The Messiah: What Do Modern Day Jews Think About Him (Or Do They)?

I wrote this a little over two years ago after speaking with a Jewish co-worker named Bryan.  I'd like to know what the modern day Jewish culture thinks about the Messiah.  From what I could garner from Bryan, many modern day Jews don't think about the Messiah an awful lot.  If you happen to read this, and you're Jewish, I would really like a comment, because I would like to know what you think about the Messiah, and how you would get around the Catch 22 I outline in this commentary.

I wish I understood the Jews more.  After all, they are God’s chosen people, and I am not like Mel Gibson, in his infamous, drunken rantings about the Jews.  I believe in the Bible, and that includes the Old Testament (the Jewish Bible) going all the way back to King David and Moses and Abraham and Noah and Adam and Eve.  The New Testament is replete with reverence and acknowledgement for such as these, even from Jesus Christ Himself, so I’m not going to be anti-Semitic here and hate the Jews or accuse them of killing Jesus.  Jesus was a Jew Himself, and so were Peter and James and John and Paul, and these are all men of faith to admire and look up to and to emulate.  Truthfully, so are such modern day Jews in the Conservative camp as Michael Medved and Jeff Jacoby as far as I’m concerned, particularly for their ideals.  I find their words and beliefs are noble.

And yet I still have questions about what the modern day Jews believe about their own Old Testament, and the prophesies regarding their Messiah:  Who are they looking for?  I know their Bible, what we Christians call the Old Testament, talks about a coming Messiah.  If they don’t believe that Jesus was the Messiah, then what was He?  And who is the Messiah?  Will they recognize Him when they see Him, and what will cause them to believe?  What do they make of their Old Testament prophesies concerning the Messiah, and are they even looking?  If the Messiah shows up, will they recognize Him as such, or reject Him on the same grounds they rejected Jesus by?

First, we must look at their rejection of Jesus, and why they didn’t believe He was the Messiah, and why they still don’t.  What do they believe about Him?  Do they put any stock in the New Testament at all?  I mean, the New Testament DOES concern them, as most people IN the New Testament are Jewish, written by Jews, and, for the most part, for Jews.  Are they just dismissing all of that out of hand because it’s the “Christian’s Bible”?  They say Jesus was merely a man, just a human, and therefore, cannot be the Messiah, because the Messiah must be more than a man; He must be special, set apart by God as being more than just a man, and therefore they reject Jesus.  By the same token, they take exception with Jesus for claiming He was more than a man, upset because there is only one God.  When Jesus claimed He was the special Son of God, a part of God, fully God and fully man at the same time, the Jews rejected Him for this.  Because of this rejection, I don’t quite understand who they are expecting.  From their perspective, won’t they make the same mistake when the One they think is their Messiah shows up on the scene?  If this future Messiah is more than a man, I can see them rejecting Him because there is only one God, and if he’s just a man, they will reject him because the Messiah is more than just a man.  It seems to me they don’t understand the nature of their own religious Catch-22, do they?

Not that they’re even looking for a Messiah, of course, or at least the normal Jew isn’t.  They may attend synagogue consistently and read the Torah, and try to live by the modern interpretation of the Old Testament law, but from the few Jewish people I’ve talked to, their search for a Messiah is about as lax as their questioning about what awaits them in the afterlife.  Straight from the mouths of the few Jewish people I have spoken with about this, they really don’t think about such things.  They just “go to synagogue and try to be a good Jew.”  That doesn't answer the question.

I’d like to talk with someone who is not quite so lax in their religion – perhaps Hasidic Jews would be the ones who might have a better answer as to who they are looking for in a Messiah, and perhaps they are the ones who are actively searching for Him.  But I won’t hold my breath.  After all, they are still rejecting the real deal on the basis that he was either just a man, or a lunatic who claimed to be God, or someone whose words were twisted over time while putting much more credence to everything written in the Old Testament.  I'd just like to know what they think.

I still don’t hate the Jews, of course, and I still acknowledge them as God’s chosen people, so He definitely has a plan for them and wants them to share in His Kingdom.  But the Old Testament is a series of events in which the Jews hardened their hearts and turned against God, over and over and over again, and God gave them over to their evil ways and desires until they changed their minds and turned to Him again, and then He came to their rescue.  If you want a basic description in a single paragraph for what the Old Testament is like from Genesis through Malachi, that’s basically it.  It is a detailing of the relationship between God and the Jewish people as they fall away and then come back to Him.  So even though they are God’s chosen people, he’s given them over to their foolish beliefs and ways before.  If the Old Testament teaches us anything, it’s that God is not just going to come to the rescue of the Jews merely BECAUSE they are His chosen people.  God is just as likely to pour out His wrath upon them when they reject Him as He is to be their loving God when they accept Him and trust in Him.  Being His chosen people isn’t necessarily a free ticket to Heaven (or wherever the Jews believe they’ll go when they die).

But there is still that relationship, and that needed relationship, between the Jews and the Christians, and it is the main reason Israel is a friend to, if not America, then at least, in the general sense, the conservative Christian movement in America.  They certainly can’t count on Nobel Peace Prize winner and former President Jimmy Carter!  In this respect, Israel has no better friend in the world today than the Christian who recognizes them as God’s chosen people, and an integral part of their religious puzzle.  Not that there aren’t some Jews, over on the liberal left, and in Hollywood, who I don’t really understand in their political views and who they choose to support.  Barbara Streisand and Binyamin Netanyahu, the current (conservative) Prime Minister of Israel, are both Jewish, but there is a world of difference between each of them and what they stand for.  I have respect for Netanyahu and distain for Streisand, so yes, there is definately a difference.  I trust in the Jews on the conservative right.  Even more so, I know that the Jews are God’s chosen people, and therefore, I turn a kind eye towards them, especially those whose stance in politics is similar to my own, over on the conservative right (in my mind, the only place a real man of God should be, for Jew or gentile, particularly these days!).

I can’t quite comprehend exactly what the traditional Jews believe about the Messiah they still think is coming.  Does any Jew concern himself with this question half as much as I just did for them?  The answer is “probably”, but I haven’t heard from them, and I’d like to know what they think.