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The Rev. Frank
Logue
The Best Part of Being The Messiah A man goes to his sons door knocks loudly and calls out, “This is the last time I knock. Next time I’m coming in and I’ll tell you why: It’s 6:45 a.m., you are usually dressed and eating breakfast by now, and if you don’t get moving right this moment you’ll never make it to school on time.” The son yells back through the door as the father hears the distinct sound of the door lock being pushed in. “I’m not coming out and I’ll tell you why: I don’t feel like going, the kids all make fun of me, and school just isn’t fun anymore.” The father sighs deeply, not sure what to do or say. The mother walks up, taking control of the situation saying, “You will get up and throw some clothes on right now and I’ll tell you why: It’s your duty, you’re 42 years old, and you’re the principal.” If you have held a job, any job, then you know there are times when it is just no fun anymore. Some days you would not go to work if there was any way around it. There are all sorts of jobs and they each offer their own sense of satisfaction at a job well done if you look for it. But the satisfaction someone gets out of their job might not be what you would expect. Yesterday, I preached at the funeral for Pam Ferguson’s mother held at Saint Paul the Apostle Episcopal Church in Savannah. I am always honored to preach at a funeral. It’s always a bit of a scary task preparing a eulogy as I know how easy it is to get it wrong and how much it matters to get those words right. And I find a well-done funeral to be a deeply satisfying part of my job. Yesterday, Father William Willoughby of Saint Paul’s served as the celebrant and I took on the deacon’s duties of reading the Gospel, leading the prayers and preaching. As we were divesting in the sacristy after the service I told him how much I had enjoyed working with him on the funeral. I really meant it and he knew it. Then I confided how my daughter, Griffin, and I were talking about the funeral earlier in the week. I had said, “It’ll be fun to get to do the service at St. Paul’s with Father Willoughby.” Griffin then reminded me how weird that sounded to declare a funeral to be “fun.” William knew what I meant, he said he got the same thing from his kids. Then he went on to say why shouldn’t we enjoy our jobs, especially the parts that mean so much to the people we serve. Fun might not be the exact word I should use, I could probably find something more diplomatic, but I did have fun at the funeral yesterday. Many jobs, perhaps most every job if you look hard enough, offers those deeply satisfying moments:
Which part of Jesus job do you think he liked the most? I guess I should back up first to consider, “What was Jesus’ job anyway?” Well we should start where Peter ends up today, and that’s with Jesus’ job title. Jesus was and is the Messiah. But saying Messiah might not help much. To say that someone is a Messiah comes from the Hebrew Meshiach. Meshiach meant one who had been anointed, specifically anointed with oil. This term Messiah certainly referred to Israel’s kings. For example, in describing David’s selection to be King, the book First Samuel tells us that the prophet Samuel was led by God to select David from among the sons of Jesse then it records, “as David stood there among his brothers, Samuel took the olive oil he had brought and poured it on David's head.” Pouring the olive oil over David’s head was the outward anointing that went with the Holy Spirit’s inward anointing, preparing David for the job ahead of him. Prophets and kings are who we find being anointed in the Old Testament. These anointed ones pointed toward the promise of one who was to come who would be The Anointed One, rather than an anointed one. The Messiah, not just a Messiah. The Anointed One would be anointed by God to herald the end of the age. The Greek word for anointed one is “Christ.” Christ is not Jesus’ last name. It is Jesus’ job title. My brother-in-law Tom Campbell was about four or five years old when he discovered that Christ wasn’t Jesus’ last name. Tom felt bad for Jesus, seeing as how he didn’t have a last name and all so he decided to call him “Jesus Jones.” It had a nice ring to it and no one was likely to make fun of Jesus with a good last name like that. Oddly, a few years later a band named Jesus Jones briefly made it to the charts with a hit song. I never did understand how they picked the same last name as Tom. But there is something to this for even to say the two words “Jesus Christ” is a confession of faith. Calling Jesus the Christ is to say that you know Jesus to be The Anointed One promised by God. It must be said here that the reason why Jews have such a difficult time in seeing Jesus to be the Messiah is that expectation of the Messiah’s job description now doesn’t match Jesus life any better than it did in first century Palestine. When Jews look to The Messiah, the expectation sounds exactly like Christian expectation of