How do you define Messiah? Ha! You’d be surprised.
Remember the movie with John Travolta when he played the angel Michael? In one scene, as he sat in the kitchen scoffing down sugar, smoking a cigarette, wearing shabby underwear, he is asked something like this, “Aren’t angels supposed wear brilliant white clothes doing and saying pure things?” Without looking up Travolta, as angel Michael replies, “I’m not that kind of angel.”
Keep that image in mind as we take our photo gear and travel back into a gathering of the disciples as they ask Jesus a question, not too different from the one asked above. “Are you the messiah?” they ask. And the gospel writers make note that this is asked again and again. I have to assume, all those disciples, each with a different political and religious agenda, must not have liked or understood his answer the first, second or third time they asked. Jesus, though, always answered, “Those are your words.” Jesus’ reply is his typical style of throwing the query right back into the questioners lap. Why would Jesus not answer ‘yes’ to so simple a question? In order to get some insight we will have to take a look at what first century Jews thought a messiah was, and what a messiah was supposed to accomplish.
When we check our photo album we have lots of shots of angry, sulky, and really violent Jews writhing against the constant oppression of outsiders ruling their country. For hundreds of years they have prayed for someone to come and chase the oppressors off and restore the best of the old times. This would be their messiah and he was seen either as politically savvy, a mighty warrior, a religious priest, or all three rolled up in one. Then God would do the rest of the saving. The Essenes wrote that they were expecting three, count them, three different messiahs that fit the above bill. This might be why Jesus was not answering that annoying question from his disciples. He knew he was not what they believed a messiah to be. He wasn’t a politician. He wasn’t a soldier warrior, and he wasn’t interested in being high priest in the Temple.
When we travel forward in time, going past Jesus’ ministry to70 A.D., something horrific occurs to Judaism. The Temple is destroyed by the Romans. All Jews at this tragic point in time, no matter their sect, Sadducees, Pharisees, or Jesus followers who, remember, thought of themselves as Jews, no longer had the Temple to glue their identity as Jews together. This caused each of the so many differing sects to reinvent themselves, leading to some of the greatest Jewish writings being created - including the gospels.
By 100 A.D., the extremely long chain of oral tradition, just like the telephone game, was reinventing Jesus over and over again by each of the diverse sects of followers of Jesus. Keep in mind that there was not one cohesive group of early Christians. Oh no. We can take quick snapshots of a dozen or more Jewish groups who interpreted Jesus, his ministry and his death, each in their own way. The oral traditions of all these different sects of Jesus followers morphed as they were told and then finally written down, now reflecting their many styles, needs, prejudices and aspirations leading to a whole plethora of gospels. But, only a few of these amazing gospels were chosen in 300 A. D. to be in the New Testament.
Jesus was no longer remembered as just a humble healer and a brilliant teacher/rabbi. He was becoming a complex conglomerate of philosophies. The gospels were creating someone and something different and unique.
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