Main news for 19 January 2021

The prophet's words that he is sent to bear witness to "the year of Yahweh's favor," the Synodal translation's "acceptable year of the Lord," Jesus clearly applies to Himself. The corresponding prophecy was obviously messianic for everyone, and the "year of favor" was perceived as the year of the Messiah's coming. Jesus applies what was said to His own coming, thereby hinting at His own messiahship, of which He almost never spoke directly. Such hints were probably connected with the fact that His messiahship clearly did not correspond either to popular messianic ideas or to the corresponding expectations.

On the one hand, Jesus had to make clear to those who listened to Him that the messianic age had arrived and that He Himself was the expected Messiah. At the same time, it was by no means part of His plans to become the leader of a mass messianic religious and political movement, to which everything would inevitably have been reduced if He had declared His messiahship directly and openly. Apparently, the hints and corresponding messianic Old Testament texts were meant not only to make the listeners suppose that the speaker was testifying about Himself as the Messiah, but also to make them think about why He did not say this directly.

In this way Jesus probably wanted to cut off the idly curious and those who were satisfied only by traditional ideas, or their own ideas, about the Messiah and what He should be. He wanted to draw the attention of those who understood the language of a subtle hint and were ready to see a completely unexpected Messiah whose image did not fit into familiar frameworks and traditional schemes.

Besides cutting off those who were eager to begin a messianic war immediately, there was also another goal here. A person following Jesus had to be ready for surprises, and precisely where and when, it would seem, they could least be expected. Both His own path of the cross and resurrection and the path of those who followed Him were unlike anything known and familiar.

Here it was often necessary to act in a situation where logic and traditional models failed completely and could only get in the way. It was better to prepare His disciples for this from the very beginning, from the very beginning to make them see the traditional and familiar in an unexpected and unfamiliar way. Sometimes such a view could even shock, but it was better to experience the shock at the beginning of the path so as to become accustomed to it, and in the future, when there would be much more that was shocking in life, to accept it already as a natural and inevitable part of the Christian's path.