The crowd spoke up, ”We have heard from the Law that the Messiah will remain forever, so how can you say, ‘The Son of Man must be lifted up’? Who is this ‘Son of Man’?”
Expectations are extremely powerful! Sometimes we let expectations shape our world. When the real world does not fit our expectations, the result is disappointment. Or worse.
Psalm 110 is a prophetic psalm that Jesus Himself refers to when He is explaining who he is. In today’s verse, the crowd throws this psalm back at Jesus. Verse four of the psalm says:
The Lord has sworn
and will not change his mind:
“You are a priest forever,
in the order of Melchizedek.”
The passage is referring to the coming Messiah. The crowd has been taught, “You are a priest forever” means that the Messiah will come to earth and remain forever.
This is not what the passage means. It says nothing about where this priest will be.
Jesus is that priest, but as the perfect priest he is also the sacrifice, and he has a job to do. He must sacrifice himself for his people. (Isaiah writes about this in Isaiah 53)
The crowd has an incomplete understanding of Scripture. As a result, their expectation is for something that does not exist. When people don’t get what they want, sometimes bad things happen.
Let’s Discuss: How do a person’s expectations affect what they read in Scripture? How should we approach Scripture?
Immensely, it can distort what is clearly presented or distract us from what’s most important.
Thanks Nathan!
Objectivity is a very difficult mountain to climb. I am not sure how we can ever hope to achieve it without submitting to God.