Messiah
Text: Matthew 16:13-20
Other text: Exodus 1
In the story of the Exodus, Moses, with the aid and guidance of the God of the Israelites, frees the people from slavery under the Egyptians. This is a political story, a story of power, revolution, and freedom, in which God plays a part and interferes—in a good way—in the affairs of people and nations.
As a result and in the end the Israelites settle in Canaan and over time establish a nation, inaugurate kings, and mostly prosper. Yet the going over time was rough and their long history was rocky. By the time of Jesus, they had been conquered more than once and were no longer autonomous but oppressed and occupied by Rome.
It was not a good time for the people of Israel, and not a safe time. There were talks of insurrection, a longing for independence from Rome, and a wistful hope for a restoration of the glory days when Israel was proud and powerful, when kings ruled a united land. There was a longing for a new king, in the line of David, the greatest king of Israel, a longing for a new messiah.
The word “messiah” means one who is anointed. The inauguration of a king in Israel included anointing, a sign of God’s approval. A messiah was not divine. A messiah was a person of power, a leader, a political force. Someone who keeps the peace, maintains order, makes decisions.
But by the time of Jesus the people of Israel were looking for a particular messiah. A restorer, a savior of Israel. Someone who was a descendant of the line of kings of which David was the most notable.
The Messiah would bring about the messianic age, a time of peace and justice in Israel and in the world. This is a religious event only to the extent that politics and religion were one and the same; that the restored Israel would be a nation of the people of God; that justice would be according to the law given by God to the people; and that God would have a hand in bringing it all about. So, actually pretty religious. But not churchy. Not particularly about spiritual alignments and personal salvation. Not things we modern Christians typically have in mind when we think things to be religious.
When Peter calls Jesus the Messiah—the Greek word that appears in the Gospels is Christ; Christ is the Greek translation of the Hebrew word messiah—when Peter calls Jesus the Messiah, Peter is placing Jesus in the context of Israel’s history.
This placement is particularly important to Matthew. Matthew, unlike the other Gospel writers, establishes Jesus as part of a long genealogy that starts with Abraham and includes David. In Matthew, Peter’s declaration is followed by the founding of the institution of the church, a word that does not even appear in the other Gospels.
This is all one thing, Matthew is saying. It is the same story. Jesus (and the church after him) is part of the same story that includes Abraham and the Exodus and the Exile and the hope for the restoration of Israel. Jesus Christ, Jesus the Messiah, is part of the messianic story, not separate from it.
Christians thus have to careful about rewriting this story. We have over time begun to tell a different story, one that is more convenient and more in line with an institutional church. We are purposely forgetting our messianic hopes that center around a just and merciful world, and while still calling Jesus the Messiah, we have separated our expectations from those of Peter and his forbears. We have moved the place and time in which we look for hope from this life to afterlife.
You are the son of the living God, Peter calls Jesus. The living God is an active God who is involved in the affairs of the living world, in us living people. We suffocate Christianity when we restrict the venue of Jesus to heaven, not of earth also. When we diminish salvation to be only spiritual, and not worldly also.
The problems that plague us day to day are not so much about what happens after death—about which we know very little in detail and about which the Bible is mostly silent. Instead, our problem is lack of justice in the world and lack of mercy among those who wield power, about which we know a lot in much detail and about which the Bible talks constantly.
Our faith tells us to trust that God will care for life after death. We have no worries there. Our worries are less about death and more about killing. About violence and murder and war and genocide. And about their relatives starvation, neglect, oppression, and slavery.
“Who do you say that I am” is another way of Jesus asking: why do you follow me? what do you hope from me?
We hope for a messiah. We need a leader, a sovereign shepherd who will guide us into a better way of living together in the world. We need a messiah who will bring this world to justice and peace.
Jesus preached about such a world and through his actions and words tried to lead us there. Jesus Christ, Jesus Messiah. But we have denied him, denied the worth of his ministry, and sanded down the sharp edges of his teachings and his commandments. We have made him to be non-political, other-worldly, and naive. We have undermined his messianic nature.
Christians spend quite a lot of time talking about who Jesus is. But we would be wise to think a little more about what Jesus did and said. Jesus can be lots of things to us. Different things perhaps to different people. So does it matter anymore to Christians that Jesus is called the Messiah? And if so, what does it mean for us in these times and in this place? If Jesus is the Messiah, does not that mean he is to us as king David was to the Israelites? Does it not mean that we hope for God to interfere—in a good way—in the affairs of the world?
If we call Jesus Messiah, don’t we hope that it will, as it did with Peter, change our lives? And if we call Jesus Messiah, don’t we hope above all things that it will make a difference in the life of world in which we live?
