Are times ripe for the Messiah's Second Coming? What I like about Christianity is that it is grounded. Those offered to read the opening verses of St Matthew’s Gospel usually make excuses not to! The passage contains the complete genealogy of Jesus - from Abraham - 42 generations! Did Matthew really need to do this? Yes simply because the birth of Messiah was so ungrounded - so incredible – so unbelievable – yet it happened Everything about the extraordinary birth of the Messiah had to be announced and prophesied multiple times throughout Jewish history. The Jews needed to be expecting the advent of the Messiah. These prophesies began with Genesis 3:15 written around 1400 BC probably by Moses. Around 500 years later came Isaiah’s great prophesies text of one which we have just read. The sequence of key accurate prophesies included: The location of the Messiah’s birthplace in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2) The fact that the Messiah is to be born of a virgin. (Anothe...