Dec 22, 2018 3 min read

Author’s note: As in all my religion lessons, I write as a historian, not as a theologian. History is about describing actual events. Religion is about faith in God, which is impossible to historically prove but doesn’t mean God doesn’t exist.

As we celebrate the day Jesus was said to be born, I share the story of the little-known prophet, Isaiah, who lived eight centuries before Jesus but predicted his life more accurately than anyone else.

After Jesus’s death, his Christian followers – most of them, like Jesus, originally Jews – attempted to convert others, Jews especially, to Christianity by claiming Jesus was the Messiah as described in the Old Testament. Yet in the Old Testament, the Messiah is depicted as a mighty judge or warrior-king who will destroy all enemies of the children of Israel and establish a Kingdom of God on Earth. Yet this Jesus the Christians claimed was the Messiah not only didn’t kill his and the Jews’ enemies – the Romans who ruled them – he was killed by them. So how, Jews asked, could he be the Messiah?

Had the Christians focused more on the Old Testament writings of Isaiah, they might have been more effective proselytizers. In the Book of Isaiah (Isaiah 9:6), he writes of Jesus, “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given … The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.” That, Isaiah says, is what Jesus will become, but Isaiah writes that Jesus will be born a helpless child, and he will later be despised by most of those he encounters. In Isaiah 53:3, he says, “He is despised and rejected of men … and acquainted with grief … and we esteemed him not.”

And throughout his ministry Jesus was often despised and rejected, even – especially – by fellow Jews.

Then Isaiah adds in Isaiah 53:5-6: “But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities … the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed … and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquities of us all.”

It is a historic fact that Jesus was crucified, and was certain he would be crucified, which Isaiah says was because God his Father asked him to bear “the iniquities of us all,” by allowing himself to be “wounded for our transgressions (flogged and crucified for our sins),” but in the end, “with his stripes we are healed” – our sins are forgiven, and our souls are cleansed.

So regardless of the degree of your religious faith, Jesus’ historically accurate willingness to die because he believed his death would cleanse us of our sins is one reason to honor him.

Merry Christmas.

Bruce G. Kauffmann’s email address is bruce@historylessons.net.