The Names and Titles of Jesus

 “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.....“Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” Luke 14:18-21

Have you ever had a confusing conversation when a word  used had two meanings and was understood differently by those sharing the discussion. Such words, are known as homonyms. Here are just a few.

When used as an adjective, "compact" means small, but when used as a verb, it means to make something smaller. It can also be used as a noun when talking about a small case for makeup. Or as a noun, "desert" is a dry, barren area of land where little rain occurs. When used as a verb, the word means to abandon a person or cause.  Other words such as fair, lie, lead and so on can be similarly misunderstood.

The title ‘Messiah’ (Christ in Greek) although not strictly a homonym, was understood in different ways when applied to Jesus. Messiah can mean the promised deliverer of the Jewish nation prophesied in the Hebrew Bible. It can also be interpreted as a leader regarded as the saviour of a particular country, group, or cause.

The question here is not the actual Saviour aspect of the word but the understanding of how such deliverance should be exercised. Strictly speaking, Messiah means the anointed one but the contemporary expectation at the time of Jesus amongst many Jews was for a warrior to rid the nation of the occupying Roman invaders. Whilst Jesus in his declaration in Luke 14 above, gave a classical proclamation of his Messiahship, his methods ran contrary to the understanding at that times. 

The record of the temptations of Jesus gives insight to his counter cultural living out of his Messiahship. Scholars are practically agreed that the essence of the temptation consists in the opposition of the current lower ideal of the Messianic kingdom to the higher as conceived in Jesus' own mind. His purpose to fulfil the most beautiful of the Messianic psalms, which pictures Israel's Shepherd, after he has led them through the valley of the shadow of death, preparing a table before them in the presence of their enemies, anointing their heads with oil, and filling their cup to overflowing but to do this Jesus chose a counter cultural way.

Within a culture that associated the coming of a Jewish king, descended from the line of David, with military and political domination, Jesus was exceptionally wary of being misconstrued. With good reason, he told Pilate, “My kingdom is not of this world” John 18:35. Jesus did not come to establish his rule through military power, but by giving his life as an atoning sacrifice for the sin of the world. He challenged his hearers to embrace his teaching of love towards enemies. Even when the people greeted him as “the son of David” on his entering Jerusalem, Jesus rode on a donkey, not a warrior’s horse.

For us, it is seeing afresh in faith the true essence of Messiahship, that of the redemption and rule of Jesus the Christ as perceived by Charles Wesley in his hymn.

1 Christ, whose glory fills the skies,
Christ, the true, the only Light,
Sun of Righteousness, arise,
triumph o'er the shades of night;
Dayspring from on high, be near;
Daystar, in my heart appear.

2 Dark and cheerless is the morn

unaccompanied by thee;
joyless is the day's return
'til thy mercy's beams I see;
'til they inward light impart,
glad my eyes, and warm my heart.

3 Visit then, this soul of mine;

pierce the gloom of sin and grief;
fill me, Radiancy divine;
scatter all my unbelief;
more and more thyself display,
shining to the perfect day.