The Promise is Fulfilled by Cheri Holdridge (with an assist by Kurt Young)

Have you seen this picture? Twelve year old Devonte Hart lives in Portland, Oregon with his two mothers who happen to be white. His mom Jennifer wrote on Facebook that after the shooting in Ferguson, MO of Michael Brown by a police officer, her son Devonte was having a hard time coming to terms with the issues of racism and police brutality.

After the Grand Jury in Ferguson, MO refused to indict the police officer who killed Michael Brown, protests erupted across the country. One photographer caught this moment on camera. “12-year-old Devonte Hart stood in front of a police barrier with a sign reading "Free hugs," Portland police Sgt. Bret Barnum motioned him over. “[The officer] asked Devonte why he was crying. His response about his concerns regarding the level of police brutality towards young black kids was met with an unexpected and seemingly authentic (to Devonte), 'Yes. *sigh* I know. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.' The officer then asked if he could have one of his hugs.”(source: http://www.techtimes.com/articles/21187/20141130/racial-divides-disappear-in-heartwarming-hug-photo-amid-ferguson-protests.htm). 

Devonte is just one little black boy and Sgt. Barnum is just one white police officer, but in this moment, I have hope for the world, don’t you? 

I want to have hope for our country. We know that our country is torn apart by discrimination of all kinds, racism, sexism, homophobia, and discrimination against immigrants, the list goes on. People are motivated out of fear, a fear of people who are different, and a fear that if one group of people gets some power then my group of people will somehow lose ours. We are all in one big struggle to see who is in charge and who has the most power. But in the embrace of Devonte and Sgt. Barnum we see something different. We see the letting go of power and we see the giving in to simple human compassion: we see two human beings sharing a moment of common humanity. They share a hug and in that hug they say: “We are not so different. We can be friends.” Their hug gives me hope, in the midst of what feels like an otherwise hopeless time. 

This sense of hopelessness is not unfamiliar to the biblical text. The people of God have known hopelessness over and over and over again. The prophet Micah spoke in the 8^th century BCE (before Jesus was born) to a people who felt hopeless. He was a little known prophet from a small village south of the capital city of Judah. We do know this about Micah, he was called by God to be a prophet – to speak the truth to the people for God. And he had a strong identification with the poor and the oppressed of his day. 

These were difficult times in what we know as the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah. Again, the history of Micah’s work is sketchy but we know that he prophesied through the fall of Samaria in the north the take-over of the southern kingdom by a people called the Assyrians. These were desolate times for the people of God because they were living under the rule of foreigners, who had taken over their country, In the midst of this, Micah made a prophecy of hope. He said:

It’s you, Bethlehem, in Judah’s land, no longer bringing up the rear.
From you will come the leader who will shepherd-rule my people, my Israel.”

 

He was making the promise of a new king, because they had lost their king. The reference to Bethlehem means that this king would be one in the line of David who had been a great king. 

This leader would rule like a shepherd. Micah was promising that even though they were living under foreign oppression, they would again have their own king, similar to the great King David, who had once been a simple shepherd, and he became a great leader.

The reference to Bethlehem is striking because Bethlehem was a small town and nothing special, kind of like Toledo. It seems to be the way of God to make something special out of something not so special by human standards.  That’s comforting for us, who feel all too not special.  Micah does not give them a time line, but looking back we believe he was pointing to Jesus. 

So several centuries later, we pick up this story again. Jesus has been born in Bethlehem. Some wise religious scholars from far away in the East arrive on the scene. They come to Jerusalem, the capital city, about 6 miles north of Bethlehem. There they meet with Herod, the man who was made King of Judea by the Roman senate. By this time the Assyrians are long gone and now the Romans rule over Judea. So God’s people are still suffering under foreign rulers. 

These scholars from the East remind Herod of Micah’s prophecy,

It’s you, Bethlehem, in Judah’s land, no longer bringing up the rear.
From you will come the leader who will shepherd-rule my people, my Israel.”

 

They believe the baby has been born and the prophecy has been fulfilled. You see there is also a special star in the sky that has guided them here on their long journey. They ask for directions to Bethlehem. 

Now, King Herod is an evil man. He pretends that he wants to help them. He gives them directions to Bethlehem, but says, “Be sure and come back to me on your way home and let me know about this baby.” Herod doesn’t want to worship him, he wants to kill the baby because Herod is the king of Judah and he does not need any competition from any Jewish baby with any prophecies about him. 

The visitors from the East go to Bethlehem and find Jesus. They can hardly contain their joy. This is the one – the one they have all been waiting for. They worship him and give him gifts.  But they are smart, they return home by another way and do not return to Herod because they know that he is not trustworthy. 

But they return home confident that the prophecy of Micah has been fulfilled. This is the one. This is the king who will bring hope to a hopeless world. Not just to the people of Judah who are living under Roman rule, but to the whole world. 

And we read this story every year, my friends, as a reminder that Jesus brings hope to us. We may not be living under foreign rule as the Jews were in Israel. Neither the Chinese nor the Russians have overtaken the United States. We live in freedom. However, we are still oppressed. We live in our own kinds of fear. 

That little boy in Portland, Devonte, he lives under the oppression of racism. As a young black boy, almost a young man, he lives with the fear that he could be unarmed but mistaken as a criminal and killed by a police officer. Some of you live under the oppression of being gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered. You live under the fear that you could lose your job because of who you love or who you marry. Living in this kind of fear is no kind of life. 

There are as many reasons to live in fear as there are people in this room, and people on this planet. Some of us are afraid of getting into another relationship because we don’t want to get hurt. Some of us are afraid of violence in our communities so we buy guns and hope they will make us feel safe. Some of us are afraid of not having enough money to pay our bills and we lay away at night worrying how will we make ends meet.  

Jesus came to take away our fear. Jesus came to give us hope.   Take a deep breath and let that sink in.  And I, for one, believe he is making things right. The movement may be slow but it steady. We just have to pay attention, and let God use us for good. I find that when I lose hope, I need to turn to Jesus and let him help me find my hope. I usually need to stop and give thanks for my blessings. Rather than give into my fear, I need to take stock of my blessings. We don’t all have all of these, but we all have some of these things to be thankful for: good health, family, comfortable homes, meaningful work, friends who care about us, plenty of food to eat. We also have the ability, like Devonte, to reach out to another human being and say: “Let’s accept one another. Let us refuse to pay attention to the walls that separate human beings. Let us tear down those walls and build bridges.”

Do you feel hopeless today? Then take your hopelessness and give it to Jesus. Let Jesus turn your hopelessness to hopefulness. Put your trust in the one who came to this earth to change the world. Those wise men from the East saw him and knew it. This is the one, the one we can trust. The promise is fulfilled in Jesus. Let us put our trust in Jesus. Amen.