What do you think about the Christ? Whose Son is He?

 

 While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, saying, "What do you think about the Christ?  Whose Son is He?"  They said to Him, "The Son of David."  He said to them, "How then does David in the Spirit call Him 'Lord,' saying:

'The LORD said to my Lord,

"Sit at My right hand, 

Till I make Your enemies Your footstool"'?

"If David then calls Him 'Lord,' how is He his Son?"  And no one was able to answer Him a word, nor from that day on did anyone dare question Him anymore.

 

- Matthew 22:41-46 

 

In yesterday's reading, we read Jesus' explanation to His disciples of the parable of the Sower:   "Therefore hear the parable of the sower:  When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, then the wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart.  This is he who received seed by the wayside.  But he who received the seed on stony places, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet he has no root in himself, but endures only for a while.  For when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he stumbles.  Now he who received seed among the thorns is he who hears the word, and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful.  But he who received seed on the good ground is he who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and produces:  some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty."

 

While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, saying, "What do you think about the Christ?  Whose Son is He?"  They said to Him, "The Son of David."  He said to them, "How then does David in the Spirit call Him 'Lord,' saying: 'The LORD said to my Lord, "Sit at My right hand, till I make Your enemies Your footstool"'?  If David then calls Him 'Lord,' how is He his Son?"  And no one was able to answer Him a word, nor from that day on did anyone dare question Him anymore.  Our readings of this week prepare us for Ascension Day, otherwise known as the Feast of the Ascension of our Lord, which is celebrated tomorrow in the West, and one week from tomorrow in the Eastern Churches, generally speaking.  It is dependent upon the date of Easter, as Christ's Ascension took place forty days after His Resurrection.  Today's reading jumps to Matthew chapter 22, when Jesus is in the Temple in Jerusalem, engaged in disputing with the religious leadership.  Here, my study Bible explains, Christ asks this particular question, quoting from Psalm 110, to lead the Pharisees to the only logical conclusion:  that He is God incarnate.  They believed the Messiah to be a mere man, and therefore reply that the Messiah would be a Son of David.  But David, as king of Israel, could not and would not address anyone was "Lord" except God.  But in Psalm 110:1 (from which Jesus quotes here) David refers to the Messiah as "Lord."  So, therefore, the Messiah must be God.  The only possible conclusion is that the Messiah is a descendant of David only according to the flesh, but is also truly divine, sharing His Lordship with God the Father and the Holy Spirit.  Therefore the first reference to the LORD applies to God the Father, and the term my Lord refers to Christ.  The Pharisees, my study Bible says, do not answer because they realize the implications and are afraid to confess Jesus to be the Son of God.  

From our present day vantage point, we might be tempted to think that what Jesus points out about the psalm is scandalous to the Pharisees.  But the scandal is in suggesting that He Himself is this figure.  At the time of Christ, there existed literature from within the Second Temple period (560 BC - 70 AD) in which these terms from Scripture had been explored as to why there would be different words or references, implying different persons, but which all clearly applied to God.  So the idea that the concept of God could include more than one divine Person already existed within Jewish religious scholarship.  But perhaps there is nowhere but in this passage (see also Mark 12:35-37, Luke 20:41-44) where this concept is expressed so elegantly.  This is Christ's way, and it is one reason why it is to the Scriptures we turn for inspiration:  there is nowhere one can find eloquence which is both simple and profound at the same time to the extent that we have in the words of Jesus -- nowhere else where concepts of such depth and complexity are given to us in language so succinct, so evocative, and yet precisely to the point.  This is one reason why we continue to turn to Christ and to the Gospels.  As St. Peter said on behalf of the rest of the disciples (and the rest of us believers and faithful), "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life" (see John 6:66-69).  It is here that, through the Scripture of the Old Testament, and specifically in this particular reference, this psalm of King David, Jesus elegantly presents us with the mystery of who He is, both God and man, human and divine.  He will also refer to Himself by the title "Son of Man" which is found in the apocalyptic literature of Daniel 7:13 to refer to "one like the Son of Man" who is suggested in context as another divine Person, and who appears together with the Ancient of Days.  But here, Jesus, a physical human descendant of King David (Matthew 1:1-17), is also "my Lord" to David.  This is the root and heart of what is called Christology, our understanding of just who Jesus Christ is, and it informs all of our understanding about what He does in the world and His mission to us.   As noted above, soon we are celebrating the Feast of the Lord's Ascension, which comes forty days after His Resurrection.  And all of this is essential to our understanding of what the Ascension means, how in both His humanity and divinity, Jesus ascends to His place in heaven "at the right hand of the Father" (Creed; see also Acts 7:55–56; Romans 8:34; Ephesians 1:20; Colossians 3:1; Hebrews 1:3; Hebrews 8:1; Hebrews 10:11-15).   We look to this understanding of who Christ is in order to have a better understanding of ourselves and what He might ask of us.  For His work goes on in the world, and in us as well.