A New Creation
The Messiah
And God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. And God said, “Let the earth put forth vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, upon the earth.” And it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, a third day.” (Book of Genesis)
The next day… one of the two who heard John speak, and followed him, was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He first found his brother Simon, and said to him, “we have found the Messiah” (which means Christ). (Gospel of Saint John)
On the third day, life begins. Day three in Genesis sees the world filled with life. The earth brings forth vegetation, seeds become plants and trees bear fruit. Likewise, in John’s gospel account, we see the third day begin to bear fruit – the spiritual fruit of discipleship takes root. John the Baptist’s testimony about Jesus leads to Christ’s first disciples. And those first disciples immediately make more disciples. For Andrew tells his brother Simon, “We have found the Messiah.”
What did that mean to ancient Jews to find their Messiah? In the last chapter and previous day of the gospel account, we talked about the origins of the ancient nation of Israel. Freedom from slavery and journey into the promised land, a land flowing with milk and honey where the people of God enter a covenant with God through Moses their mediator. This covenant established the sons of Israel as a nation of twelve tribes, one nation under God.
This nation was a theocracy, meaning the people entered a covenant with God. The Creator would be their leader, their Maker was head of all matters – civil, political, religious. God structured society and gave Moses the commandments by which the Israelites were to live by.
Very early in the establishment of the nation, Moses’ father-in-law gave him advice to set trustworthy men as judges to help Moses administer the affairs of state.
So, Moses gave heed to the voice of his father-in-law and did all that he had said. Moses chose able men out of all Israel, and made them heads over the people, rulers of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens. And they judged the people at all times. Hard cases they brought to Moses, but small matters they decided themselves.
In essence, they created a tiered judicial system that allowed them to provide justice to all the citizens of the nation. They had a Prophet who brought forth the law of God and judges who executed judgements on behalf the people. And priests who taught the people God’s way as well as executed the rites and rituals that bound them as the people of God.
In the early days the nation of Israel had a high priest, other priests, and judges to lead them. But no king. This form of government lasted for centuries. But the people grew weary of this form of government and wanted a king. The book of Judges ends with an almost lament, highlighting the dire circumstances,
In those days there was no king in Israel;
every man did what was right in his own eyes.
And so, time passed and centuries after the nation was established the people asked the Prophet Samuel for a king.
Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah, and said to him, “Behold, you are old, and your sons do not walk in your ways; now appoint for us a king to govern us like all the nations.” But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, “Give us a king to govern us.” And Samuel prayed to the Lord. And the Lord said to Samuel, “Listen to the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them. According to all the deeds which they have done to me, from the day I brought them up out of Egypt even to this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are also doing to you. Now then, listen to their voice. Only, you shall solemnly warn them, and show them the ways of the king who shall reign over them.”
The one anointed king is called Messiah (or, in Greek, Christos). And so, under the Prophet Samuel the nation of Israel became a monarchy – God’s kingdom. Their first king was Saul, and although Saul was a great man for uniting the nation under his leadership and establishing the kingdom of Israel, he was not a man after God’s own heart. The searched continued for a man after God’s own heart to be king.
After some time, Samuel anoints David to be king because David was a man after God’s own heart. David, which means ‘beloved,’ was born of the tribe of Judah. He was shepherd, poet, songwriter, psalmist, and warrior – he was not only a man after God’s own heart but also the people’s. David lived under the reign of Saul, and due to his talents as a musician, David was brought from the pastures of Judah to be a musician in Saul’s court. But soon he would become famous for his exploits in the battlefield, for David slew Goliath, the great enemy of the people of God. In gratitude, the people began singing songs of David’s feats on the battlefield, celebrating with new lyrics,
Saul has slain his thousands,
and David his ten thousands.
This provoked jealousy in King Saul who sought to destroy David. But his persecution of David only continued to confirm what God saw in David. David sought to live and honor God’s ways. During his life David would commit grave and grievous sins, but unlike Saul, he repented and confessed his sins to God. David always maintained a heart soft towards God, a heart of repentance. He confessed his sins, and while he still suffered the consequences of sin in his life, he lived in God’s mercy and forgiveness. It’s David who gives us confessorial psalms like
Have mercy on me, O god, according to your merciful love;
according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions.
Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin!
David was passionate for God – his dwelling, his people, and his ways – and his heart’s desire was to build God a home, a temple, a place where the ark of God could dwell in peace. When David told the prophet Nathan his desires, the Lord came to Nathan with a message for David. In short, while David wanted to build God a house in Jerusalem, instead it would be God who would build David a house, meaning a dynasty.
And so, God makes an eternal covenant and promise with King David.
The Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house. When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his father, and he shall be my son. When he commits iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men. But I will not take my merciful love from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you. And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever.
A thousand years later, this was fulfilled when the Angel Gabriel came to Mary, telling her in the annunciation,
“Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; and of his kingdom there will be no end.”
But before the fulfillment could take place in Jesus, we had hints of what was to come. In fact, David had two sons who reigned as king. One, Absalom (‘father of peace’), took over in a coup and died hung from a tree and pierced in his side. The second, Solomon (‘man of peace’), was the rightful successor who built God’s temple and became known as the wisest man to ever live, compiling the Wisdom literature for the people of God, including Proverbs, which teach the people of God how to live as kings on the earth.
But though Solomon was a picture of Christ, he wasn’t the perfect picture nor fulfillment of the promise to David. Soon, the kingdom of God on earth was split in two during the reign of Solomon’s son. God’s promise seemed to be fraying almost immediately. And the civil war split the kingdom in two, the 10 northern tribes became the Kingdom of Israel, and the two tribes of the south became the Kingdom of Judah, the one by which the promises of God would be chronicled. It seemed God’s promises were short-lived.
But God is not slow about his promise as some count slowness, but is patient towards us, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
Curiously, as the kingdoms of God were disintegrating and experiencing the pain of exile, God rose up great prophets to tell the people of his plans of salvation. And in these promises, the promises of David continued to be brought up in the memory of the people. For example, the Prophet Jeremiah (‘YHWH will raise’) spoke of a new and eternal covenant to come,
Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In his days, Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness.’
The Prophet Micah (‘who is like God?’) spoke,
It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised up above the hills; and peoples shall flow to it, and many nations shall come, and say:
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob that he may teach us his ways and we may walk in his paths.”
The Prophet Zechariah (‘God remembers’) said,
And the Lord will give victory to the tents of Judah first, that the glory of the house of David and the glory of the inhabitants of Jerusalem may not be exalted over that of Judah. On that day the Lord will put a shield about the inhabitants of Jerusalem so that the feeblest among them on that day shall be like David, and the house of David shall be like God, like the angel of the Lord, at their head. And on that day, I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.
And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of compassion and supplication, so that, when they look on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a first-born...
On that day there shall be a fountain opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to cleanse themselves from sin and uncleanness.
And on that day says the Lord of hosts, I will cut off the names of the idols from the land, so that shall be remembered no more.
And the Prophet Ezekiel (‘God strengthens’) also spoke of the promises regarding David,
And I will set up over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he shall feed them. He shall feed them and be their shepherd. And I, the Lord, will be their God, and my servant David shall be prince among them. I, the Lord, have spoken.
A little later, Ezekiel continues the message from God,
My servant David shall be king over them.
These prophecies about the son of David given through the prophets came hundreds of years after David died, and some of which came during exile or later when there was no king on the throne of Judah. Which makes their fulfillment all the more incredible and divine.
We could go on with prophecies and examples, for God sent many prophets to his people, but the point is prophet after prophet was sent by God to remind the people that the ancient promises to David were not forgotten and would be fulfilled completely. Absolom and Solomon simply prefigured a greater fulfillment of the promised son of David which was still to come. The true son of David was not his first sons, neither the one hung dead from the tree pierced by the spear or the other one who would build the temple, and yet, they were as their lives pointed forward to details that would be fulfilled and made true a millennia later in the eternal son of David. The first sons of David were signs pointing forward to the true son of David. And the ancient Jews eagerly awaited the Messiah, the son of David, the eternal Son of God who would reign forever.
