Calling all vicars!

[OhWesternWind]

Would really appreciate some help from any vicars/ministers around on here. We are not a religious family and don't have any connections to the church, but my son has been given a homework exercise to ask some questions of a vicar/minister about the Messiah. If anyone could spare a few minutes to help with this, we would be very grateful.

Here is the homework . . .

^The Hebrew word Mashiach means anointed one, and refers to a mortal human being. Within Judaism, the Mashiach is a human being who will be a descendant of King David continuing the Davidic line and who will usher in a messianic era of peace and prosperity for Israel and all the nations of the world. The job description, as such, is this:

1 All of the people of Israel will come back to the Torah.
2 The people of Israel will be gathered back to the land of Israel.
3 The Holy Temple in Jerusalem will be rebuilt.
4 Israel will live among the nations as an equal, and will be strong enough to defend herself.
5 Eventually war, hatred and famine will end and an era of peace and prosperity will come upon the earth.

In view of the above, ask a minister or vicar:

1 What was the Messiah?
2 Was Jesus the Messiah?
3 Why did he not complete everything the Messiah was supposed to do?
4 Was the Messiah God?^

Thanks so much for your help.

Sure, I get that. But if you are keen to learn about a subject, then it can be helpful to do some background reading - it might help in asking the questions in an intelligent way.

Anyway, I’m a Christian, and like some vicars, my response would be to say “let’s see what the NT has to say”, so that is an example of how believers approach such questions.

I've sent you a pm
hope it is understandable!

3dad - actually the Old Testament has quite a lot to say and is relevant in that it is part of the messianic prophecies.

eg Isaiah says - a virgin will give birth to a son and he will be called Immanuel.

Immanuel means God with us, ie, that the baby is God, now with us.
So well before Jesus even appeared, there is the promise that the Messiah will be God.

This matters because it is a point of contact between the two faiths, and can help bridge the gap.

Thanks, steppe.

Yes, I know there's a lot in the Old Testament - after all that's implication in the OP, that the Messiah comes from Jewish beliefs (as established in the OT). As the questions being asked are about Christian belief, I focussed on NT as bringing new interpretation to the Messiah - eg as you know, that Isaiah passage is quoted in Matthew's gospel (I think), showing that it applied to Jesus.

We could probably spend all day discussing the various passages in the OT that are quoted to or alluded to in the NT - eg plenty more in Isaiah, Psalm 22, ... But I don't have a theology degree, so I defer to your expertise.

Pah I just wrote a really long answer to this series of questions , got down to question 4 and actually managed to delete my unsaved post...

This will be a shorter version as I really must get on with vicaring...
Firstly I would dispute the set up of this question as Jewish theology is as delightfully diverse as that of Christianity and Islam. There is no one view of what the Messiah is.

1 What was the Messiah?
Always a person, although sometimes just a hope? The anointed one come to save the people, to bring them back to God and reunite the people - sometimes this comes through defeating the enemies (Psalms) and sometimes through sacrifice and peace (Isaiah and Micah for example)

2 Was Jesus the Messiah?
As a christian I think he was yes, but this is not easy to prove to those of other faiths and none

3 Why did he not complete everything the Messiah was supposed to do?
Jesus throughout his ministry was at pains to let humanity know that what they thought God wanted, was not necessarily the case. He mostly saw the coming together of people as referring to more than just Israel, preached and demonstrated love, forgiveness, care for neighbour and through his death and resurrection brought about a new covenant between God and the world
4 Was the Messiah God?^
According to John 1 the Word was with God before the incarnation. In that sense, yes. But in Phillipians 2 we learn of Kenosis - the chosen emptying of his divine nature by Jesus when he came as one of us, putting himself under God's will. So in that sense, no Most Christians see Jesus as both divine and human.

NB this is one (rather rusty) theological interpretation. There are many, many others.

Everyone else can wake up now :)

yes 3 dad - I'm not disagreeing with you!

It is interesting though, in this context, when looking at the comparison between the Christian and Jewish understanding of the Messiah to begin with how the Christians view the Jewish scriptures.

if you are to have a conversation between the two faiths about their understanding of it, then you have a fundamental problem that the Jews don't recognise the NT, and so if you can find the Christian beliefs in the OT, it is a starting point to understanding both faiths, and where they agree and where they differ.

Obviously, in order to fully understand the Christian faith, you then have to move on to what the NT says! And how the OT prophecies are interpreted in the NT.
It is always tricky though to say Jesus says this about himself, it is better to say - the OT predicted that this would happen and then it did in Jesus.

Blimey, both my parents are vicars but I have to say it is pushing it a bit asking a class to go and collar them with questions like this! They are incredibly busy people, especially at the minute!

Should clarify- they would both willingly help the children, but the chances are in a small rural area it is potentially 20 kids!! The school would have done better to arrange the vicar to come in for a debate with the entire class at once!

I agree orlando.
I am wondering if the teacher is hoping for a variety of answers.

Yes I agree too Orlando - round here I would think that at least 95% of the children will have approached the same vicar. It's his lesson tomorrow so I'll ask him how it went.

Thank you all so much and particularly Steppemum and Fluffy for answering the questions. I've actually very much enjoyed reading what everyone has had to say on here and, as an agnostic, it's been really interesting for me to think about a religious question (or four), which is, I guess, something I've not done for the last thirty odd years, although I was brought up in a strongly Methodist household. My son's really grateful for all the input on this thread too and asked me to pass on his thanks.