Originally posted on October 11, 2013
Jesus was created by God, and born under circumstances which promoted him to fulfill the prophecy of many, to become God’s divine Messiah. Messiah is the highest place on the Hierarchy of Holiness. Jesus was the Son of God. A Son of God is a man who is most holy in God’s eyes, and whom comes to deliver a specific message from God to His people, His Chosen Ones.
Hundreds of years before Jesus was born, many prophesied about the coming Messiah. This is one of my favorite prophecies in the Book of Jeremiah:
“Behold, the days are coming,” says the LORD,
“That I will raise to David
a Branch of righteousness;
A King shall reign and prosper,
And execute judgment and righteousness in the earth.
In his days Judah will be saved,
And Israel will dwell safely;
Now this is his name by which he will be called:
The Lord Our Righteousness” ~Jeremiah 23:5-6
The main mission of Jesus was to be the perfect sacrificial lamb to make atonement for our sins, and the sins of the whole world, for all future time. He knew he was destined to die for the sins of the world, probably from a young age. I suspect he studied with scribes and holy men at Wadi Qumran, in a private settlement on top of the mountains overlooking the Dead Sea. This is also where the Dead Sea Scroll of Isaiah and other scrolls were found, as they had apparently been carefully hidden in a dry, remote cave, and safely preserved for thousands of years. Jesus knew his Old Testament well, and quoted it often, as evidenced by the Gospels. He also knew the Law well, and some of my most favorite verses are when he retorts back to the devil’s temptations by directly quoting God’s Law. He was obviously a good Jew.
But he also came to give us a fresh message of who God was, and to clean things up, as a true Prophet. His original Beatitudes and Lord’s Prayer; his counter argument to Moses’ divorce decree; his miraculous healing in God’s name; his cleansing of the temple; and his admonition to men that God’s love was unconditional, and therefore common and good man must not judge his neighbor and stone him to death; were all things that were new and fresh.
Many think incorrectly that the Last Supper scenario illustrated in the Book of John, whereby Jesus washed the feet of his disciples, means something about the master serving the slave, or some other contrived message. It did not mean that. Jesus, knowing the Law well, was performing a necessary cleansing ritual to make his disciples Priests, as outlined in Leviticus (see my post on Laws for God’s People for more details). He removed his clothes (part of the ritual) and said to Peter, when Peter questioned him as to why Jesus was washing his feet,
“What I am doing you do not understand now, but you will know after this…If I do not wash you, you have no part with me.” ~John 13:7,8
Because being clean is very important in God’s Law. Priests must undergo a ritualistic ceremony where they are cleansed, brought into the sanctuary, and atonement is made for them. Then they are deemed worthy to serve God as Priests. The next part of the ritual is to kill the sacrificial beast, bleed it, and sprinkle its blood on the altar (because it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul), burn the fat and part of the animal on the altar for a sweet aroma to the LORD, and finally to eat of part of the meat of the animal, and to enjoy drink offerings, and bread offerings. Jesus knew in a matter of days he was going to become that sacrificial beast, so he was making them worthy by making them Priests in this priestly ceremony of cleansing. And he would follow it up with symbolically having them eat his body as bread, and drink his blood as wine: the Last Supper or the Priestly Ritual:
“This is my body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of me…This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is shed for you.” ~Luke 22:19,20
In this way he was fulfilling all the Law. He would fulfill the Prophets once he died and ascended into heaven. Thus, he uttered,
“It is finished.” ~John 19:30
His disciples are now Priests, because Jesus made them Priests. They will become Apostles once they set out and start preaching God’s message, and the gospel of Christ.
Another place in Jeremiah that prophesied about Jesus unmistakably is entitled “A New Covenant” (Jeremiah 31:31):
“Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant
with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah–not according to the covenant
that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand
to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband
to them,” says the LORD. ”But this is the covenant that I will make with the house if Israel
after those days,” says the LORD: ”I will put My Law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God,
and they shall be My people….
For they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the
greatest of them,” says the LORD. ”For I will
forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.” ~Jeremiah 31:31-34
Jesus is the New Covenant, to us from God. He died for our sins, once and for all. We only need to invoke his name and the memory of his passion and sacrifice for us, with a contrite heart, to be redeemed unto God. Jesus is NOT God. But he is the embodiment of the holiest state man can attain on earth; he is our primary Messiah. He is the way for the whole world to know about God. And God wants this, for Christianity to spread God’s Divine Message and Love, so that every living soul knows God.
Thank You, LORD God for this sacred gift of your beloved Son. Amen.
~Song of Mary~ 