BORN TO BE THE MESSIAH

 

Imagine the buzz surrounding the arrival of the long awaited Messiah which began with the birth of John the Baptist. News of John’s miraculous conception and proclamation of his divine calling as the Forerunner was noised ‘throughout all the hill country of Judea’ (Luke 1:65). Now six months later, the witnesses of His birth are coming thick and fast, from the shepherds who witnessed the heavenly choir praising God and who ‘made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child’ (Luke 2:17); to Simeon and Anna testifying in the temple (Luke 2:25-38); to that of wise me of the East who went straight to the top to ask, not  “Where is he that is born King of the Jews?” as recorded in Matthew 2:2, but as Joseph Smith translated, “Where is the child that is born the Messiah of the Jews?”. 

 

Imagine what mortal threat such a question was to Herod, the puppet king of Judah, installed by Caesar Augustus, without a drop of Jewish blood in him, whose only claim to the throne was his family’s conversion to the Jewish faith (see Bible Dictionary). Had Jesus been born to be the King only, it would not have been such a threat because anyone can become a king, as Herod very well proved, but to be a Messiah meant more, much more, because a Messiah RESCUES and DELIVERS. And who would he rescue? The captive Jews. The captives of the Empire Herod served, the very Empire that placed the crown on his head. He had only one solution: to dispose of Jewish infants two years old and younger. Imagine the carnage that the Christ child had to be protected from. Hence the directive to Joseph to flee with his family to a land that became another witness of the arrival of Messiah fulfilling the prophecy, “Out of Egypt have I called my son” (Hosea 11:1; Matthew 2:15). Egypt, which was a sacred memory of deliverance to ancient Israel, would serve to make the connection to the spiritually astute that the Son of God could deliver them from sin also.  (See Bruce R McConkie, “The Mortal Messiah” Book 1, p 364 for more clarification)

 

No earthly hand can stop and thwart the salvation of God’s children that was decreed eons ago. The Messiah has come and gone but He will return and set foot on this earth again. Of this we can be sure. Because of this we can hope for a better world. Because of this, we will live forever….

- CATHRYNE ALLEN

(Art by Rose Datoc Dall)