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Jesus is the Messiah the Jews were waiting for.
He is the Son of God, who through his suffering, death and resurrection created a new relationship between God and man. Judaism: Jesus is neither the Son of God nor the Messiah, but born and raised as a Jew.
We usually don't do much on Easter Saturday. The most important and what we focus on the most are Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday.
Mark tells us that the disciples complained and wept and probably never forgot this day.
There were also big contrasts:
The Jews around them were busy celebrating the Jewish Passover - God's great intervention in Egypt. They still rejoiced that God fulfilled his promises, took care of his people and met their hope of deliverance - It was a joyous celebration for the Jews.
They did not understand that JESUS WAS THE PROMISED MESSIAH.
To this day, the Jews are waiting for the MESSIAH to come and reveal himself to them - But he has come the first time, and will come again!
The disciples had no cause for joy, for them it was a sad and dark day.
Their hopes, dreams and expectations all their lives had been closely linked to JESUS
Now he was in the grave.
They had left family, hometown and work to follow him. For 3 years they had heard his stories and seen the mighty signs he had done. They had experienced the most exciting thing in their lives.
Now Jesus was dead and they had lost everything. They were now left with hopelessness, despair, broken dreams, crying and sorrow. Their world had collapsed and life was in ruins.
FEAR
In addition to the crippling sadness within them, they also had an external fear. Now that the enemies had killed Jesus, who was next? That is why we read that they entrenched themselves behind closed doors for fear of the Jews.
INNER SORROW AND OUTER FEAR.
The thought that they would never see their beloved JESUS again was unbearable. This was the reality they now had to live in and would they survive or would they also suffer death in a cruel way?
WHAT ABOUT THE SPARK OF LIFE
– WAS IT GONE FOREVER?
We can also experience situations where our legs are swept away from under us.
Easter Saturday reminds us that we are not the first to experience it. Jesus' disciples lived through the day when they also had to ask:
GOD, WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN US?
They did not know that there was a RESURRECTION, an Easter morning - We know that, in the midst of what we are experiencing!
“BUT HE WAS PIERCED FOR OUR TRESPASSES AND BROKEN FOR OUR SINS. HE WAS PUNISHED SO WE COULD HAVE PEACE, BY HIS WOUNDS WE WERE HEALED. WE FLAPPED AROUND LIKE SHEEP, WE TURNED EACH WAY, BUT THE LORD LET ALL OUR GUILT HIT HIM. Isaiah 53:5-6
GOD IS WITH YOU - SEEK HELP FROM HIM
– HE WILL NOT LET YOU DOWN!
EASTER MEANS LIVING HOPE,
Jesus is God's Son Messiah, the savior of the world for all who accept Him as the Messiah He is and is born of water, of the Spirit. John 3
a who believed what they heard? Isaiah 53.
The Messiah in the Old Testament
Messiah is Hebrew and means 'the anointed one' (eg Psalm 2,2). In Greek, 'the anointed one' is called Christ.
In the NT, Peter confesses that Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ, ie. the anointed one/Messiah to whom the promise in the OT is attached. Jesus says in this connection that he did not see this himself, but was revealed by God (see the Gospel of Matthew ch. 16,15ff). Psalm 2 also refers to God's anointed as the son (Psalm 2,7). This confession reads, among other things, at the baptism of Jesus (Matthew ch. 3,17) and at the explanation on the mountain (Matthew ch. 17,5) by God himself.
In the OT there are many statements and prophecies about the Messiah, although the name is not directly expressed. Even before Adam and Eve were thrown out of the Garden of Eden, God gave them a promise that they could believe in (Genesis 3:15). He would send one who would be human and at the same time powerful enough to crush Satan. For this to happen, this man had to possess divine powers; After all, Adam and Eve themselves had just experienced that, as people with human powers, they could not resist Satan. To Abraham several promises are made. Especially Genesis 12,1-3 is significant. Here God promises that a son will come, through whom the whole earth will be blessed. This means that the curse and punishment of sin must be removed from people if they believe in this promise (cf. Genesis 15:1-6). Abraham did. In fact, Jesus says that Abraham looked forward to "seeing his day and seeing it" (John 8,56)!
When the patriarch Jacob is to bless his sons before his death, he also talks about the coming Messiah (Genesis 49:8-12). The unreliable prophet Balaam becomes a tool to come up with a prophecy about the Messiah (Numbers 24,17). And many more could be mentioned...in the historical writings, in the Psalms (e.g. 2, 89, 118) and in the prophets (e.g. the book of Isaiah 7,14; 9,6-7; 52,13-53,12, the book of Micah 5.1ff).
