The Time of His Visitation

By Dr. Jay Zinn

Jesus makes an excellent point here about himself and it applies to our Christmas holiday today. He was speaking to his audience about the time of his visitation, right in front them. On another occasion, at his triumphal approach to Jerusalem, Jesus wept over the city and said, “If you had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes.” What was hidden from their eyes? The time of his visitation. If they had discerned his coming, they would not be facing future destruction.

The Jews believed in a Messiah. Their Old Testament scriptures were replete with prophecies about his arrival. Sixty-one major predictions came by their prophets about Jesus of Nazareth, the one they failed to recognize.

Micah predicted Christ’s birthplace (Bethlehem). Daniel, his time of birth. Isaiah, his manner of birth (of a virgin) and that he would come from the regions of Galilee. Hosea predicted he would come out of Egypt. Malachi said he would be heralded by a forerunner (John the Baptist).

David prophesied betrayal by a friend (Judas). Zechariah saw him riding on the young colt of a donkey to the temple, that he would be sold for thirty pieces of silver, and pierced through. David gave the minute details of his death. Isaiah said he would die with criminals (the two thieves) and buried in a rich man’s tomb (Joseph of Arimathea).

Peter Stoner is quoted in Science Speaks that the science of probability makes it impossible for eight of those predictions to be fulfilled by coincidence. The odds are one-in-ten to the seventeenth degree (i.e.—1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000). Stoner breaks that down into laymen’s terms by taking the same amount of zeros in silver dollars and spreading them across the state of Texas, two feet deep. That’s a lot of coins.

Now mark one of those coins, stir the whole mass, and blindfold a man to travel as far in whatever direction he likes. When he’s ready, stoop down and pick up a coin. What do you think the odds would be of him picking the “marked” coin? One-in-ten to the seventeenth degree. The same chance the prophets would have had in seeing eight of their prophecies fulfilled in one man.

Jesus’ life not only beat those odds fulfilling eight prophecies, he fulfilled sixty-one direct prophecies and at least two-hundred-and-fifty others by inference. No wonder his amazement at their blindness. It is one thing for the common people to miss it, but the scholars should have seen his coming through the writings of their own prophets.

Sadly, he didn’t fit the profile. They expected a warrior king, not a carpenter from Nazareth.

So they tried him, beat him, and crucified him because of their blindness. They did not discern the time and thus missed his visitation. They missed their Prince of Peace and replaced him with a successor of Caesar who came with an army forty years later. He leveled Jerusalem and dashed her children to the ground beneath the rubble. Doesn’t sound much like a Christmas story does it? Yet this is exactly what is happening today. Christmas is trounced on, mocked at, and spit upon by atheists, agnostics, and even, in some weird way, by religious people like me when I thought I was celebrating his birth.

For the first twenty years of my life I missed the time of his visitation. Every year, Jesus came to me in the Spirit of Christmas. I sang songs about him. I went to candlelight services in his name. And I gave and received gifts in his name. It was all there year after year, the same message. But I was blind and distracted like those in Jesus’ day. I didn’t notice. I was too preoccupied with me, my wants, my needs, and my problems when he was there all along, trying to get my attention and reach my heart.

But today is different. I once was blind but now I see. The message came through, January 9, 1972. Now I understand what was written and predicted about him and why he stands out above all the rest. It is best described in the following way by an anonymous author. This comes out of my Christmas file of treasured items.

It reads:
• He was born in a stable in an obscure village.
• From there he traveled less than 200 miles.
• He never won an election. He never went to college.
• He never owned a home. He never had a lot of money.
• He became a nomadic preacher,
• Popular opinion turned against him.
• He was betrayed by a close friend
• And his other friends ran away.
• He was unjustly condemned to death,
• Crucified on a cross among common thieves…
• On a hill overlooking the town dump.
• And when dead, laid in a borrowed grave.
• Nineteen centuries have come and gone.
• Empires have risen and fallen.
• Mighty armies have marched
• And powerful rulers have reigned.
• Yet no one has affected men as much as he.
• He is the central figure of the human race.
• He is the Messiah, the Son of God.
• JESUS CHRIST.

So another Christmas is upon us, universally celebrated. What other man in history has a universal holiday in his honor? Why this one individual? Because it was predicted that he was everything he claimed to be from the time of his birth to the time of his death, burial, and resurrection. No other man can claim such credentials. They can only ignore them and miss the time of his visitation—again.