Who is the Messiah?
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Introduction
Good morning Valley Church Clinton!
I’m so glad you made it in this morning, and if you’re joining us online, thanks for tuning in!
Today is the start of our advent season as a church, and it’s really fitting to have a bunch of snow for our very first advent season as a new church plant.
But I look outside, as I’m sure a lot of you do this time of year, and I dream of Florida, and warm weather. Kind of like Chevy Chase looking out the window and dreaming of Christmas in Hawaii.
And it takes me back to an opposite experience I had where I was sent to Guadalajara Mexico to an electronics factory to monitor production and shipments 24/7 of circuit boards.
It was about 100 degrees every single day, and I remember sweating through and ruining at least 7 dress shirts that week, but I was assigned the task to sitting in this factory and making sure shipments continued to come out on time.
And one night, on the 3rd shift, I wrapped up my day around 3am, in the heart of the factory district in Guadalajara, and I go outside in the dark to wait on my ride.
Minutes go by. I’m waiting. Then an hour goes by, still waiting.
And I’m usually pretty calm in these situations, but I’m in another country, alone, not knowing how to speak the language. I have no idea where I am. No one to call at 3 in the morning. No idea what my hotel is called.
I didn’t even know who I was waiting on to pick me up. Didn’t know the person, the name of the taxi service. Nothing.
Luckily, the night guard showed up, and I was able to hobble together enough Spanish to say “help me”, and he ended up calling a taxi.
But for a minute there, I was stranded. Up the creek with no paddle.
The real problem, you see, is that I hadn’t thought about who I was waiting on until it was too late.
I was working during the night shift, minding my own business, focused on my tasks, I didn’t think about the driver coming to pick me up, or how I was getting home.
And in this season of advent, we traditionally take an extended time around the Christmas season to remember our driver, the one coming back to pick us up. We take this season to remember Jesus coming to earth to save us.
And we often think of this as only the birth of Jesus, and I think that’s a great focus, but the point of advent is also looking forward to a time and an anticipation of Christ’s second coming.
And in that anticipation, I think it’s really important to rightly understand who our Messiah is, who exactly is the one were waiting on.
This is really what Jesus came to correct, a right view of the Christ, the Messiah. And it really comes to a head when Jesus asks the disciples who he is. It’s a super important question that Jesus asks, and it’s in Matthew, Mark and Luke.
This is how the story goes:
13 When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” 14 They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others, Elijah; still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” 15 “But you,” he asked them, “who do you say that I am?” 16 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”
So, let’s just break down this morning who this character, the Messiah, is and why it’s so important for us today.
See Peter, being a Jewish man, would’ve had a good idea of the Messiah’s requirements and God’s promises regarding his relationship with his people. And there are three really big ideas the Jews would have had about these promises.
This first of these would have been:
God’s Community and One People
God’s Community and One People
See, the crux of the Jewish traditional view of God is that one day, we would be His people and He would be our God.
There would be one people on the earth, one family, one singular source of life, one superior community that would reign.
And no, this wasn’t some sort of superior race, government state, wipe everyone out except for Israel kind of thing. It actually came from God Himself in Genesis.
Let me read Genesis 12:1-3 for you, at the beginning of Abrams call to faith:
1 The Lord said to Abram: Go from your land, your relatives, and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2 I will make you into a great nation, I will bless you, I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, I will curse anyone who treats you with contempt, and all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you.
See, what God did was he met Abraham where he was, and by grace, God choose him to be the start of a people that would be reconciled with God. All the peoples on earth would be blessed though Abraham.
That he would be the start of a great nation.
These all indications of one true people who would belong to God. They would be a nation, a family, one united peoples.
And this theme is repeated many times, and a great example is when Moses is giving the law to the Israelites.
5 Now if you will carefully listen to me and keep my covenant, you will be my own possession out of all the peoples, although the whole earth is mine, 6 and you will be my kingdom of priests and my holy nation.’ These are the words that you are to say to the Israelites.”
11 I will place my residence among you, and I will not reject you. 12 I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be my people.
See, the point of all this, especially in the Jewish frame of mind, is to have a nation where God can be. A holy nation where God and his people reside. Together.
This is why the Ark of the Covenant, for example, or the tabernacle where God’s presence dwelled, was so vital to get right and retain.
This was designed to look like the garden of eden, to remind God’s people that creation is supposed to be with God, not separate, and that one day that creation would come together.