This means that right from the time after the Fall until the birth of Jesus, there have been statements/prophecies about the blessing/son/messiah that the entire human race has been able to believe. Faith belongs in relation to God in the covenant that God has established with man (see again Genesis chapter 15 and 17). Within this covenant, God's grace, justice, mercy and forgiveness reign, and the person in the covenant is required to be obedient (see, for example, Deuteronomy ch. 30).
Belief in the Messiah - starting point in the Old Covenant
This faith has three things in particular to deal with within the covenant, and these three things are at the same time something that goes beyond themselves and points to the coming Messiah.
The first is the entire sacrificial law (found especially in Leviticus). It is not the sacrifices themselves or the making of a sacrifice that cleanses from sin and saves a person or makes him clean again. Here, too, it is faith that is decisive. The belief that God forgives sin by the blood (Leviticus 17,11). In this connection, it is the priest and especially the high priest who is at the center (see e.g. Leviticus 16). This one was anointed to stand in the service of God and men, but is not himself called the anointed.
The second is the King institution. After the first king, Saul, David becomes king of Israel. When the king enters his ministry, he is anointed (specially equipped by God by his Spirit). He becomes a model of the Messiah who is to come and rule. In a promise from God, David hears that his kingdom will last forever, and a son from his family will come and sit on the throne. It must be a kingdom of peace (see 2 Samuel ch. 7). This text becomes a key place for the speech of the prophets.
The third is the prophetic ministry. A prophet is called by God to service in a special way, i.e. to bring a message from God into time to a people who often do not want to know about God or listen to him. Also, a prophet is anointed at the entrance to this service. The prophets speak in several places about the coming Messiah and about the kingdom he will bring (eg the book of Isaiah ch. 11.1ff; 35.1ff; 65.17-25).
Messiah parallels in the New Testament and the Old Testament
We do not directly find a place in the NT where Jesus summarizes being the Messiah in these three things - or offices, as they are also called: Priest, King and Prophet. In the early church, however, it quickly becomes normal to see Jesus in this way in the light of the OT as Messiah and Christ. God's true Anointed and God's Son.
I will show three places in the OT (and which are used in the NT) which for me clearly indicate that it is biblical to talk about Jesus in this way.
1. Moses says in Deuteronomy 18:15: "The Lord your God will raise up for you from among you a prophet like me, one of your own; you must obey him." In the Gospel of John chapter 6,14 we can read: "When the people had seen the sign he had done, they said: "He is indeed the Prophet who is to come into the world." In the Acts of the Apostles, this is unfolded by Peter and Stephen. (see also Jesus' own understanding in the Gospel of Luke ch. 4,16ff).
2. The suffering servant or priest who is sacrificed is described in Isaiah chapter 53. This text is used about Jesus in the NT (1 Peter 2,22-25; 2 Corinthians 5,21). About the OT priesthood, sacrifice, blood and high priest – contained in Jesus Christ – this is the theme of the entire book of Hebrews (especially ch. 6,13-10,18).
3. The saving King is mentioned, among other things in the book of Zechariah 9,9 (see also the book of Isaiah 62,11f). This prophecy is said about Jesus at the entry into Jerusalem in connection with the Passover before his death (Matthew 21,5). Jesus says of himself that he is the lord/king of heaven and earth (Matthew 28:18). And at the end of his Pentecost speech, when the Spirit has come upon the disciples, Peter says that Jesus is both Lord/King and Christ/Messiah (Acts 2:36). Yes, the disciple Thomas can even exclaim: "My Lord and my God!" (John's Gospel 20,28,31).
The scribes (the teachers) the Pharisees knew everything about the prophecies written in the OT, but they did not believe when the prophecy at the birth of the Messiah, Jesus, came.
Today people are very intelligent but many do not believe in the Messiah, the savior of the world today. Do you?
Like false Messiahs or Christs will arise, as Jesus has said it will happen. Do you think so?
Do you believe and live with the true Christ, the Messiah today?
Is Jesus the Son of God the living resurrected Messiah for you today?
THERE IS A BIG DIFFERENCE BETWEEN RELIGION WITHOUT THE HOLY SPIRIT AND THE TRUE LIVING MESSIAH, JESUS THE SON OF GOD.
Maranata! Come Lord km soon!
Amen
