Matthew 4:1-11
Discovering Who We Are
James Sledge March
1, 2020
Jesus
began his ministry in a world that was anxiously awaiting a Messiah. For a
variety of reasons, expectations of a savior were high. One group, the Essenes,
had withdrawn from society and set up an alternative community in the
wilderness so they would be ready. From some of their writings, popularly
called The Dead Sea Scrolls, we know that they expected a Messiah, or perhaps a
pair of Messiahs, who looked nothing like Jesus.
In
fact, ever since Israel had returned from exile in Babylon some 500 years
earlier, and the hoped for glorious revival of the kingdom of David had failed
to materialize, people had been looking for the One who would change all that.
People
carefully examined Scripture, finding those passages that seemed to offer clues
about where the Messiah would come from, how he would act, and what he would
do. But there was no single image that everyone agreed on. Even today,
Christian have many different images of Jesus. We agree that Jesus was Messiah,
and yet we still have a warrior Jesus, a hippy Jesus, a blonde-haired blue-eyed
Jesus, a meek and mild Jesus, a wise sage Jesus, a personal Savior Jesus, and
so on and so on.
So
if we can’t agree on the exact nature of Jesus, imagine how difficult it was
for people who only had verses from the Old Testament. How did they know which
verses were about the hoped for Messiah? How were they supposed to reconcile
verses that seemed to suggest different sorts of Messiahs?
Messiah
simply means “anointed one.” That title, along with “Son of God,” had long be
used to speak of Israel’s kings. So it’s hardly surprising that many expected
the Messiah would revive the days of King David. He would throw out the hated
Romans and their puppet, Herod. He would restore Israel to greatness.
Jesus
knew well the varied images and expectations of a Messiah. And if Jesus is
genuinely human, as Christians insist he is, then he must have wrestled with
just what it meant to be the Messiah. He must have prayed and struggled to
discern just what sort of Anointed One God wanted him to be.