Can you know see, dear reader, a small glimmer of the power behind Andrew’s words to his brother about the word incarnate, “We have found the Messiah.”
This is a very powerful context and background to the third day of John’s gospel, the days of God’s eternal king, Jesus of Nazareth. For on the third day of Saint John’s gospel, the disciples found life, true life eternal, for they found the king of the eternal kingdom. “We have found the Messiah.”
And as always, for the Catholic, there are deeper truths still.
For we see not only the kingship of God in the Messiah, but also the establishment of the sacrament of holy orders and the church hierarchy, a fulfillment of the new and eternal covenant for the people of God, the Church, with Peter set as the rock of Christ. For these first disciples were not only Christ’s apostles but also his priests. So, when Jesus sees Andrew’s brother, he looks at him and says, “So you are Simon the son of John? You shall be called Cephas” (which means Peter).
Christ is not only establishing the hierarchy and structure of the Church, but also establishing the priests who would impart divine life through the holy sacraments to God’s people. A fitting day’s work on this third day of John’s gospel on new creation, the day known for an abundance of life.
Malachi (‘messenger of God’) prophesied in the times of the Messiah that offerings would be made continually – which can only be made by priests – and which happens to be fulfilled in the daily liturgy of Catholics,
For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name is great among the nations, and in every place, incense is offered to my name, and a pure offering; for my name is great among the nations, says the Lord of hosts.
And to no surprise regarding God’s ways to announce beforehand what would happen before it happens, the promise of the transfer in the priesthood from Jewish to Catholic sacrifices was foretold in the ancient prophecies. Isaiah (‘God saves’) foretold of the changing priesthood between the fulfillment of the Old Covenants and inauguration of the New and Eternal Covenant with the prefigured story of casting of Shebna (‘tender youth,’ symbolic of the ancient priesthood under the Jewish high priest) to be replaced by Eliakim (‘God establishes’, symbolic of the Catholic priesthood under the holy Father).
Thus says the Lord God of hosts, “Come, go to this steward, to Shebna, who is over the household, and say to him: What have you to do here and whom have you here, that you have hewn here a tomb for yourself, you who hew a tomb on the height, and carve a habitation for yourself in the rock? Behold, the Lord will hurl you away violently, O you strong man. He will seize firm hold on you, and whirl you round and round, and throw you like a ball into a wide land; there you shall die, and there shall be your splendid chariots, you shame of your master’s house. I will thrust you from your office, and you will be cast down from your station. In that day, I will call my servant Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, and I will clothe him with your robe, and will bind your belt on him, and will commit your authority to his hand; and he shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah. And I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David; he shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open. And I will fasten him like a peg in a sure place, and he will become a throne of honor to his father’s house. And they will hang on him the whole weight of his father’s house, the offspring and issue, every small vessel, from the cups to all the flagons. In that day, says the Lord of hosts, the peg that was fastened in a sure place will give way. And it will be cut down and fall, and the burden that was upon it will be cut off, for the Lord has spoken.”
So, for the Catholic Christian, in the prophecies of Isaiah, we see the fulfillment of where the changing of the hierarchy of the Church was foretold. Jesus clearly assigns Peter into an office, the Office of Peter, today commonly known as the Pope, close to the Latin and Greek words which mean ‘Father.’ “And he shall be a father to the inhabitants of the city of Peace and to the house of Praise.”
Hence, Catholics pray for the holy Father who is the visible leadership and hierarchy of the Church on earth. Yes, Christ is the head of the Church, but he has his vicar (in other words, substitute) on earth, the Pope. Someone uniquely graced to lead Christ’s bride, the Church, in love, holiness, and purity. Christ did not leave his Church leaderless. In fact, he’s gifted us priests who are literally “in persona Christi.”
The Messiah has come, who is also high priest, and in his wisdom, he has appointed a Prime Minister for his people.