Micah 5: 2-5a Wrote:2 “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah,
though you are small among the clans of Judah,
out of you will come for me
one who will be ruler over Israel,
whose origins are from of old,
from ancient times.”

3 Therefore Israel will be abandoned
until the time when she who is in labour bears a son,
and the rest of his brothers return
to join the Israelites.

4 He will stand and shepherd his flock
in the strength of the Lord,
in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God.
And they will live securely, for then his greatness
will reach to the ends of the earth.

5 And he will be our peace.

Micah lived mostly during the eighth century BC(E) in the kingdom of Judah, the larger and southernmost of the two kingdoms which had formed out of the kingdom of Israel ruled over by Saul, David and Solomon. His prophecies mainly concern judgment upon Jerusalem, Judah’s capital and upon Samaria, another name for Israel, the northern kingdom. The reason for these prophecies, which are similar to those given by his contemporaries, Isaiah and Hosea, was because of the departure of both kingdoms from the way of life given to them by God, the worship of idols and the abuses of those who were rich and powerful heaped upon the poor and weak. In chapter two, he writes

Micah 2: 1-2 Wrote:1 Woe to those who plan iniquity,
to those who plot evil on their beds!
At morning’s light they carry it out
because it is in their power to do it.
2 They covet fields and seize them,
and houses, and take them.
They defraud people of their homes,
they rob them of their inheritance.

This was a society which bore little resemblance to the one God had commanded and which, whilst comfortable for a few, would have been oppressive for many. It is not hard to imagine those who suffered under the injustices of the proud feeling anxious, depressed, or full of despair, unsure where to turn and, as is likely, turning to the false gods that had become popular. They would have been a people in need of hope and though Micah’s prophecy was initially one of judgement, it is these notes of hope that have most resonated throughout history and made his prophecy so memorable, especially the passage quoted at the start of this reflection, which is a staple of Christmas readings in many Christian traditions.

Though, perhaps, most significant for the fact that it brings Bethlehem into the spotlight and thus gets quoted in Matthew’s account of the birth of Jesus, it if verses 3-5 that really encapsulate the hope that oppressed peoples of Judah would have been looking for. Whilst it’s true that, for many, Jesus was not the Messiah that they had been expecting, yet, even so, it is clear that he was the Messiah they needed.

But how might that relate to us today?

It is the end of 2018, twenty-seven centuries after Micah’s prophecy was written down and the best part of twenty centuries after its fulfilment. How is any of it relevant?

And yet, we do not live in such different times as Micah, with its wealthy heaping injustice upon the poor, nor even that of Jesus’ birth, with its nationalistic tensions opposing an efficient, but cold establishment whose primary interests were far removed from the lives of ordinary Judaeans. We have endured our third consecutive year of political upheaval, of financial uncertainty, of an unpleasant nationalist populism and the stupidity of a tone-deaf political class. For many, each of these years has come to an end with one thinking sorely lacking: hope.

And yet, although Jesus’ birth might not reverse Brexit or depose Trump any more than it overthrew the Romans (although it did, eventually, neutralise them), yet it just might be that it contains the hope we most truly need - the hope that there will one day be a resolution to all this when ‘his greatness will reach to the ends of the earth’ - the hope that even amidst such chaos and uncertainty, such colossal human stupidity at all levels and in all factions, ‘he will be our peace’.

As the season of Advent runs shallow and the season of Christmas is so nearly upon us, perhaps now is a time to reflect on the hope and the peace of Christ, to let it wash over you in the midst of the myriad little chaoses that make up our modern lives, and to allow yourself to just be in his presence for a while, marvelling in the love that brought him to us all those many years ago and which, even now, can be with us and sustain us even through the hardest of no-deal Brexits, or whatever your current anxieties may be.

‘And he will be our peace’.