If we read the Old Testament in tandem with the New Testament, we sometimes have to employ a double focus. Verse 1 of our passage promises that God will send a messenger ahead to prepare the way of his coming. And that is certainly true when we look toward Christmas. God gives all sorts of preparatory signs before Jesus Christ is born in Bethlehem. An angel choir announces to shepherds that the one born is the Savior of the world. A rising and leading star alerts Mesopotamian astrologists to the fact that a special king has been born. Indeed, the whole Old Testament testifies to God's centuries of working toward the birth of his Son and centuries of Israel's longing for that saving Ruler.

Then, before God begins his ministry to his people and to the world in the person of his Son Jesus Ch…