And the person to do that was this Messiah figure. The Jews in Jesus’s day especially would have been waiting to become citizens once again of God’s Kingdom.
There was an intense need for God to come back and make his people His people once again. For a kingly or priestly figure to reclaim God’s people once again - to absolve the different sects of Judaism, to unite the people together in right community once and for all.
This is what the Messiah was supposed to do.
And of course this came with another expectation in tandem:
Freedom from Slavery
Freedom from Slavery
Throughout Israelite history, slavery and bondage followed them. Of course, they start out in the famous land of Egypt. God rescued them in dramatic fashion, and that story would be told over and over to the next generations.
But they would continue to worship other gods, disobey God and his commands, and Israel would be in slavery to many other nations over time.
The Moabites, the Cannanites, the Midianites, the Ammonites, the Philistines. They would be exiled to Assyria, to Babylon, forced to labor and toil for a king.
And now, in the first century AD, they were under the thumb of a Roman King named Caesar, under the Roman state and government that wanted their labor and money for the expansion of their Kingdom, not God’s.
That’s why
7 “The Lord will cause the enemies who rise up against you to be defeated before you. They will march out against you from one direction but flee from you in seven directions.
See, the Messiah was supposed to be a king who would come and rule, he would bring mightly military power to finally make an unreachable nation of power.
No one would ever be able to enslave God’s people ever again. The might of Israel would match God’s power, which was the utmost and highest.
1 God is our refuge and strength, a helper who is always found in times of trouble. 2 Therefore we will not be afraid, though the earth trembles and the mountains topple into the depths of the seas, 3 though its water roars and foams and the mountains quake with its turmoil. Selah
God’s promise was that Israel would be prosperious, rich enough to have the other nations jealous, never again needing anything from anyone else ever.
14 I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel. They will rebuild and occupy ruined cities, plant vineyards and drink their wine, make gardens and eat their produce. 15 I will plant them on their land, and they will never again be uprooted from the land I have given them. The Lord your God has spoken.
This was the promise God made. And the Israelites, the Jews, they expected power, fortune, wealth, prosperity. It’s exactly what the beatitudes that we explored last week sought to repair, which was a skewed view of God’s kingdom.
The Messiah would free their people from Rome, overtake the Roman empire, and finally God’s people would be placed at their right, correct seat of power.
And of course, all this power was rooted in the third major promise theme:
The Promised Land
The Promised Land
This was huge. God promised the Jews a land that would be theirs, divinely.
8 And to you and your future offspring I will give the land where you are residing—all the land of Canaan—as a permanent possession, and I will be their God.”
And God would absolutely fulfill this promise, but it was conditional. And eventually, the Israelites would be kicked out of this land by force.
43 So the Lord gave Israel all the land he had sworn to give their ancestors, and they took possession of it and settled there. 44 The Lord gave them rest on every side according to all he had sworn to their ancestors. None of their enemies were able to stand against them, for the Lord handed over all their enemies to them. 45 None of the good promises the Lord had made to the house of Israel failed. Everything was fulfilled.
God’s promises never fail. But. His people do, don’t they?
See, the whole reason God had to provide a promised land is because we screwed up. After being kicked out of the garden, after the flood wiped the whole earth clean, humanity continued to struggle.
They continued to do all kinds if evil.
And eventually, humanity decided to build a tower. You may be familiar with it - the tower of Babel, or Babylon. And the reason humanity untied to build this tower is stated clearly:
4 And they said, “Come, let’s build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the sky. Let’s make a name for ourselves; otherwise, we will be scattered throughout the earth.”
Like usual, humans decided to take matters into their own hands rather than trusting God. And we would end up paying the price.
8 When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance and divided the human race, he set the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the people of Israel.
Deut 32:8 is an explanation of what happened at Babel, essentially. What happened is God disinherited his people. He let them go. He sent them out, confused their language, and they were no longer united.
This was the birth of disunity. Of nations. Of prideful people who segregated themselves based on race, religion and language.
This was the catalyst of why God had to start his rescue mission for humanity.
Why God had to put his plan into motion. Because remember, God fulfils his promises. But, it’s always in ways that fulfils his character and motives. And that usually doesn’t match our expectation.
Which is why:
Jesus was the Unexpected Messiah
Jesus was the Unexpected Messiah
No one in the first century expected the messiah, the Christ to come like Jesus did.
