Integrate the Unexpected

Evolve to Survive: Integrate the Unexpected: Incorporate mistakes in ways that can lead to new forms and functions

The Jewish people were expecting a king to deliver them from oppression. How do I know that? Umm… Forty something years of Good Friday services (she says with uncertainty)? At Jesus’s crucifixion, the written charge placed above Jesus’s crown-of-thorns-impaled head read: “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews.” (Matthew 27:37 NIV) 

The Old Testament is full of prophecies regarding the Messiah and Jesus fulfilled 200-400 of those. One mentions that the Messiah will come from the line of King David (and this is included in Jesus’s lineage) and the other says the King, righteous and victorious, will be riding a donkey. (Zechariah 9:9) Why, out of hundreds of prophecies, would this be the one to “stick” and be orally passed down generations? 

Think about the stories of God’s people in the Bible. The one word that describes God’s people is oppressed. “Oppressed: governed in an unfair and cruel way and prevented from having opportunities and freedom. Why would an oppressed people hold on to a prophecy that their Messiah would be a king? 

Hope. 

Hope for deliverance from oppression. 

I am a white, American, middle-upper class, cisgender, married woman. Oppression is not something I am familiar with. I have experienced a bit of ageism in my 20s and a couple of instances where I felt dismissed because I was a woman, but that’s not a life lived in oppression. Living oppressed is a whole different way of living and there are people in the USA and all around the world living in oppression. 

I imagine the promise of a Messiah, Savior, military leader, and King provides great hope. 

God’s people were looking for relief from their oppression. How unexpected to be presented with a poor carpenter from Nazareth as your Messiah! Nathanael gives us a clue as to the cultural opinion of Nazareth, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” (John 1:46 Amplified Bible) 

Knowing all of this, if you were an oppressed Jew during this unexpected revelation of Jesus, how would you feel? Would you feel liberated? The Messiah has come! Would you feel foolish and reject the Messiah? Would you be angry? Take a minute to feel these emotions. 

What I find beautiful (on this side of the story) is the unexpectedness throughout Jesus’s story. God used the most unexpected people, through unexpected ways, to share an unexpected story. 

Matthew 2:1-18 Holman Christian Standard Bible

Wise Men Seek the King

2 After Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of King Herod, wise men from the east arrived unexpectedly in Jerusalem, 2 saying, “Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we saw His star in the east[a] and have come to worship Him.”[b]

3 When King Herod heard this, he was deeply disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. 4 So he assembled all the chief priests and scribes of the people and asked them where the Messiah would be born.

5 “In Bethlehem of Judea,” they told him, “because this is what was written by the prophet:

6 And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the leaders of Judah:
because out of you will come a leader
who will shepherd My people Israel.”[c]

7 Then Herod secretly summoned the wise men and asked them the exact time the star appeared. 8 He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and search carefully for the child. When you find Him, report back to me so that I too can go and worship Him.”[d]

9 After hearing the king, they went on their way. And there it was—the star they had seen in the east![e] It led them until it came and stopped above the place where the child was. 10 When they saw the star, they were overjoyed beyond measure. 11 Entering the house, they saw the child with Mary His mother, and falling to their knees, they worshiped Him.[f] Then they opened their treasures and presented Him with gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. 12 And being warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their own country by another route.

The Flight into Egypt

13 After they were gone, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, “Get up! Take the child and His mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I tell you. For Herod is about to search for the child to destroy Him.” 14 So he got up, took the child and His mother during the night, and escaped to Egypt. 15 He stayed there until Herod’s death, so that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet might be fulfilled: Out of Egypt I called My Son.[g]

The Massacre of the Innocents

16 Then Herod, when he saw that he had been outwitted by the wise men, flew into a rage. He gave orders to massacre all the male children in and around Bethlehem who were two years[h] old and under, in keeping with the time he had learned from the wise men. 17 Then what was spoken through Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled:

18 A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping,[i] and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children; and she refused to be consoled, because they were no more.[j]

I don’t want to romanticize Jesus’s story because it is actually terrifying. An unwed teen gets the unexpected invitation to carry and birth the son of God in a culture that was oppressive and violent towards women. Joseph though, the soon to be husband, was invited to be a part of this story which protected her. Then King Herod, threatened by a prophecy that a King was born and seemingly would grow up to take his throne, decreed that boy children under the age of two were to be murdered. That’s why the holy family were refugees, fleeing Bethlehem to Egypt. 

The story of Jesus, with the exception maybe of Holy Week, has been cleaned up and packaged to make it palatable for non-oppressed people. But, the unexpectedness of Jesus’s story is what I believe makes it so powerful, but we have to be willing to put ourselves in the story. The unexpected beauty of Jesus’s story is that Jesus showed us how to live. That story reaches oppressed people, and honestly, it should preach to those of us who do not live oppressed by an outside force. We oppress ourselves by allowing culture to tell us to work more to make more money to buy more stuff. Jesus’s teachings and life demonstrated a freedom from those expectations. Let the unexpected story and life of Jesus touch you in unexpected ways. 

What did you find unexpected in this teaching? Reflect on what you know of Jesus’s story. How do you know it? Would it be unexpected to learn the Christmas narrative you are most familiar with is not from one book in the Bible but the conglomeration of stories from Matthew, Mark, and Luke? Spend some time reading the first chapter of each book.