Expecting the Messiah

               “Well, they (i.e. Jews) expected a Messiah. They just didn't expect it to be him. They were expecting… someone to come in and overthrow their enemies, whoever their enemies were at the moment, because they had come under such rule. Rome was just that rule at that particular time but there had been … the Egyptian rule and all of the history.

               They were wanting someone to come. Now you must remember, the teachings of John the Baptist… were in this wise: that only the active God, only the hand of God, could ever liberate the Jewish people. That there would be no earthly thing take place that could save the people. It had to be through some heavenly intervention. So they were expecting that a bolt of lightning... they were expecting the parting of the sea, and all of that that had been previously perceived of to have happened in the past, and they were expecting some kind of phenomenon to come and wipe out Rome and free the Hebrew people and allow them to live.

               Now, that was John's teaching. Because John was an Essene, a lot of people believed him. That was his teaching. That was where he was coming from. Now along came Jesus, and Jesus was not the man who was going to wipe out Rome. Instead of coming in with an army, he came in to teach peace and brotherhood and love and acceptance and taking down barriers and all this sort of thing.

               John came from the Judah aspect of the Essenes and they …allowed themselves no joy. They dressed in clothing that was harsh and coarse to the skin. They ate only certain foods. They did now allow themselves laughter or merriment or singing or anything of that sort. They came from a very hard place.

               Now, here comes Jesus... singing! He'd walk along the road singing to the top of his lungs, and he liked to associate with so-called sinners. He'd have a banquet. He ate. He drank. He'd have a glass of wine with his meal. He enjoyed children. He'd get out and run and play games with children. He did all manner of things that John looked upon with concern because John knew in his heart that Jesus was a liberator, but John didn't understand in what manner he was. And John perceived Jesus to be, indeed, a rebel. A beloved one, nonetheless, but a rebel. And so John's whole teaching was based upon an external act of God that was going to come down, part the river, the Romans were going to be drowned, and the Hebrew people would be established.

               Now, John knew in his heart, here was the Messiah, but what was he doing for heaven's sake? He couldn't comprehend Jesus' freedom. Jesus loved life. He indeed loved. He liked to sing and to make merry. He was a great one to get in with a bunch of people and laugh and talk and tell stories and have a grand time, and this was totally opposite of John.

               John comes saying, ‘Thou shalt not’; Jesus comes saying, ‘Why not?’ And there was the difference. There was the difference.

               The interesting thing is, the life structured by the Church of Jesus - that was begun by Paul, who got a totally distorted idea of Jesus - that has been taught and believed in and taught and taught and taught until everyone is so steeped in it that they never got to know the man. They never got to know his teachings. They never got to see who he really was.

               And now, in this time, when the Christ spirit, that has been grounded on the earth for 2000 years, is now emerging in its fullness, you've got to get to know the man! You've got to see that he was like you, that what he did and what he learned and what he became is possible for everybody. Jesus never said, ‘I have done this but you'll never make it.’

               ‘What I have done, you can do, and greater things yet than these!’ He'd be the first one to cheer you on, to say, ‘Go for it!’

               But they never allowed that part of the man to be known. They had him depicted as a sterile, solemn, suffering Messiah. Never happened. Never. …He overcame it anyway. But the thing is… despite what the Church built, the truth of the Christ won out and that is what holds the people. That's what brings the people. It doesn't matter what religious faith you are, you know that somewhere in, under all of that, there is a light that is beautiful beyond what you could even imagine. If he were physically present in this room, the love that he would give forth would capture you all. It would transform you… because he loved life and every aspect of it.”

02/08/1958 Blog. Jesus and Archangel Gabriel, CHRIST BECOMING, The Lives of Jesus & His Path to the Christ, Pgs. 187-190. Copyright 2018 Rev. Penny Donovan. All rights reserved. To buy this book, please click here.