and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace” ~ Isaiah 9:6
The birth of The Son, of God in a cave used as a manger for animals, may well encourage us to understand that The Father chose to demonstrate that humility is a gift to be shared among all human beings. No exceptions. Our Father sets the example that we may follow.
The quotation from the Book of Isaiah illustrates that Our Saviour is born...UNTO US....assisting us appreciate that the child serves each of us.
Isaiah is the messianic prophet, welcoming the coming of the Messiah, the anointed one born to set us free, from our self imposed incarceration. The man we know as Jesus of Nazareth would live His life as the complete human being, with His divine nature calling us to follow His word (made flesh), speaking to us within our interior life, inviting us to do all that He asks of us.
In one of the prophetic servant songs Isaiah uses poetic imagery to describe the Messiah’s early life. “For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground” (Isaiah 53:2). Jesus of Nazareth fits the imagery. He did not spring forth suddenly as a “mighty oak,” but rather as a “tender plant,” born to a poor and simple couple in the humblest of circumstances, growing up in an obscure village of no particular consequence.
Isaiah’s imagery of the Messiah describes both God and man, saviour, and friend who would sacrifice His life for us. It would take some several hundred years before human life would begin to understand that the Messiah would be revealed to us in Jesus of Nazareth.
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