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“Misunderstanding the Messiah”
Categories: Meditations
In this life, there are a few certainties. Water is wet, the sun rises in the east, and the mass-media articles written around Christmas and Easter about Jesus are drivel. However, during the last holiday season, I encountered one that, despite its clickbait title (“The Way We Think About the Messiah Is Very Problematic”), was semi-not-drivelly. It can be found at https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-way-we-think-about-the-messiah-is-very-problematic.
The first thing that the article gets right is its observation that the story of Jesus’ birth is a messianic one. In our society, the conflation of the birth narratives with the secular, commercial holiday of Christmas does a great deal to confuse the issue. When Lauren and I still lived in Joliet, every December we sought out a house that had in its front yard a nativity scene complete with Santa Claus gazing adoringly into the manger. In addition to being hilarious, it aptly illustrated the muddle of the American mind concerning the birth of the Lord.
The article correctly notes that the star that the magi followed was a royal, messianic symbol. Though the author doesn’t spend much time delving into the gospels, the birth accounts of both Matthew and Luke are replete with messianic language and imagery. We must understand Jesus as Messiah according to the thinking of first-century Jews and the prophecies they pondered.
From this accurate observation, though, the article goes astray. It critiques the traditional Christian belief that Jesus was more truly the Messiah (indeed, the only true Messiah) than, for instance, Simon bar Kokhba, the so-called messiah who led a Jewish revolt against the Romans from 132-136 AD. It dismisses texts like Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53 by denying that they “refer to a crucified messiah” and claiming that it “seems unfair to imply that Jewish interpreters were overlooking something”.
However, there’s a problem here. If Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53 aren’t messianic texts, what are? The obvious answer is, “prophecies that mention anointing or the Anointed One”.
Such prophecies are hard to find. Though I may be overlooking something, I can find only one clearly prophetic Old-Testament text that mentions anointing: Isaiah 61:1-2. However, when Jesus applies this prophecy to Himself during His visit to Nazareth in Luke 4:16-30, his audience apparently thinks that He’s claiming to be a prophet, not a messiah.
Other passages that mention the Anointed One and turned out to be prophetic, such as Psalms 2 and 45, are not obviously predicting future events. If I were a first-century Jew and interpreting them without the benefit of Acts 4:25-28 and Hebrews 1:8-9, I would have assumed that they referred to the historical Davidic kings. After all, the Scriptures often call Israelite kings “the Lord’s anointed”.
By contrast, the passages that the Jews did identify as messianic don’t mention anointing. The Micah 5 prophecy we’ve already examined doesn’t, but Herod’s counselors say it’s messianic anyway. After the time of Jesus, the Jews apply the prophecy of Numbers 24:17 to bar Kokhba (“bar Kokhba” means “son of the star”), and there’s nothing in it about anointing either.
In short, there’s no principled reason for Jewish interpreters to have denied that Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53 were messianic while affirming that Micah 5 and Numbers 24 were. The latter fit in with their expectations; the former didn’t. If you’re looking for a martial messiah, you’re going to reject anything about a suffering-servant messiah, even if you have reason not to.
Such reasons are particularly apparent in Isaiah 53 and its context. In Isaiah 52:13-14, the prophet predicts a servant who will be successful and exalted, yet appalling and disfigured. The first half of the prophecy sounds awfully messianic, which implies that the second half is too.
The Jews could have, and indeed should have, picked up on that, particularly when Isaiah 53 goes on to warn them that the servant will be misunderstood and rejected yet victorious. They were on notice to look for a messiah who would subvert their expectations, but they didn’t listen. Once we add “suffering” to the portfolio of the Messiah, all sorts of other passages and prophecies, from Psalms 22 and 69 to Zechariah 10-13, commend themselves to our attention. Only Jesus fulfilled all of them.
After this, though, the article does us a service by warning us against the distinction between Jesus the spiritual Messiah and the hoped-for political messiahs of the Jews. This is a temptingly easy distinction for us to make. Then, we can put Jesus in the church box—the box of a God who used to do things but doesn’t anymore—and look elsewhere for the solutions to our problems. Is it surprising, then, when Christians begin to describe contemporary political figures using language that Second Temple Jews would have called messianic?
This way of thinking fails both to reckon with the political dimensions of Jesus’ work and to give Him the place that He deserves in our lives. He wasn’t conventionally political like bar Kokhba was, but His ministry was politically significant nonetheless. When He rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, cleansed the temple, and condemned the chief priests, He was making political statements. Certainly, His enemies understood them as such; that’s why they killed Him. His early disciples did the same in confronting the Sanhedrin or refusing to sacrifice to Caesar, and they faced similarly dire consequences.
Today, we too must embrace the political implications of our hope. As He did 2000 years ago, Jesus still calls us to look for a deliverance that the world around us does not expect. We must not put our trust in princes nor think that if we elect the right group of leaders, the ills of this life will be put right. Instead, salvation will come from God and His Anointed. Christ continues to guide the course of history according to His will, and He will appear at its climactic end to vanquish evil forever and reward all those who have put their trust in Him.
