SCRIPTURE: Mark 8:27-30
We are so familiar with calling Jesus ‘the Christ’ that the shock value is gone.
For centuries the people of Israel (and of all nations) have been hoping and waiting for a Deliverer, a God-ordained, God-equipped Messiah who would finally set things straight.
Many would-be Messiah’s have come and gone, but none were able to defeat the ‘serpent;s curse’ and restore God’s world.
For the Jews, everything hinged on God’s Messiah (in Greek, ‘Christ’), which literally meant ‘the Anointed One’.
Not just a forerunner of the Messiah (like prophets and teachers and leaders who came before), but the Real Deal!
Jesus is the hope of the world, for everyone no matter who, no matter what nationality or ethnicity or religion… He is God’s answer to our need.
The reason that Jesus urges them to keep this quiet is because He wanted to avoid a revolutionary upheaval among the Jews, with the Romans.
For Jesus does not come with an army, He does not establish God’s kingdom by force; Jesus comes to deal with our morality and mortality issues – He deals with the curse of sin and death.
And the way to experience God’s help through God’s Messiah is repentance, humility, honesty, sincerity and love.
God is restoring His world (kingdom) and His family through Jesus; by His death and resurrection He deals with the real problem in our world, the curse of sin and death.
This is the Messiah (Christ) we need; who do YOU say He is?
What do you sense the Lord saying to you?
PRAYER
God, if Jesus is Your appointed Saviour, then I need Him, I want Him, I choose Him. Help me to answer this question not only with my mind and my mouth, but with my life. Help me to follow, to join with Jesus as my Saviour and Lord!
Observations/Application
During His travels Jesus asked the disciples – it does not say just the 12 – His identity. The followers were looking for a deliverer from the Romans – a messiah – a saviour. Others compared Jesus to former prophets of whom they had heard. They were comparing Christ to what they heard and knew and what they desired.
It is Peter once again who hit the nail on the head when he called Jesus the Messiah because He would save the people from their sin but not from the foreign occupation of the Romans which they desired. The followers were looking for freedom from the Romans and Jesus gave the freedom from the grip of sin and death and disease.
The Messiah had come – the Dellverer of the people from the bondage of by His birth, life, suffering, death, resurrection, showing Himself to many, Ascension, ruling at the right hand, return to establish His kingdom in full. That Kingdom is being established by His followers today and every day and will come in full when He returns. In the meantime, the followers of His day did not understand.the Messiah they needed. Do I?
Prayer
Lord Jesus, let me live this day in Your presence being an instrument of Your peace so others may see how to live for Jesus – the One who has set me free.
Let all things now living a song of thanksgiving
To God the creator triumphantly raise.
Who fashioned and made us, protected and stayed us,
Who still guides us on to the end of our days.
God’s banners are o’er us, His light goes before us,
A pillar of fire shining forth in the night.
Till shadows have vanished and darkness is banished
As forward we travel from light into light.
His law he enforces, the stars in their courses
And sun in its orbit obediently shine;
The hills and the mountains, the rivers and fountains,
The deeps of the ocean proclaim him divine.
We too should be voicing our love and rejoicing;
With glad adoration a Song let us raise
Till all things now living unite in thanksgiving:
“To God in the highest, Hosanna and praise!”