tune into the television program that interviews someone who is famous and rich. Fan clubs gather around Hollywood stars, and the faces of the so-called "beautiful people" look out at us from every magazine cover. Even, more soberly, the rich executive, the famous singer, the accomplished writer command our respect and attention. We look up to those whom we believe "have it made."

The God of the scriptures does not seem to take notice of our worldly standards, however. For a judge to lead his people in battle God chooses a man from the weakest tribe in Manasseh (Judges 6:15). For the first king of Israel he selects a Benjamite from the smallest tribe in Israel and from the humblest family in that tribe (1 Samuel 9:21). In our time, God picks out a black preacher from Georgia to lead a civil rights revolution. And he anoints a small and humble nun in India to teach the world what love and mercy mean. God chooses seemingly insignificant people to work his will in the world. As Paul wrote to the Christians in Corinth, "... not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth" (1 Corinthians 1:26).

So it is too with God's future Messiah, according to our passage in Micah. That chosen Ruler of the world will come from the smallest clan within the tribe of Judah. To be sure, he will be from the line of David. He will come from Bethlehem Ephrathah, and because David was the son of Jesse, "an Ephrathite of Bethlehem in Judah" (1 Samuel 17:12), the future Messiah will have a davidic heritage. But, as we know, he will be a lowly man, born in a cattle stall, raised up in a carpenter shop, and condemned to death as a criminal. Perhaps our evaluations of people in our society have nothing to do with God's thoughts and ways.

There is always a mystery surrounding the way God works in this world of ours, and that is certainly true of this messianic promise in Micah. We would like to categorize our Savior, to pin him down to a definite definition, to be able to say clearly and boldly just exactly who and what he is. But we cannot do that with this promised Messiah. His "origin is of old," says our text, "from ancient of days" and that latter phrase is used of God in the Book of Daniel (Daniel 7:9, 13, 22). The promised Messiah, Micah is telling us, will come not just from a small clan in Judah. He will also have his origin in God, and his birth will have been planned by God a long time ago. This ruler of the world, whom God will send to save his world, will be a man and yet more than a man, come from Judah but also from God.

So it is that when the early church wanted to tell who Jesus Christ is, in A.D. 451, it formulated what is known as the Creed of Chalcedon, to which the church has agreed ever since. "We, then ... all with one consent, teach men to confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the same perfect in Godhead and also perfect in manhood; truly God and truly man ... Only begotten, in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably...." Our Messiah, as Micah promises, is both God and man, both divine and human.

The God of the Bible not only does things in his own way, however. He also does them at his own time. We think sometimes that God should do some particular act right now, or at a time that we choose. The Judeans undoubtedly wanted God to save them in the eighth to sixth centuries B.C. But verse 3 of our text tells them that first they would have to go through the humiliation of their king in 597 B.C. and the deprivations of the Babylonian exile in 587 B.C. and following. The Messiah would not immediately appear on the scene. First, Israel had a chastening for her sins and a discipline to undergo, as we do also so often before we know our Savior to be with us. God prepares our hearts in many different ways before we are ready to receive him.

But the Messiah will come, Micah promises -- that anointed one of the house of David, sent from God, raised up from the people, to do away with evil-doers and to bring to the faithful a realm of justice and righteousness, of peace and security and wholeness (cf. Micah 4:1-4).

The promised Messiah will "stand," said the prophet. That is, his reign will be forever. Despite all of the opposition to his rule; despite the fact that he will be "despised and rejected by men" (Isaiah 53:3); even if he should not be at all what anyone expects; indeed, even if we condemn him to death and hang him on a cross, his kingship shall be forever, and his rule shall never be defeated.

And what will the Messiah do? He will be a shepherd to us. "Shepherd" is another name for "king" in the Bible. But he will be a loving King, a Shepherd who feeds his flock. That is, he will provide us with the necessities of life and guide us in the right paths and protect us from all harm (cf. Psalm 23). Under his protecting rule, we will know peace in our lives, though all the world be in an uproar. We will know ourselves forgiven and accepted into his flock, our past sin and guilt done away by his mercy and renewal of us. We will find ourselves part of a new flock, of a new people, who trust in the Shepherd's rule. And we will find that nothing can separate us from the Shepherd's love for us.

All this will come to pass, says Micah, because the Shepherd will be given God's power, and all the wondrous acts that the Shepherd does will glorify his majestic Father God.

The Messiah will come -- and he has come in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ -- not for our sakes alone, however. Micah says that the name of the Messiah will be great in all the earth. In short, the Messiah's rule will extend over all people in his everlasting kingdom. This Son of God and son of man comes not just to bring us salvation. God gave his Son because he loves the whole wide world. And there shall come a time, Micah is saying, when our Lord will be known to all, and when his forgiven and saved people shall cover the face of the earth. To that promise given us by Micah, and to the beginning of its fulfillment in the birth of Christ, all of us, with all the faithful, can say, "Amen," at this Christmastime.