But let me tell you, he fulfilled every single promise God made.
The Jews were expecting to be heralded into community. To be united as one people. And Jesus did exactly that.
9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his possession, so that you may proclaim the praises of the one who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
Not only did Jesus bring in the lost sheep of Israel, he reached out to all the nations, the gentiles, and gave every single person on earth the opportunity to be one with God. There is a single nation that can follow Jesus, not divided by language, race, differences, whatever it may be.
We are all united, as God’s people.
22 And he subjected everything under his feet and appointed him as head over everything for the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of the one who fills all things in every way.
Jesus established the Church for this effort. To be one nation, not to replace Israel necessarily, but to be the ultimate fulfillment of Jesus’s people, united for one cause.
Jesus our Messiah also freed us from slavery. See, slavery to other humans was never the ultimate problem. Those were finite Kingdoms, human kings with life spans, and generations that would ultimately pass.
What God’s people needed saving from was and is death.
1 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus, 2 because the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death.
14 Now since the children have flesh and blood in common, Jesus also shared in these, so that through his death he might destroy the one holding the power of death—that is, the devil—15 and free those who were held in slavery all their lives by the fear of death.
We are enslaved to death by default. It takes the great rescuer to free us from that death. And the resurrection of Jesus completed that transfer of power, from evil to good.
And what Jesus would ultimately do is reclaim his nation. The promised land, as it turns out, is creation. All of it. It’s not a tiny piece of land in the middle east, it’s everything God originally declared as good. As tov.
This would happen at Pentecost. When the Spirit came down on the Apostles, and they started speaking in the language of all the people, this was the moment where the nations were reclaimed. Babel was reversed.
7 They were astounded and amazed, saying, “Look, aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 How is it that each of us can hear them in our own native language? 9 Parthians, Medes, Elamites; those who live in Mesopotamia, in Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts), 11 Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the magnificent acts of God in our own tongues.”
It’s very intentional that all these places were named. What Jesus’s apostles were doing is bringing back in all the nations, all of creation, that once belonged to God. Now, the promised land is them. The people. God’s people that are reclaimed.
And that’s why Jesus says in Matthew 28:18-20
18 Jesus came near and said to them, “All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. 19 Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
All nations. We are now commissioned to reclaim creation on behalf of our Messiah Jesus.
So, the question remains after all this:
Who do you say the Messiah is?
Who do you say the Messiah is?
Who is the Messiah to you? If Jesus came up to you and asked: who do you say I am?
What would you say?
Would you say: a character in a book? A good teacher? A morally good guy who had some good ideas?
They guy who wants me to go to church?
What we need to realize is Jesus is so much more than we typically give him credit for.
Because Jesus stepped into humanity. Flesh and blood. He became like us. He understands our struggles, he understands temptation, sin, anxiety, loss, sickness, physical toil.
And that’s where we live right now. In this tension of what is, and what is to come.
Because there’s still one promise that Jesus hasn’t yet fulfilled. That God hasn’t done.
And that’s to completely perfect His creation. This is where we are in a similar situation to the Jews. Waiting on the promised one to come and make everything better.
But what you say about the Messiah defines your life. It defines what you do. The decisions you make.
I really think, as a church and as Christians, that we need to stop being so worried about heaven, salvation, justification, whatever other theological concepts we can throw out there.
We need to stop being worried about our knowledge of those things, and start getting ready for the return of our Messiah. The return of Jesus Christ who sits on the throne of Heaven.
18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is going to be revealed to us. 19 For the creation eagerly waits with anticipation for God’s sons to be revealed. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility—not willingly, but because of him who subjected it—in the hope 21 that the creation itself will also be set free from the bondage to decay into the glorious freedom of God’s children. 22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together with labor pains until now. 23 Not only that, but we ourselves who have the Spirit as the firstfruits—we also groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. 24 Now in this hope we were saved, but hope that is seen is not hope, because who hopes for what he sees? 25 Now if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with patience.
We need to get ready for the groom to take his bride. Because I’m afraid if we, as a church, if we don’t view our Messiah correctly, we’ll miss him.
We must contniue doing the work. Preparing His church, Preparing ourselves, fulfilling the great commission, reclaiming the nations and creation.
We must view our work as preparation, to be ready, remain at our watchtower.
Take this season to really consider the question: who do you say he is?
