HE WHO WILL COME - THE MESSIAH

HE WHO WILL COME

In the house at Nazareth Jesus meditates on the Command­ments of the Law, and in the fiery laments of the Prophets He recognizes His destiny. The promises are insistent like knock­ing on obstinately closed doors. They are repeated, reiterated, never denied, and always confirmed. Precise, minute with irrefut­able testimony, they foretell the story. When Jesus at the be­ginning of His thirtieth year presents Himself to men as the Son of Man, He knows what awaits Him, even to the last: His life to come is already set down day by day in pages writ­ten before His earthly birth.

He knows that God promised Moses a new prophet, "I will raise them up a prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him." (Deut. 18:18) God will make a new covenant with His people. "Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers . . . but I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts. . . . I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more." (Jer. 31:32-33) A covenant inscribed upon souls and not upon stone; a covenant of forgiveness and not of punishment!

The Messiah will have a precursor to announce Him. "Be­hold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me." (Mal. 3:1).

"For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, and the Prince of Peace." (Isa. 9:6) But the people will be blind to Him and will not listen to Him: "Make the heart of this peo­ple fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes: lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and under­stand with their hearts, and convert, and be healed." (Isa. 6:10)

“And he shall be a stone of stumbling and for a rock of of­fence to both the houses of Israel, for a gin and for a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.” (Isa. 8:14)

He will not magnify and flaunt Himself: He will not come in proud triumph, "Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion, shout O daughter of Jerusalem, behold thy King cometh unto thee: he is just and having salvation, lowly and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt, the foal of an ass." (Zech. 9:9)

He will bring justice and will lift up the unhappy; ". . . because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; . . . to comfort all that mourn." (Isa. 61:1-2) "The meek also shall increase their joy in the Lord, and the poor among men shall rejoice in the Holy One of Israel. For the terrible one is brought to naught, and the scorner is con­sumed, and all that watch for iniquity are cut off." (Isa. 29:19-20)

“Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as a hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing.” (Isa. 35:5-6)

"I, the Lord, have called thee in righteousness . . . to open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness from the prison-house." (Isa. 42:6-7)

But He will be criticized and tortured by the very people He comes to save: "he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows and ac­quainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised and we esteemed him not.” (Isa. 53:2-3)

"Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sor­rows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.” (Isa. 53:4)

“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. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned everyone to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.” (Isa. 53:5-6)

"He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth . . . for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken.” (Isa. 53:7-8)

"Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. He shall see of the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death; and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sins of many, and made intercession for the transgressors." (Isa. 53:10-12)

He will not draw back before the vilest insults. "I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not my face from shame and spitting." (Isa. 50:6)

All will be against Him in the supreme moment. "They have spoken against me with a lying tongue. They compassed me about also with words of hatred; and fought against me without a cause. For my love they are my adversaries." (Psa. 109:2-4)

The son cries to the Father:

"Thou hast known my reproach, and my shame, and my dishonor: mine adversaries are all before thee.” (Psa. 69:19)

"Reproach hath broken my heart; and I am full of heavi­ness: and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none.” (Psa. 69:20)

"They gave me also gall for my meat; and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink." (Psa. 69:21)

They pierce Him with nails and divide His clothes among themselves.

"For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have enclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet.” (Psa. 22:16)

“. . . They look and stare upon me. They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture." (Psa. 22:17-18)

Too late they will understand what they have done and will repent.

“. …and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitter­ness for his first born." (Zech. 12:10)

"Yea, all kings shall bow down before him: all nations shall serve him.” (Psa. 72:11)

"For he shall deliver the needy when he crieth; the poor also, and him that hath no helper. He shall spare the poor and needy, and shall save the souls of the needy." (Psa. 72:12-13)

"The sons also of them that afflicted thee shall come bend­ing unto thee; and all they that despised thee shall bow them­selves down at the soles of thy feet." (Isa. 60:14)

“For behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and hi_ts glory shall be seen upon thee.” (Isa. 60:2)

"And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising.” (Isa. 60:3)

"Lift up thine eyes round about, and see: all they gather themselves together, they come to thee: thy sons shalt come from far, and thy daughters shall be nursed at thy side." (Isa. 60:4)

"Behold, I have given him for a witness to the people, a leader and commander to the people. Behold, thou shalt call a nation that thou knowest not, and nations that knew not thee shall run into thee because of the Lord thy God." (Isa. 55:4-5)

