It was an overly crowded room, and you could hear the hum of chatter echoing off the tile floors. Scanning the room, I found them. My four siblings were scattered throughout the party, and as I decided my best bet was to find a spot next to my brother, I thought about how, no matter where we were, I could always be sure of my siblings.
Whether it was at my grandmother’s 80th birthday, Thanksgiving growing up or just the five of us hanging out, my relationship with them gives me an understanding of their likes, dislikes, interests and temperaments and how those play out in any situation. I mean, they’re my siblings. We grew up together. We have history. And regardless of who we are now as adults, we all come from the same family tree.
It begins to get old. And I completely understand that any of us in that situation would have done the same thing they did. I’m stuck at sea with an army in pursuit? Go back to Egypt. Wandering in the desert for 40 years? Yeah, I’d begin to ration the food, too. However, the Israelites chose to walk in disbelief even when they had witnessed God leading them to places where he was the answer. But they still chose to forget their history with him. When you’re reading their story in the Old Testament, and you start to sense that their grumbling and disobedience are endless despite their history with God, you wonder if there’s anything that would get them to stop. Well, they had an idea: a king.
The Israelites were a wandering people, but everyone knew who they were because of God. Everyone knew the miraculous and faithful ways he chose to take care of his people. There was no need for a king, but every other nation had one, so Israel wanted one, too. In 1 Samuel, we read that God granted their request, and from that moment forward, Israel’s history just grew more precarious with their kings.
Saul, David, Solomon, and all the rest had ups and downs, seasons of faithfulness and apathy. Each season brought about a different result for Israel, and the steadiness they desired from a ruler was just as unpredictable as the sea they had been scared to walk through so many years before. But because of God’s faithfulness, he told his people in Jeremiah 23:5 about the King who was yet to arrive but was surely coming. “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch and he shall reign as king and deal wisely and execute justice and righteousness in the land.” The true King was on his way.
The kings of Israel shared a similar experience of ups and downs, faith and disbelief, certainty and fear, because they were all from the same family tree: humanity. The common denominator for all of us is that sin is in our nature, and we can’t run from it. Failure is bound to happen. And God knows, but he didn’t leave the Israelites, and he hasn’t left us either. The promise of the righteous branch from David is a promise of a miracle: that God would become flesh.
It’s the same family tree but a different outcome. The miracle of Jesus is that he is fully God and fully man. He didn’t just save us; he became a man to do so. Christmas isn’t just a story about the baby in the manger — it’s the story of the Righteous Branch being born and breaking the cycle of kings who had failed. Jesus never fails. His Kingship is and will be just as Jeremiah promised: full of wisdom and justice. One day, Jesus will reign, and until that day, may we rest in knowing that we’re no longer under sin’s rule; we’re under the Righteous Branch.