The Gospel of the Forty Days: Messianic Expectations
Many misinterpret the question as an expression
of the expectation of a political Messiah. It is true that some First Century
Jews, notably the Zealots (the Apostle Simeon had been one), were waiting for a
political Messiah. But Biblical and extra-biblical Jewish sources indicate this
was not at all the general Messianic expectation.
References:
Brant Pitre, Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist, Unlocking the Secrets of the Last Supper (New York: Doubleday, 2011), p. 22-47. See also Pitre’s scholarly Jesus and the Last Supper (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company), and Jesus, the Tribulation, and the End of Exile: Restoration Eschatology and the Origin of the Atonement (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006).
“Lord, will You at this time restore the
kingdom to Israel?” Or as a significant textual source has it: “Is it at this
time that You will bring about the restoration, and when will the kingdom of
Israel be?” (Ac 1:6.) The Apostles asked this of Jesus at the end of the forty
days following His resurrection and just before He ascended into Heaven.
Brant Pitre, PhD, a scholar of the Jewish
background to Christianity, reminds us that to understand the humanity of
Jesus, His words and actions in historical context, we need to hear and see
those words and actions as they would have been heard and seen by the Jews of
His day. In several writings, summarized in his popular book Jesus and the Jewish
Roots of the Eucharist, Pitre identifies that the central Jewish Messianic
expectation was of the restoration of Israel, i.e., a return from exile or
re-gathering of the ten “lost” tribes of Israel, including Gentiles, in a new
Exodus. In other words, the hope that God would save His people like He did
with Moses. This is the “restoration” of Israel the Apostles are referring to.
(Cf., “times of refreshing,” Ac 3:19-21.)
Pitre summarizes the First Century Jewish
Messianic expectation by four key events that were to happen: (1) the coming of
a new Moses, a new deliverer (Deut. 18:15-18; cf., Ac 3:22-26); (2) the making
of a new covenant (Jer 31:31-33); (3) the building of a new Temple (Mi 4:1-2; Is
56:6-7; 60:1-7;Ezl 37:24-28; Hg 2:6-9); and (4) the journey to a new promised land
which they would possess forever (Is 60:21; cf. Am 9:14-15; Ho 1:10-11;
2:16-23), including a new Jerusalem (Is 43, 49, 60) and new heavens and a new
earth (Is 64:17-18; cf. 64:18, 20, 22).
Pitre shows that Jesus too had these same
expectations, as evidenced throughout the Gospels. For example, when the disciples of John the Baptist ask
whether Jesus is the Messiah, He answers by alluding to one of Isaiah’s
prophecies of the new Exodus that the blind receive their sight and the lame
walk, etc. (Is 35:5-10; Mt 11:4-5; Lk 4:18-19). Also, particularly telling is
Luke’s description of Moses and Elijah appearing at the Transfiguration
speaking of Jesus’ “Exodus, which He was to accomplish at Jerusalem” (Lk
9:28-31) – indicating both that Jesus was accomplishing the new Exodus and that
it would be fulfilled during His passion, death, and resurrection in Jerusalem.
So Jesus was the new Moses, and He
established the new Covenant in His blood at the Last Supper and on the cross.
He was the new Temple, as are all who receive the Holy Spirit. And His new
restored Israel, His Church, journey to the new Jerusalem, the new heavens and
new earth, the “new creation” (Mt 19:28).
Now
if the Apostles’ last urgent question for Jesus immediately before His
ascension was about the “restoration” of Israel (Ac 1:6), and if Jesus was
“speaking of the kingdom of God” during these forty days (Ac 1:3), then clearly
He had been teaching them how He had accomplished the new Exodus and was
accomplishing the restoration of Israel, and so fulfilling the various aspects
of the Jewish Messianic eschatological expectations. So while He doesn’t answer
the Apostles’ question on timing of the final culmination of full restoration,
He reminds them of His commandment (Ac 1:2) and their mission to bring about
the restoration in a new Israel, the Church that He was forming from the
scattered tribes from all nations, by waiting for the Holy Spirit’s power and
then, starting in Jerusalem, to go to the ends of the earth as His witnesses
(Ac 1:8).
Dibby Green
Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church is located in California City, CA. Visit our website at ollcalcity.org.References:
Brant Pitre, Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist, Unlocking the Secrets of the Last Supper (New York: Doubleday, 2011), p. 22-47. See also Pitre’s scholarly Jesus and the Last Supper (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company), and Jesus, the Tribulation, and the End of Exile: Restoration Eschatology and the Origin of the Atonement (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006).