4th November 2024

You don’t need to search far for references to Jesus in Micah’s prophecies. They are there in plain sight, from the prediction of his birth over 700 years before the event (Micah 5:2),  through images of a shepherd king (Micah 7:14; 5:4) to references of sacrifice that God is looking for. There are echoes of Psalm 51:16-17 when Micah writes: ‘With what shall I come before the Lord, And bow myself before the High God?…He has shown you, O man, what is good; And what does the Lord require of you But to do justly, To love mercy, And to walk humbly with your God?’ (Micah 6:6-8 NKJV). 

We might feel that justice and mercy are more easily attained than the last quality of humility. Jesus perfectly accomplished all three, but without humility our efforts will always fall short of what God wants from us. Only God can create a kingdom of genuine justice and peace, and he does it through Jesus Christ who in his humility allowed himself to be, ‘…led as a lamb to the slaughter’ (Isaiah 53:7). It is a kingdom where Jesus Christ is at the centre, and Micah repeatedly draws on images that establish this.

Micah’s prophecies, that Israel and Judah would be taken into captivity, by first the Assyrians and then the Babylonians, began to be fulfilled around 722 BC. He also prophesied of a return but the nations never experienced the complete fulfilment, expressed in passages such as, ‘Many nations shall come and say, “Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, To the house of the God of Jacob; He will teach us His ways, And we shall walk in His paths…” ’ (Micah 4:2). That awaits fulfilment. Micah makes it clear that Christ will be at the centre of this; it was Micah’s prophecy that was identified by the priests and scribes in Matthew 2:4-6 as indicating where the saviour, the nation was waiting for, would be born. 

Through Micah, God demands his time in court with his people; a court where the jury is the enormous majesty of the created world: ‘the mountains’, ‘the hills’, and ‘the foundations of the earth’ (Micah 6:1-2). He asks the question, “O My people, what have I done to you? And how have I wearied you?…” (v.3). He lists their injustices: their business dealings, robbery, ill treatment of the weak, and living in luxury off the hard work of poor people. (vv.10-12). Punishment is the inevitable outcome of this way of life and it came in the form of captivity. But Micah’s prediction of exile is followed by an account of restoration, through the saving work of Jesus. That is why our sins can be cast into ‘the depths of the sea’ (Micah 7:19). The Good Shepherd says: “…I will surely gather the remnant of Israel; I will put them together like sheep of the fold, Like a flock in the midst of their pasture…” (Micah 2:12).

¹  Micah 7:18-19

Local congregation:
GCI Market Harborough
9 The Point
Rockingham Road
Market Harborough 
LE16 7QU

Meeting time:
Sunday 4.00 pm

Local congregational contact:
Sinead Henderson 
Email: sinead.henderson@gracecom.church

Word of Life contact:
wordoflife@gracecom.church