St. Mary's Church Elizabeth, IL

12/7

Await the Messiah!

Understand who the Savior really is

     "Christ " is not Jesus' last name.  "Christ' is a title for Jesus, one that describes who he is.  Therefore, "Jesus Christ" is shortened form for "Jesus the Christ" or "Jesus who is the Christ".  "Christ" is a Greek term which translates the Hebrew mashiah from which we derive the word "Messiah."  Therefore, when we say, "Jesus Christ," we are asserting that we believe that Jesus is the Messiah.  If someone were to ask us to identify Jesus, we would probably say he is Son of God or the Savior of the World.  But the earliest believers in Jesus preferred the title "Messiah".  For them this word expressed what was most important about Jesus.  That is why it became a part of his name.

So, what doe the term "Messhia" mean?  A literal translation of the Hebrew is "the anointed".  Both kinds and high priests were anointed with oil as they began theri ministires.  Both were seen as chosen by God to perform a particular role in the life of God's people.  After the Babylonian exile, Isreal no longer had a king.  Yet the royal psalms which referred to the king continued to be prayed by Jews.  They saw in these psalms the anticipation of a future "anointed one" who would lead the people.  By the first century of the common era, the term "Messiah" was understood to designate a leader who would act as God's agent in the world and fulfill God's promises to Isreal.  It is this role which the early church ascribed to Jesus.

Messiah:  Clarifying Presumptions

If you ask a group of Christians to explain what they know about Jesus as the Messiah, two presumptions will invariably enter the discussion.  The first is the conviction that all Jews of the time of Jesus were awaiting a Messiah.  The second is that Jesus was a different kind of Messiah than the one which Jews were expecting, and that is why most Jews did not believe in him.  It is usually supposed that the Jews were expecting a political and militaristic Messiah.  Despite the widespread acceptance of these two presumptions, a careful examinations of historical sources forces us to alter them significantly.

Jews at the time of Jesus did not have a unified vision of a Messiah.  In fact, when we examine Jewish literature, the term "Messiah" is not widspread.  The term occurs wonly thirty-eight times in the Hebrew Bible.  In texts closer to the time Jesus this use is scant and inconsistent.  Some writing pictured the Messiah as a royal descendant of David, either as a warrior-king or righteous political ruler.  Others envisioned a religious figure, a priestly leader who would provide an authoritive interpretation of God's law.   Still others expected a heavenly being who would fight the cosmic powers of evil.  The writings of Qumran seem to describe two Messiahs, one priestly and one kingly.  The Book of Sirach (36:1-7) expects that God alone would deliver Israel, without any need of a Messiah, and those who awaited one did not agree on the qualities which the Messiah would possess.

The diversity undercuts our first presumtion.  Not all Jews of the time of Jesus were awaiting a Messiah.  It also undermines our second presumption.  Because there was not understanding of who the Messiah would be, Jesus role as Messiah could not be contrary to what all Jews were expecting.  His ministry matched the expecttations of some Jews and different from the expectations of others.  There was simply no one united view of the Messiah from which he could diverge.

Fr. Joachim