Who is He in Yonder Stall

A well-worn adage advises us to walk a mile in another’s moccasins before we judge him. We can gain depth of perception by looking at situations from another person’s perspective or another culture’s experience. With that in mind, let’s travel back through the hallways of time to 1 AD.

My name is Reuben-ben-David. I am thirty years old, have five children, and live outside the town of Bethlehem where I tend my grove of olive trees. Just like any other true Jew, I am well-versed in the Torah and often reflect on our rich history, how our nation began when God called Abram many years ago. At the synagogue, we hear about God delivering our ancestors from the bondage of Egypt about 1,440 years ago and about the glory days of Israel under King David.

My grandfather remembers the day sixty-three years ago when Jerusalem was conquered by the Romans. Since that, we have known nothing except the heavy yoke of bondage under these heathens. Herod, our current king, is spineless and has given his allegiance to the Romans; he does nothing to deliver us.

The only comfort we possess is that someday God will send King Messiah to deliver us and to reunite us as a glorious new nation. I listen with eager anticipation when the scribe reads from the scrolls about the coming Messiah. How thrilling is the picture in Psalm 45:3 of Messiah bringing justice with His sword! Isaiah 53:7 says our Messiah will be a slaughtered lamb. I have not been able to make the connection between the two. My favorite portion of all is Isaiah 49:26. My fists clench and my heart rate increases when I hear this promise of vindication being read!

Early one morning on my way to market, I notice a group of lowly shepherds approaching me from the opposite direction. By all appearances, they are extremely excited. As they draw even and finally take notice of me in the midst of their exuberance, they exclaim in unison, “We have seen the Messiah!”

“In what part of Jerusalem have you seen him?” I ask, beginning to catch their enthusiasm.

“No, not in Jerusalem, but in a manger in Bethlehem, and we know it is He because the angel said so!” They hurry down the road to tell someone else their good news.

I stand dazed, attempting to make sense of all this information. “Who is He in yonder stall?” becomes a very real question to me. How can a tiny baby in a dirty manger be a King of kings? How can a helpless infant be our Redeemer? Like any good Jew, I am not gullible and do not easily believe things that contradict what I have learned at the synagogue. Since I have no illumination, I am left hanging. And there I hang for thirty years, pondering questions that seem to have no answers.

It’s now A.D. 31, and I, Reuben-Ben-David, am sixty years old. My children have all grown and left home. Three sons have joined the Zealots, a group of Jews who are violently serious about eradicating the Romans. One is even talking of joining the Sicarii, a radical group of Zealots who kill fellow Jews opposed to their violence. Since I have not reached any satisfying conclusions on the Messiah, I have no solid reason to discourage them from their views. Reports circulate of a man who is working miracles and claims to be the Messiah, but I have not witnessed any of his miracles and cannot verify the reports.

One day as I sit and mull over my questions about who the Messiah is, how he will come, and whether that baby born thirty years ago has any connection with the man who is now saying he is the Messiah, I hear a gentle knock on the front door. Answering the knock, I observe that the man outside the door looks like an ordinary Jew. He introduces himself as Yeshua Meshiakh. Well, Yeshua is not such an unusual name, but the Meshiakh part catches my attention. Would it be worth listening to what this man has to say, especially considering the gentle compassion and genuine authority that he exudes?

His first words are intriguing. “I know that you have been seeking. In fact, I knew about your seeking before you formulated your first questions. Not only do I have the answers to your questions, but I AM the answer!”

“I AM that baby born in a Bethlehem manger thirty years ago, the King you have been desperately longing for. You were looking for a king like Alexander the Great who endeavored to reach the ends of the world and the Great Outer Sea, but I am not a king who has come to set up a geographical kingdom by brute force and cold murder. My kingdom is a kingdom of men’s hearts, and no one can belong to it except by choice. I weep to see anyone choose to be his own king because he does so to his own destruction, but my Father and I created him with the freedom of choice. My kingdom’s foundation is irrefutable truth, and it is the only kingdom which will stand forever.

“I AM the Redeemer you have been praying for. Even though I care deeply about your struggles under the Roman yoke, I have not come to redeem you from that bondage but from a greater slavery than any Roman could ever load on your life. I have come to redeem you from the deadly bondage which you inherited from your ancestor Adam when he sold himself and the whole human race to the mastery of Satan and the kingdom of darkness. I have come to redeem you from the deceitful control of your own flesh as well.

“I AM the Lamb which Isaiah prophesied about. I know that to you a conquering Messiah and a slaughtered lamb are incompatible. However, just as my Father required countless lambs to be slaughtered and to bleed for the sins of your people, so He requires a Lamb to be slaughtered and to bleed for the whole world. Not only does my blood wash away the guilt and condemnation of sin, it also cleanses from the power and desire of sin, something the Paschal lambs never accomplished.

“I AM the Branch which Isaiah wrote about, a vibrant green branch like the ones growing on your olive trees. You know that an olive branch symbolizes peace, and I am your peace between God and between your fellowmen, whether they be Jew or Gentile, because I am breaking down the middle wall of partition. All who follow me will experience suffering and discover I am the healing branch keeping their lives from being broken and shattered beyond repair.”

By now my mind is overflowing with new revelations and I discover that the question has changed. “Will I surrender to Yeshua Meshiakh as my King, my Redeemer, my Lamb, and my Branch?”

Now we travel again through the hallways of time, fast-forwarding to 2021. We discover that though our culture and surroundings may be different from those of a Jew facing the question “Who is He in yonder stall?”, the question “Will I surrender to Jesus Christ as my King, my Redeemer, my Lamb, and my Branch?” is one I must answer today.