What does First B Jackson teach about messiah?
Drawn from the messages where it was actually addressed: the words said from the front, the passages taught, and where to hear the whole thing.
At First B Jackson, the teaching on the Messiah keeps returning to one central tension: people across every generation have held a picture of what the Messiah was supposed to do, and Jesus consistently does something different. In the message on Mark 8, the preacher pressed the point that Peter was right about the title and wrong about the meaning. For Peter and the disciples, Messiah meant a conquering king in the line of David who would overthrow Roman occupation. Jesus responded to that expectation by telling them plainly that the Son of Man must suffer, be rejected, be killed, and rise three days later. The same man who named Jesus correctly was then rebuked in the sharpest terms in the gospel, because knowing who Jesus is and accepting what that means are not the same thing.
The Palm Sunday message traced that same gap between expectation and reality through the triumphal entry. The crowd waved palm branches, a symbol the preacher connected to the Maccabean revolt, when Simon led Israel to military victory and the people entered Jerusalem with palms and songs of celebration. That imagery had become a nationalist symbol, and the crowd was reaching for it deliberately, announcing they expected a military deliverer. Jesus chose something different: the foal of a donkey, just as Zechariah 9 had foretold, a king coming humble, possessing salvation. The crowd's symbol said conquest. His symbol said peace.
The message from Matthew 11 brought the same theme forward through John the Baptist, sitting in prison and asking whether he had gotten it wrong. The preacher was careful not to read past how remarkable that is, noting that this kind of doubt is not faithlessness so much as honesty. Jesus answered by pointing to what was already happening: the blind seeing, the lame walking, the poor hearing the gospel. Anyone without a preconceived idea of what the Messiah was supposed to do would have looked at that and known exactly who He was. The thread running through all of this teaching is that the Messiah Jesus actually is, humble, suffering, present with the broken, and ultimately victorious, is not a disappointment or a revision of the promise. He is the fulfillment of it, arrived in a way that requires us to let go of what we had in our minds.
Taught from Mark 8:27-9:1 · Zechariah 9:9 · Luke 19:28-44 · Matthew 11:2-19 · Isaiah 53
The passage taught · 1 Maccabees 13:49-53
49 But they of the citadel in Jerusalem were hindered from going forth, and from going into the country, and from buying and selling; and they hungered exceedingly, and a great number of them perished through famine.
50 And they cried out to Simon, that he should give them his right hand; and he gave it to them: and he put them out from thence, and he cleansed the citadel from its pollutions.
51 And he entered into it on the three and twentieth day of the second month, in the hundred and seventy and first year, with praise and palm branches, and with harps, and with cymbals, and with viols, and with hymns, and with songs: because a great enemy was destroyed out of Israel.
52 And he ordained that they should keep that day every year with gladness. And the hill of the temple that was by the citadel he made stronger than before, and there he lived, himself and his men.
World English Bible
The messages that teach on it
- April 3, 2023 The Symbol He Chose Palm Sunday sermon exploring the symbols of the triumphal entry: the crowd's palm branches, Jesus riding a donkey, and the cursed fig tree, all pointing to a humble Messiah.
- February 21, 2023 Modnay Night @ First B A study of Mark 8-9 where Jesus reveals He is a suffering Messiah, and what it truly means to deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Him.
- February 27, 2022 Come to Me and I Will Give You Rest John the Baptist doubted from prison. Jesus answered with evidence, not argument. A sermon on finding rest in Christ when faith feels heavy and burdens pile up.
Mentioned along the way
- June 30, 2019 Psalms 1 & 2 - Traditional Psalm 1 and Psalm 2 together: what it means to be rooted in God's instruction, why the nations rage against His anointed King, and how to take refuge in Him.