A Failed Christmas Prophecy?
One of my favorite symbols comes from the Lord of the Rings movie The Return of the King. The people of Gondor have been ruled by stewards for centuries awaiting the restoration of the line of Isildur while also holding their breath at the growing power of their aggressive, evil neighbor Sauron and his realm of Mordor. Guards hopefully stand watch at the seemingly dead Tree of the King, which is prophesied to bloom when that king returns.
Mordor launches its assault, and the steward’s only remaining son, Faramir, is apparently killed in battle. The steward, Denethor, organizes a party of soldiers to escort Faramir’s body to a funeral pyre where he will burn with him, totally despairing that his line has ended. As the procession passes glumly while Mordor’s forces hammer at the gates below, the camera pulls back to reveal what no one else has noticed—the Tree of the King has a bloom! Gives me chills every time. Even at that moment, King Aragorn is on his way to rescue the beleaguered people.
Believe it or not, something very similar happened at the coming of Christ, though to find it, one does have to look to the extrabiblical sources. It all starts with Jacob’s prophecies about his sons. Judah in particular has become a changed man. It was originally his idea to sell Joseph into slavery,. Not a very appealing character. However, when Jacob’s sons go to Egypt looking for grain, they find Joseph, whom they don’t recognize, as Egypt’s prime minister. Joseph sets a clever trap for them to test him. They had been jealous of his position as his father’s favorite son, so he “frames” the other son of Jacob’s favorite wife, his full-brother Benjamin, as having stolen his priceless cup and pretends that he will keep Benjamin as his slave. A now-changed Judah, prefiguring his descendant Jesus, pleads to take Benjamin’s place so Benjamin can return in peace to their father. At this, Joseph knows his brothers have changed, reveals himself to them, and arranges for them to settle in Egypt.
In the complex familial settlement that follows, Judah comes out on top. Reuben, the actual firstborn, had slept with Jacob’s concubine, and the next two sons, Simeon and Levi, abused the sacred rite of circumcision as a tool for murderous vengeance. The right to lead the nation of Israel thus passes to the fourth son, Judah. Jacob prophecies, “The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come, and unto him shall the gathering of the people be” (Genesis 49:10, KJV). The Messiah is thus to come from Judah’s line.
The image of the scepter means something quite different from what we would assume today. In the Ancient Near East, the scepter was a symbol for the authority to inflict capital punishment. Many in the West shy away from the death penalty, but the Ancient Near East had no such qualms. (Maybe because they remembered in some way that God’s ruling on the subject and the most basic mandate for a just government is, “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God made he man” (Genesis 8:6, KJV)).
The death penalty was too often abused by Ancient Near Eastern kings, but it was recognized as their prerogative and part of their kingly duties. When Daniel describes Nebuchadrezzar’s greatness to his successor Belshazzar, he says, “Whom he would, he slew, and whom he would, he kept alive” (Daniel 5:19, KJV). That meaning of the scepter was the one accepted by the scribes of Israel.
The scepter was a symbol for the authority to inflict capital punishment.
Fast-forward to a period not really covered in the Bible, the thirty years between Jesus’s birth and the start of his ministry. You will remember from Christmases long ago that Herod the Great was king when Jesus was born. Herod killed much of his family in his paranoia, but to his surviving sons he split up his kingdom, which was a client of the Roman Empire, in his will. He gave Judea and Samaria to his son Archelaus. While Herod had been cruel but an otherwise competent client-king, Archelaus was cruel and incompetent. His people complained against him to Augustus, the Roman Emperor, who sacked Archelaus and replaced him with a Roman governor in 6 or 7 AD. That is why in the Gospels you see Herod Antipas, one of Herod the Great’s sons, ruling over the portion of his father’s kingdom allotted to him, namely Galilee, and Pontius Pilate, a Roman prefect, ruling over Judea.
As was their custom in asserting their rule, the Romans took away the right of the Jews to enforce capital punishment—henceforward, that would be the prerogative of the Roman governor. That’s also why the Sanhedrin had to take Jesus to Pilate (and change up their charges against him) for execution after they had condemned him for blasphemy, a capital offense under Mosaic Law.
At this pronouncement of the Romans, the Sanhedrin lost their minds like Denethor and wept in sackcloth and ashes. The scepter had departed from Judah, and from their point-of-view, Shiloh had not come. The prophecy had failed.
But, unbeknownst to them, the Tree of the King was flowering. Shiloh had in fact been born in Bethlehem approximately seven or eight years before. Jesus had not revealed himself as Messiah yet, but instead was growing in wisdom and stature in perfect obedience to his parents, human and divine.
The prophecy didn’t fail—just the wisdom of the scribes and priests.
They actually should have known better. While Herod was still alive, Magi from the East had come with an announcement that they were there to worship the King of the Jews. Their reaction had not been joy, but rather they had been troubled. “Oh no, how is Herod going to take this? Is there another claimant to the throne who will wage civil war?” Apparently, though they directed the Wise Men to take their search to Bethlehem, none of them took the small journey down there with them. (Lest we be too hard on them, I think they might have had some prima facie good reasons. Why should they believe Eastern astrologers? Why should they appear eager to welcome a king whom Herod took as a threat? And would they really want to be the ones to know where a rival king was with Herod still alive?)
Anyway, the prophecy didn’t fail—just the wisdom of the scribes and priests. God kept his word, but they couldn’t see it. We must never attribute to God a fickleness or any inability in keeping his promises. He knows how to see them through when he makes them, and he has the power to always deliver on his word. If we think his promises have failed, that’s on us, not the Word of God.