Waiting on HopeShembull

The Forward Roll

In the world of radio, when we tease the audience with a portion of a song or an interview that we will play in full ‘in just a few minutes’ we call it a ‘forward roll’. Some people wonder if this idea of teasing or the ‘forward roll’ was what the Jewish prophets were using. We had been waiting so long for the Messiah to come and rescue His people. Perhaps this was a tease rather than reality.

Then Malachi the prophet, said there would first come a messenger, one who would prepare people for the Messiah’s arrival. Was that just a ploy to get the Jewish people to wait ‘a little longer’?

No one anticipated that the fulfilment of that prediction would come about in the time of Herod the Great. Certainly not a Jewish man named Zechariah.

As older folks, he and his wife Elizabeth had been barren since they married decades earlier. Though they had served God faithfully He had not blessed them with children.

But one day, as Zechariah was performing his priestly ministry in the Temple, the angel Gabriel appeared to him with a message from God. He told Zechariah that he and his wife Elizabeth would have a son. And his name was to be John and He would prepare the people for the coming of the Messiah.

This young boy, John, later called John the Baptist, was the fulfilment of Malachi’s words to the Jewish people. Surprise! The ‘forward roll’ was complete, and then months later John’s cousin Jesus, the Light of the World, was born to fulfil all the other predictions about the Messiah.

In times of trouble and uncertainty, may God’s ‘forward roll’ be our hope too. When we listen to believers speak into our life we hear the ‘forward roll’ of God telling us that there is coming a day when ‘the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Messiah’ (Revelation 11:15). For that day we long.

Written by Bob Mendelsohn

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