THE MESSIAH IN THE TORAH: THE PROPHET

So we continue this morning on our journey through advent, looking at the ways the Messiah – the one born in the stable of Bethlehem - the one who would become Jesus the Christ – is portrayed in the first 5 books of the Old Testament called The Torah. From the prophecies in the Torah we can understand better who Jesus is – Jesus is the baby who is born in Bethlehem, and even though that is a really great story – a baby born of a virgin - God’s son – it is Jesus’ life that is really important and what that life was intended to be through the voices of the prophets and how that life applies to our lives. Today we look more closely at how the Old Testament portrays Jesus as the prophet who was to come to bring a new covenant to all people.
Deuteronomy 34:10-12 says: (read passage)
This is the end of the story of the founding of the nation of God’s people. The Israelites traveled through the wilderness for 40 years but hadn’t made it to the land yet that God had promised them. They stand on the banks of the Jordan River waiting to cross over to this new land of milk and honey. Moses has been their leader for the last 40 years but shortly Moses will be gone.
While there are other important people mentioned in the Torah, Moses is by far the most important in the founding of the nation of God’s people.. He was the most prominent man in the history of the Hebrew people and they felt there would never be anyone who could compare to Moses. . And yet in the passage we read earlier from Deuteronomy, Moses himself is predicting that there would someday come another who would be greater than himself. A man who would form a new people of God, a people of God not based on their land, but on their common love of God.
This reminds us of the words of John the Baptist as the New Testament begins – “there is one coming who is greater than I. I am not even worthy to tie the laces of his sandals”. As Moses points to a new and greater prophet, the New Testament points to this new Moses, as being the one who fulfills the role of Messiah; the one John the Baptist introduces as the Christ - the person of Jesus.
It is often asked, “How do we know that Jesus was this new Moses?” “How can we be sure that the one Moses pointed to, that John the Baptist referred to, was Jesus?”. There are two New Testament passages that just plain out say that Jesus was the new Moses. Peter in his sermon on Pentecost and Stephen in his sermon to the Sanhedrin as they were decided whether to stone him or not. Both Peter and Stephen refer back to Moses’ statement in Deuteronomy – which all the Jews knew – to try and teach the people that were listening to them that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah, the Christ, the prophet Moses pointed to.
It is interesting to see the points of similarity between Moses and Jesus. This is another way that we can be sure that Jesus is the new Moses who will not just save Israel as Moses did, but will save the whole world. The first interesting similarity has to do with their births. The births of both of these men were told in great detail. There are few prophets anywhere in the bible who have birth stories – except Moses and Jesus.
Both men were born under the threat of death from the king of the country in which they lived. Jesus from King Herod and Moses from Pharaoh. In both cases, the people were living under oppression of a foreign power, the Jews were being ruled by the Romans, and the Israelites were under the rule of Egypt. Both kings had declared that all infant boys should be killed. Both Moses and Jesus miraculously survived. Moses by being put in a basket and floated down the Nile, only to be found by Pharaoh’s daughter and brought up in the palace of the Pharaoh. Jesus was whisked away because his father, Joseph, had a dream of what Herod was up to and took Jesus and Mary to Egypt. Jesus then spends his infancy in Egypt, just like Moses! Probably pretty close to the same place where the Israelites had been living during the time of Moses.
More significant than the similarity of their birth is the role they held as a prophet. A prophet’s job is to speak to the people on behalf of God. A prophet is God’s spokesperson. A prophet will communicate to the people


God’s word, God’s will and what God wants his people to do.
There are also, several types of prophets in the Old Testament and Jesus and Moses are the only two prophets who are classified the same. Because each one, as God’s spokesperson, began a new covenant between God and His people. A covenant is a special kind of agreement where two parties each agree to do something for the other. But it is a special type of agreement – it is a binding contract. In God’s case, his covenant was “I will be your God and you will be my people” and part of the terms of that covenant was the Law of Moses – the 10 commandments. Those were the terms by which God’s people would know who they were in the eyes of God. God cared for them and in return they would follow the law. Jesus, on the other hand, issued in the Covenant of Grace. Not to be just for the people of God, but for everyone.
All covenants must have a seal – and the seal for both of these covenants was a blood sacrifice. In Moses’ case, it was the Passover lamb, and in Jesus’ case, it was his own blood sacrifice on the cross – Remember the words, “Behold the lamb of God” which were designed to help those who heard remember the first covenant. In both cases, the recipients of the covenant were told to commemorate these sacrifices – Passover to remember Moses’ sacrifice and the Lord’s Supper to remember the blood of Jesus.
Both covenants were also covenants of freedom. Both covenants said that “if you agree to this covenant, it will result in your freedom.” The Hebrew people escaped from the land of Egypt where they had been slaves for many centuries. They moved out into the wilderness where for the first time they experienced a freedom they had never known before. They were free from slavery of the Pharaoh. The freedom of the Messiah, however, is a bit different, but it is still freedom. It is freedom from the bondage of sin; freedom of living a life of guilt; of worrying about Satan oppressing us and binding us just as the Hebrew slaves were bound. Moses offered the people a secure future in the care of God and Jesus offers us the same thing - a secure future forever with God our creator.
But freedom was just the first step, because these covenants also called for transformation. We talked some about transformation last week as we compared how Jesus changes our lives like that of a growing seed. Through Jesus in our life we are transformed just as a seed is transformed into a plant. As we talk about this covenant, we also realize that it is a covenant of transformation. The apostle Paul in the book of Romans reminds us (read Romans 12:2) In Moses’ covenant, the transformation took place by obedience to the Law. Their life became regulated, - for their own benefit – by the Law that God gave them. It gave them a way to live. It changed their life. In Jesus’ covenant, we are changed as well. But not from following the law, but by faith. By putting our lives in the hands of Jesus; by allowing Jesus to live within us; by then living our life by the faith that Jesus will help us and guide us and change us, we are transformed into the people that God wants us to be. Just as the Hebrews were transformed into the people that God wanted them to be.
And so Jesus, the prophet the Torah was pointing to, the prophet that would be like Moses, transforms us into people in covenant with God. A new relationship. Not one where we think about the nice cute baby in the manger, but where we think of the man who this baby grew up to be. Jesus, the Christ, the one who is like a prophet of God, who frees us from our bondage of sin, who calls us into a relationship with him and then seals it in his blood.
So as we go into this Christmas season, as we hear the Christmas story – we need to remember why it is so important that this little baby be born, for he is born for us and he was born so that as an adult on a cross he could bring us a new covenant - a covenant of life forever with our God.

Amen!