the Second Coming. Jews expect The Messiah to come descending through the clouds with a trumpet blast signaling essentially, “time’s up.” In Jesus’ day the hope for many was that The Messiah would come as a great warrior king to overthrow the Roman Empire and bring in a new age of Jewish ascendancy. In either case, teaching, healing, death on a cross and resurrection just weren’t part of the expectation. Oh those things had all been in the job description all along. We now read passages like Psalm 22 which says, “My God, My God why have you forsaken me?” and knowing that Jesus’ said these words from the cross we pay more attention and when the Psalmist goes on to write, “All who see me sneer at me; They separate with the lip, they wag the head, saying, ‘Commit yourself to the LORD; let Him deliver him; Let Him rescue him, because He delights in him.’”(Psalm 22:7-8) We hear those words as describing the agony of the cross. Just like we read Isaiah 53 anew. In the light of the cross, it is hard not to hear this passage as relating to Jesus: Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. (Isaiah 53:4-5) With the gift of hindsight, we see more clearly the passages throughout the Old Testament that prophesied of The Messiah. There were dozens of prophesies about where the Messiah would be born, how he would live, and how he would die. Jesus matched all these prophesies perfectly. To be sure, Jesus could have rigged some of it, like saying the words of Psalm 22 while on the cross. But Jesus had no control over how and where he was born, or how he died and what happened to him after death. There is no coincidence working here. Jesus of Nazareth perfectly fit the many prophesies about The Messiah. So why didn’t everyone see that Jesus was The Messiah? Was it just expectation getting in the way? Yes, but I don’t think that’s the whole answer. First, Jesus didn’t go around referring to himself as The Messiah. Jesus preferred title was “The Son of Man.” Read through the Gospels and you’ll see this humanity emphasizing title to be the one Jesus uses about himself. He didn’t make the phrase up, it’s found in the Prophets, especially Ezekiel and Daniel. In Daniel we find a second coming like prediction, “I kept looking in the night visions, And behold, with the clouds of heaven One like a Son of Man was coming.” (Daniel 7:13) So even in emphasizing his humanity by calling himself The Son of Man, Jesus was using an alternate title for The Messiah. Yet, Jesus was secretive about his “Messiahness,” so much so that Biblical scholars call it the Messianic Secret. Notice that in the last verse for our reading today Jesus “sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that he was The Messiah” (Matthew 16:20). Jesus may have wanted to avoid the false expectations that went with the title. If everyone thinks The Messiah will be a warrior king, it might be better not to announce that easily misunderstood title until the work is finished. But I think there is another, deeper reason found in our passage for this morning. It is that Jesus identity must be discovered through a process. Peter had to first get to know Jesus, his life and ministry, and then come to clear out his false expectations to make room for the real Messiah. With that work behind him, Peter was open to the Holy Spirit guiding him to the Truth that Jesus is The One Who Was to Come. Peter gets the answer so completely right as he not only gives the title Messiah, but defines what he means by that in saying, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.” Peter did not say, “You are The Messiah, the one who will defeat Cæsar and all his legions.” Peter had come to see the deeper Truth something more like, “You are the son of the living God and I’m up for whatever it is you’re here to do.” And this is one of those moments when Jesus seems most pleased with his job. Think about. The moments when Jesus comes through as the most pleased is when the lights go on and someone understands who he is and what he has been doing all along. It’s the one leper out of the ten who comes back to offer thanks, to Jesus himself rather than going to the Temple to thank God. Or the Centurion whose faith is so strong that he knows Jesus need not even come to his house to heal the servant. Or the Canaanite woman who insists Jesus heals her daughter even though her people were ancient enemies of the Jews. And just like the Gospel reading itself, which seems to beg the question, “Who do I say that Jesus is,” it’s that part of the sermon when you should be asking yourself who Jesus is for you. What are the expectations you need to let go of in order to meet the son of the living God? Jesus is right here, right now and he’s still happy when people come to see that he is God’s son, he loves you, and he wants you to be aware of his presence through every moment of your life. I’m prepared to be wrong, but I think it’s the part of being The Messiah that Jesus likes best. Amen.
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