Anticipation of the Messiah

It all started in Eden: not just life, but the promise of the One who will break the power that Satan had over Adam and Eve. Satan had tricked Eve and she ate the fruit.  Eve had given some to Adam and he ate it. They were both banished from the garden. But God had made a particular pronouncement when speaking to the Serpent.  “I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed; He will crush your head and you will bruise his heel.” 

The seed of a woman could only have such a name if a man were not involved in the conception. The grammar here also prohibits the word seed from being plural.  It meant one person. After Cain killed Abel, God had sent Adam and Eve another son, Seth. His line became the Godly line from which the Promised Seed would come. Noah’s genealogy showed that he was descended from Seth, not Cain, the murderer. The Godly line then continued through Noah’s son Shem, the son to whom Noah gave his largest blessing. Shem’s line continues down to Abraham, whom all Israelites claim as their father. 

In Genesis 12, the Lord promised that all families of the earth will be blessed through Abraham.  He also gave them the land we now call Israel. 

Later, God established an everlasting covenant with Isaac. Genesis 17:19. He promised that the redeemer would come from his line (Genesis 26:2-5).

After him was his son Jacob, (Genesis 28:14) and Jacob’s son Judah (Genesis 49:10).

After Judah, the next promise was that the Messiah’s line would go through King David. 

(2 Samuel 7:12, 1 Chronicles 17:11).

And so all Israel knew where the Messiah should be descended from.  They guarded their family histories very carefully.

But when?  It had been a long time since Eden. Israel had her time of kingship, from Saul to David and Solomon.  The kingdom divided then into Israel and Judah. One after the other, the two kingdoms were conquered and the people shipped off to other nations.  But God chose two men, Ezra the Priest and Nehemiah the Governor, to rebuild the temple and the country. When they did so, people had to provide their lineage; prove what tribe they were from. 

Later still, Daniel gave a prophecy about when the Messiah would come. They Jews understood that they were waiting about 483 years from the time the decree went out to rebuild Jerusalem.  A little more than a century after Daniel, God stopped speaking and waited.

Four hundred years of silence followed. The Greeks and Romans came; but the Jews were counting.  About half way through this time period, they started to speak more about the coming Messiah.

There was not a universal idea of what the Messiah would be like.  Some imagined him more priestly, some more kingly, some more heavenly. There were some people who just didn’t care.  But for the most part, everyone was waiting for something.  By the first century, everyone hoped that he would come and overthrow the Roman oppressors. 

The writers of the New Testament, especially the Gospels are faithful to record the anticipation of many.  Being that their point is to show that Jesus is the Messiah, according to the scriptures, that is not surprising. Zechariah, Elisabeth, Mary, the Shepherds, Anna and Simeon in the Temple.  King Herod did not know the exact answers, but when he was asked by the Magi about the King of the Jews, he knew enough to ask about the Messiah.  He was so scared that the Messiah would take his kingdom that he murdered all the baby boys in Bethlehem. 

When John announced himself as the one who cries in the wilderness, the people knew who he was. They flocked to him in the desert, willing to repent, wanting to hear any message from God.  The Jewish leaders, therefore, came and asked him flat out if he was the Messiah. He told them he was not, but that he was the forerunner. He identified Jesus as the Messiah and some of his followers immediately left to follow Jesus. They told their families. One of those men was Andrew, who went to find his brother Peter and told him, “We have found the Messiah!” Peter went with him to meet Jesus.  Philip did the same; he found Nethaniel and told him that he had found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote!” 

Even the woman at the well who said, “When the Messiah comes, he will show us all things.”

So when Jesus did come, He was not what everyone thought. He did not throw off Roman oppression. He didn’t proclaim himself King. He said hard things. He told the rich, important people that they were hypocrites and spent time with prostitutes and sinners instead. He reasoned that a widow who threw her pennies into the offering had given more than the rich man. He allowed women to sit at his feet and learn from Him.  This posture identified them as disciples.  He survived off the money of rich women. He told old men to be born again. He told the Jews to pay taxes to Caesar. He told men that if they even looked at a woman lustfully, they were guilty of adultery. He confounded the most educated and said we must believe like little children. He even said that he would tear the temple down. He became so outrageous that all his followers, except the twelve, left him. He asked them if they wanted to leave too.  Peter famously said, “where would we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to know and we believe that you are the Holy One of God!” Jesus' response was that one of them was a devil. For those who just wanted to see Jesus do miracles, it was too much.  

But there was so much more to the story than that. Did Jesus say hard things?  Yes, for sure. But he also made the blind to see, the lame to walk and the dumb to speak. He freed those oppressed. He healed and saved and cared.  He praised people when they showed their faith. 

He saw past the failures into the heart. He cared for those who were rejected. He walked on water and controlled nature. His wisdom was beyond anything that anyone had ever heard. He showed them the heart of God, which is love. There was one whom Jesus loved more than the others. When he wrote about Jesus he said, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.” 

We all know this was John.  It is one of the most well known verses in all of the bible.  At the end of John’s long life, he always told his people to love one another.  When they asked why he always said that, he answered, “because if that is the only teaching of mine that you remember, it is enough!”

And that is the ultimate anticipation.  To wait for God and discover His heart.  

His heart, His Messiah, is love.