The prophecy from Isaiah 45:1-7 has a lot more to do with Christmas Eve than you might imagine. The Lord gets very specific as He names Cyrus to be the one to restore His people after they have lived in exile in Babylon (and remember that Isaiah announced this prophecy over a century before the Persian King was born.) More than that, He speaks of Cyrus in Christ-like terms as being God's anointed – despite the fact that the man was a foreign pagan, and in no way a descendant of Abraham. Remember, God commanded His priests to anoint prophets, priests, and kings. And there are also the prophesies of the Anointed One (which in Greek is Christos, or Christ.)
2 Chronicles 36:22 reports to us God's fulfillment of this promise in Isaiah 45, "That the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia." He gave this military success and political power to King Cyrus for the sake of God's chosen people Israel – and for your sake! As God says prophetically to Cyrus in Isaiah 45:5-6, “I equip you, though you do not know Me, that people may know, from the rising of the sun and from the west, that there is none besides Me; I am the LORD, and there is no other.”
Among those whom Cyrus helped leave Babylon and return to the Promised Land were ancestors of Jesus, our newborn King whose birth in the city of David we celebrate this night. God would also use the decrees of Caesar and Quirinius to get Mary and Joseph into Bethlehem for that birth.
Over the last two years especially we have spent what seems like more time than usual thinking about (questioning and complaining about even) those who govern us. These Christmas Scriptures remind us that no matter if they believe in Him or not, God will use their decisions to serve the purposes of His salvation for us. Our rulers will come and go. The ones we obsess over today may become less than a footnote tomorrow. But the newborn King, to whom all authority in Heaven and on earth has been given, has guided all of it and will bring good from it. The Holy Trinity who sent the angels so that the shepherds would recognize Christ now has directed the servants of His Church to go out into all the world and find you, teaching you to know Him as the only God, so that you could have more than just a merry little Christmas - but also that as you have the forgiveness of your sins, you could live in His kingdom in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness.