These and other words are remembered by Jesus in the vigil before His departure. He foresees it all and does not turn away from it. From now on He knows His fate, the ingrati­tude of heart, the deafness of His friends, the hatred of the powerful, the scourging’s, the spitting’s, insults, scoffing, the criticism, piercing of the hands and feet, tortures and death. He knows that the Jews, carnal-minded materialists embittered by humiliation, full of malice and evil thoughts, are not await­ing a poor, gentle, despised Messiah. They all, except a few of clear and prophetic vision, are dreaming of a terrestrial Mes­siah, an armed King, a second David, a warrior who will shed real blood, the red blood of enemies, who will rebuild more splendidly than ever the palace of Solomon and the Temple. All the kings will bring tribute to Him, not tribute of love and reverence, but of massive amounts of gold and silver coin. This earthly King will revenge Himself on the enemies of Israel, on those who make Israel suffer, who hold the people of Israel in slavery. The slaves will be masters and the masters’ slaves, and all the countries of the world will have their capital at Jerusalem and crowned kings will kneel before the throne of the new king of Israel. The fields of Israel will be more fertile than all the others, their pastures richer, their flocks will multiply end­lessly, wheat and barley will be harvested twice a year, the ears of wheat will be heavier than in the past, and two men will bend under the weight of a single bunch of grapes. There will not be enough wine-skins to contain the vintage nor enough jars to hold all the oil, and honey will be found in the hollows of the trees and in the shrubberies of the roads. The branches of the trees will break under the weight of the fruit, and the fruit will be pulpy and sweet as it never was before.

This is the Messiah expected by the Jews who surround Jesus. He knows He cannot give them what they seek, that He cannot be the victorious warrior and the proud king tower­ing up among subject kings. He knows that His kingdom is not of this earth and that He will be able to offer only a little bread, all His blood and all His love. They will not be­lieve in Him, will torture Him and will kill Him as a false pre­tender. He knows all that. He knows it as if He had seen it with His eyes and endured it with His body and soul. But He knows that the seed of His word thrown into the earth among thistles and thorns, trampled underfoot by assassins, will start into life when spring comes. At first beaten down by the wind, little by little it will grow, until finally it becomes a tree stretching its branches up to the sky, covering the earth with the branches. And all men can sit round about it, remembering the death of Him who planted it.

While Jesus, in the poor little work-shop at Nazareth, was handling the ax and the square, a voice was raised in the desert towards Jordan and the Dead Sea. Last of the Prophets, John the Baptist called the Jews to repent, announced the ap­proach of the Kingdom of Heaven, predicted the coming of the Messiah, reproved the sinners who came to him, and plunged them into the water of the river, that this outer washing might be the beginning of an inner purification.

In that dark age of the Herods, old Judea profaned by the Idumean usurpers, contaminated by Greek infiltration, scorned by the Roman soldiery; without King, without unity, without glory; already half dispersed throughout the world; betrayed by their own priests; always remembering the gran­deur of their earthly kingdom of a thousand years ago; always obstinately hoping for a great vengeance, for a miraculous resurrection, for a return of victory in a triumph of its God, in the coming of a Savior, of a liberator, of an anointed one who should reign in a new Jerusalem stronger and more beautiful than that of Solomon, and from Jerusalem dominate all the peoples, overcome all other monarchs, conquer all empires and bring happiness to its nation and to all men,—old Judea hating its masters, robbed by the publicans, plagued by the greedy scribes and by the hypocritical Pharisees, old Judea divided, humiliated, plundered and yet in spite of all its shame full of faith for the future, willingly lent an ear to the voice of the desert, and hastened to the banks of the Jordan.

John's figure was one to conquer the imagination. A child sprung by a miracle from parents of great age, he was set apart from his birth to be Nazir—pure. He had never cut his hair, had never tasted wine or cider, had never touched a woman nor known any love except that for God. While he was still young, he had left his parents' home and buried himself in the desert. There he lived for many years alone, without a house, without a tent, without servants, with nothing of his own ex­cept what he had on his back. Wrapped in his camel's skin, his flanks covered by a leather belt, tall, bony, baked by the sun, his chest hairy, his hair hanging long on his shoulders, his long beard almost covering his face, his piercing eyes flashed like lightning from under his busy eyebrows when from his mouth hidden by his beard burst out the tremendous words of his curses.

This hypnotic wild man, solitary as a Yogi, despising pleas­ure like a stoic, seemed to those whom he baptized the last hope of a despairing people.

Jesus heard the people talk of those "washed ones" who re­turned from Jordan and took up their former lives, as in the morning a garment is resumed which was thrown away with re­lief the evening before; and He understood that His day grew near. He was now in His thirtieth year, the right and destined age. Before he is thirty, a man is only a sketch, an approximation, dominated by the common sentiments and common loves of all. He does not know men well, and hence cannot love them with that love, sweet with compassion, with which they should be loved. And without knowing them or knowing how to love them, he cannot speak with authority, cannot make himself heard, and has not the power of saving them according to their estimation.