The Old Testament and the Messianic Hope | Thomas Storck | Ignatius Insight
At various times during the Church year the liturgy turns our attention to those mysterious passages of the Old Testament, the Messianic prophecies, that tell of a coming Anointed One, and even mention the place of His birth and the manner of His death. During Advent the prophecies which foretell His birth and His connection with the figure of King David are highlighted and during Lent those which speak of His crucifixion and death. But what actually do these sometimes enigmatic passages say and mean? What was the hope of ancient Israel in the coming Messiah and how did it develop as God narrowed the focus of these prophecies over the ages?
The Messianic expectation of ancient Israel consisted of several strands, some of which were highlighted or stressed more at one time or by one prophet than others, but all together they introduce this multifaceted Messianic hope, which God presented in a more and more definite way over the course of the salvation history of the Old Covenant. It is important to realize that God did not inspire the prophets of the Old Testament with one single concept of a coming Messianic figure who would be born at Bethlehem, preach a new covenant, suffer and die from crucifixion, rise again, thus gloriously defeating Satan, establish a spiritual kingdom on earth, the Catholic Church, and a kingdom of the just in Heaven. Though all these things are foretold in the Old Testament, the manner in which God chose to reveal His plan for the rescue of the human race was not as simple as announcing beforehand exactly what would be done, how, when, and by whom.
Instead, from the initial call of Abraham to leave his kinsmen and follow God into an unknown land (Genesis 12) through the last post-exilic prophetic statements, such as Malachi's prophecy of the Forerunner, St. John the Baptist (Malachi 3), God brought to Israel's attention certain expectations of future actions involving Divine Intervention to establish universal and perfect justice and peace. When put together and rightly understood, the sum of these prophecies gives a remarkable picture of our Lord and His work, but they were initially given in a fragmentary fashion. [1]
Thus in the call of Abraham mentioned above, a covenant was established between Yahweh and Abraham in which God stated that all peoples of the earth "shall find blessing in" Abraham. At this point this is an unfocused promise, both as to what shall happen and how. It does not even specify that there will be one particular person who will be responsible for this universal blessing. It is more of the awaiting of the Messianic era than the person of the Messiah. Later, as I shall point out below, this expectation of some future Divine event becomes associated with certain of Abraham's descendants, namely the family of King David of Israel, for it is said that there will be an ideal Davidic ruler or rulers who will embody and be able to establish among men the things which human beings long for and seem tragically unable to attain, namely, perfect peace and perfect justice.
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