Sermon Tone Analysis

The World Did

Ha-Foke-bah

Hey, one of the challenging things about the Chag Molad season and one of the challenging things about the Chag Molad story, is in fact, the Chag Molad story.

The Chag Molad stories that relates to the birth of Yeshua.

Because there's so much miraculous.

There's so much amazing.

There’s so much promise.

There's so much that's really unbelievable about it and a lot of people just don't believe it and I understand that.

And, maybe the thought is, "Hey, they had to come up with some myth about the birth of Yeshua to give him street cred, later on."

Maybe, that's where that came from.

It's interesting because Matthew gives us a version of the birth of Yeshua.

Luke does but Mark and John, they don't even mention it.

A lot has been made of that.

So, before we jump in, I just wanna say one thing about that whole thing.

You've heard me say, some version of this a million times, so this will be old if you've been around for a while.

But see, if somebody could predict their own death and then their own resurrection, then we should care a lot about how this person came into the world.

Because, the whole resurrection thing is so amazing and so much of our faith hinges on the resurrection, the stories around the birth of Yeshua should matter to us.

A person who rises from the dead!

What is his origin story?

Who were his parents?

Where did he come from?

Was it a surprise?

Did anybody anticipate this man would rise again from the dead when he was born?

Did he know he was destined for this?

Why would he born to die and rise?

These are important questions that if left unanswered make the resurrection of Yeshua too opaque, too detached from the Hebrew Bible, too removed from Israel’s origin story and in the end.

too strange to believe.

And, yet, as unbelievable as this birth narratives are and as unbelievable as the accounts are that we find in Matthew and Luke, when you get the back story, when you get the whole story, this unbelievable story actually becomes a remarkable story.

Because the story of Chag Molad doesn't begin with a couple who's trying to figure out how to get pregnant.

The Chag Molad story actually begins with a couple that surprised by how they got pregnant.

It doesn't begin with a couple trying to figure out, "Will we ever have a baby?"

It begins with a couple that's ready to split over “how they got pregnant.”

It is not a made for Hallmark movie, this is HBO level.

It is scandal, intrigue, and, in the end, the kind of story that will not be easy to believe, because it is so unbelievable and remarkable.

The back story of Chag Molad is what makes... 'cause this Chag Molad story is so incredibly remarkable.

And, it doesn't begin with angels announcing in Matthew or Luke.

It actually begins with God making a promise in the Book of Genesis.

And, not just any promise.

An unbelievable, inconceivable, impossible promise that is, when this promise was made, the person who received the promise, this could not have made any sense, whatsoever, in his cultural context.

That as we look at this promise, it was absolutely impossible for it to come true.

And, yet, this promise set up the events around Chag HaMolad.

And, in fact, this promise, and the remarkable story around this promise, is really what makes Chag HaMolad so believable.

And, the story around the birth of Jesus so believable.

The promise was made about 5,000 years before Yeshua was born.

In fact, around the year 1 or 2 or 5889 years ago according to Jewish dating, is about the best way we can estimate this.

And, it's found in the Book of Genesis.

But, for just a minute, especially if you're new to faith or you've been out for a while or you're not so sure about the Bible, don't think, "the Bible."

I want you to think about this document that the Jewish people entitled Genesis or Bereshit, that's over 3,000 years old.

Some say it's way older than 3,000 years old.

But, this document called Genesis that tells us how life began, where evil came from and it tells us how the Jewish nation began.

So this book is very important to Jewish people but to all people in the world.

So, they copied it meticulously and they handed it down through the years and eventually, it became part of a lot of Jewish literature and eventually, it became part of what we would call The Jewish Scriptures.

Then, eventually, the early followers of Yeshua did an incredibly bold thing, they went and added the writings of the Apostles and the Gospel Writers to the Jewish Scriptures, that took a lot of nerves, and low and behold, we have a Bible.

But, the Bible didn't give us Genesis.

AT one point in time Genesis was the Bible.

While Moses was writing down Exodus, etc.

If you were to ask have you read all the Bible?

People would say, “Yes, I read all of Genesis.”

Talk about an easy reading cycle.

And, in this document, this ancient, ancient, ancient, Jewish document that we know as Genesis, we find this extraordinary, unbelievable, literally, inconceivable promise that God made to a woman named Eve.

No, the story does not begin with a man but it begins with a woman, the first promise.

So here is how Chag HaMolad began.

Adam and Eve both ate from the tree God commanded them not to eat from.

The result of transgression was immediate, they felt shame, they felt distant, they felt like foreigners in paradise.

The lies of Satan became shameful leaves covering their bodies.

Though the consequences are sever for their transgression, God gives an amazing promise to Eve, the Lord says, Genesis 3:15

God says to Eve, Satan will make war against all of humanity that is between your seed and her seed.

But in the second sentence.

Moses does something peculiar.

We notice it better in Hebrew but I have highlighted in Yellow for you.

Notice how he now adds a 3rd person singular pronoun.

This serpent crusher is not a “group” of people but an individual.

There is one individual who will crush or strike the head of the serpent and this individual will also get struck in the heel by the snake.

This means both parties will be fatally wounded at this encounter.

Skull crushing and and heel biting will result in death.

I want you to see something, that in the context of this one prophecy is a long history of warfare between the serpent and all of humanity.

This one seed is coming not just for one tribe, but to crush the head of the serpent for all tribes.

The rest of the Hebrew Bible and the Brit Chadashah fill out the other parts of the story.

The Lord would speak to Abram, that, eventually, we know as Abraham about this one unique individual seed.

The Lord said to Abram, eventually, we'll call him Abraham, the Lord said to Abram, Genesis 12:1

Now, we're not sure why God chose Abram, instead of say Tom or Chris or Jerry, any more than we're sure why God chose Joseph and God chose Mary/Miriam.

And, he tells Abraham or Abram, "I want you to leave everything you know," which was very, very dangerous because security and safety in ancient times, had everything to do with your clan, your tribe, your family, your relatives.

So, he's asked to do something that's extraordinarily dangerous.

"I want you to leave everything you know, everyone you know and the security of your home and I will tell you when you get to the place I want you to go."

And then, the promises began.

And God says

Now, Abram's about 75 years old at this point.

He doesn't have any children, so he may have thought to himself, "Great nation?

I don't know about great nation.

Maybe we could just start with great grandfather.

I don't know think I'm gonna live long enough to know that I became a great nation."

And, the promises continue.

"And I will bless you and I will make your name great," which means, "Abram, I'm gonna make you famous."

To which, he probably thought, "No, I'm not gonna be famous.

I'm gonna be forgotten because if I leave everyone I know and if I leave everything I know, chances are, no one will ever know that I even existed."

And then the promise continues.

"so that you may be a blessing."

Now, this is when, within the cultural context of these ancient, ancient times, this didn't even make any sense.

Because this was a time of extraordinary, extraordinary violence.

In fact, one of the things that kinda bugs you a little bit, if you read the Hebrew Bible, is all the violence and all the bloodshed.