On the Messiah
Q. What is meant by the Messiah?
A. The Messiah is one sent by God to free us from the power of sin, so that with the help of God we may live in harmony with God, within ourselves, with our neighbors, and with all creation.
Q. Who do we believe is the Messiah?
A. The Messiah, or Christ, is Jesus of Nazareth, the only Son of God.
Given that we are so often accustomed to referring to Jesus as Christ, we are inclined to forget that “Christ” is in fact a title and not a part of his name. Christ, however, is the English rendering of the Greek christos which means anointed, an echo of which you can also hear in chrism, the oils used to anoint people at special times in the Christian life, such as at Baptism or for healing from sickness. This term is also simply the Greek word that was used to translate the Hebrew term mashiach, also meaning anointed and from which we get the English word messiah. Thus, when we refer to Jesus (the) Christ, we are actually referring to Jesus the Messiah or Jesus the Anointed One, and we begin to realize that the concept of Jesus’ messiahship holds a much more central role in Christianity than could be inferred from the infrequency with which this topic is brought up in much Episcopal Church teaching.
The concept of the messiah originally applied almost exclusively to kings of Israel and Judah, especially in the line of David, and was at first almost synonymous with such kingship where the sign of their ascension to the throne was marked not by a crowning but by an anointing with oil. While others, such as prophets and priests, would be anointed with oil as well, they were not conceived of within the Old Testament itself as “messiahs.” However, after the time of the Old Testament, during the period leading up to the time of Jesus, expectation of a coming messiah who would save God’s people from their oppression and restore Israel (and, with it, God’s glory) began to build. Such expectation could take multiple forms and during this period the concept of who the messiah could be began to expand to include priestly and prophetic characteristics as well. Some continued to hold to the messiah primarily as a warrior king, others hoped for a single priest-king on the model of Melchizedek, others thought there would be an order in which a priest and king would rule co-equally, and still others looked for a prophet on the model of Moses.
The canonical Gospels all understand Jesus to be this hoped for Jewish Messiah and present Jesus as understanding himself in this way as well. Jesus’ messiahship holds together all three roles of prophet, priest, and king as well as significantly extending the understanding of the Messiah as a suffering servant of the people. This last aspect of messiahship was present in most other forms of messianic expectation, but the suffering was understood primarily as being the normal suffering of a leader, something akin to the difficulties that Moses experienced in guiding Israel through the wilderness. It was in the experience of Jesus’ torture and crucifixion that this suffering came to be understood as significantly greater and central to the Messiah’s activity.
Beyond the expanded understanding of the Messiah as suffering servant, affirmation of Jesus’ messiahship also meant a reworking of the scope and nature of the saving activity. No longer was this salvation only the restoration of one temporal nation, but salvation now meant the saving of all humanity and indeed the whole cosmos. That from which all people were to be saved was now no longer simply external political and social forces of oppression but the cosmic and inner forces of Sin and Death of which such political and social forces were manifestations. Moreover, the idea of the Messiah seems to have melded with the belief in the Son of Man from Daniel who would come at the end of the ages, and thus Christians began to expect a final return of the Messiah. However, that the understanding of who the Messiah was to be and what the Messiah would do was transformed in light of the experience of Jesus’ death and resurrection does not mark a break with previous messianic tradition given than the horizon of who and what this figure was had been changing and expanding almost since its inception in light of the changing experiences of Israel and the Jewish people. Furthermore, there is a thread of continuity that runs all the way to the instantiation of this concept when it was virtually synonymous with earthly kingship: The Messiah was to be one anointed by God as Lord of God’s people and raised up as a divine intervention in the world to save those people. Our affirmation of Jesus as Lord and Savior is included in our proclamation of him as Christ, the Messiah or anointed one.
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