The Coming of Christ Foretold

As I began to plan a Choir-Orchestra-Drama production for this past Christmas, I wanted to use the prophecies of Christ's coming as a basis for the drama and music that we performed. After looking at many scripts and musicals, I finally determined that the product I was looking for did not exist. I gave a number of scriptures and resources to one of our choir members and he wrote a marvelous script set in modern times, using many of the scriptures that foretell the coming of Christ. We wove in appropriate music, called it Christmas Foretold, and had a wonderful production. Many people said "it was the best ever", but then again they always say that...it was very good.

One thing that struck me about the abundance of scriptures is that we only scratched the surface of the available Bible references. The other thing that amazed me is that almost from the beginning, the first chapters of Genesis, there were references to the coming Messiah. In some of the most unlikely places and stories, references to Christ and His coming popped up. This morning in my daily reading I found another one. I was reading the account of the people of Israel coming to the edge of the Promised Land. After their multi-year journey in the dessert, they are about to enter the land and begin conquering it. In Numbers, chapters 22-24, we find king Balak terrified at the prospect of the Israelites being on the edge of his kingdom, Moab. He enlists the services of a pagan prophet by the name of Balaam. King Balak figures that if he can't defeat Israel militarily, maybe he can have a well known diviner put a curse on them and they'll go away. As the story develops, God puts the words in Balaam's mouth and he winds up blessing Israel instead of cursing them. In chapter 24, his last oracle says "A star will come out of Jacob; a scepter will rise out of Israel." This is a clear foretelling of the coming of the Messiah. What an interesting place for this reference to occur. It showed me, once again, that God has a clear plan that spans the ages. He knew what needed to be accomplished and it confirmed to me once again that God's plan extends to me, and you. Today, let us rejoice that God provided a way for us to know Him, and to be known by Him. We know that Star, we know that Scepter, Christ Jesus.