Christ the Lord

 

[Note: This post is a revision of the one originally posted on 24 December 2012.]

Govert Flinck, Angels Announcing the Birth of Christ to the Shepherds, 1639
(Musée du Louvre, Paris)

In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord (Luke 2:8-11, NRSV).

These are familiar words indeed to all, like I was, who were raised in Christian households where the narratives of Jesus' birth played a prominent role in family and corporate worship each December. But, as so often, it is their very familiarity that all too often renders us insensitive to the profoundly shocking theological implications of this angelic announcement. Indeed, this is the only text in the New Testament in which Jesus is called Savior, Messiah (“Christ”), and Lord in conjunction with one another.*

Particularly important is Luke's identification of Jesus as “Messiah, Lord.” As is universally known, Jews of many stripes in the first century were eagerly anticipating—and some, in various ways, were vigorously trying to hasten—the coming of a promised Messiah from the line of David,** who by definition would be the “Messiah of the Lord” (Greek christos kyriou) (cf. Luke 2:26!). But here Luke designates Jesus as christos kyrios, a difference of only one letter from the standard Jewish expectation (he uses the nominative rather than genitive case). This may appear at first glance to be only a minute, insignificant difference, but one would be mistaken to view it as such. Indeed, this grammatical difference demonstrates how the New Testament's portrait of Jesus subtly breaks the bounds of Jewish messianic expectation.

Luke's double designation, "Messiah, Lord," is found also in only two extant texts in Jewish Second Temple literature, both in the Psalms of Solomon (ca. 60 BCE): Psalms of Solomon 17.32 and 18.7. In each of these there is no suggestion that the Messiah is being identified in any ontological sense, let alone fused or confused with the one God of Jewish confession. In other words, "Lord"/kyrios is less a divine than a royal/political title or honorific. That is, the anointed king would be "Lord" in that he was to rule over Israel on God's behalf.*** There are compelling reasons to believe more is intended by Luke, however. This is argued most compellingly by C. Kavin Rowe, who traces Luke's unfolding of Jesus' identity via narrative, demonstrating convincingly that the Evangelist at times (such as in his citation of Isaiah 40 as the blueprint for John the Baptist's ministry in Luke 3) utilizes deliberate ambiguity so as to produce an "overlap" or "shared identity" between Jesus and God.****

Luke, of course, regularly uses the term "Lord" with reference to the God of Israel, YHWH. For instance, four times in Luke 1 the title  is used of this God with reference to his sovereign deity (Luke 1:16, 46, 68, 76) in the context of his faithful sending of Jesus to fulfill the Davidic/Messianic promises found in Israel's Scriptures. Yet at least 15 times Luke refers to Jesus as the "Lord" (cf., inter alia, 1:43; 2:11; 7:13, 18-19; 10:39; 22:61).***** Luke later includes in his narrative the bedrock Markan tradition of Jesus' own quotation of Psalm 110:1 (“The LORD said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand ...”) in which he interprets the text as a reference to the Messiah's enthronement alongside YHWH himself, thereby demonstrating that the title “David's son” (i.e., “Messiah”) is ultimately inadequate in and of itself to describe who Jesus was (Luke 20:42-43).

The full theological import of this move only becomes transparent in Luke's sequel to his Gospel, the Book of Acts. There Jesus, the risen Messiah, is proclaimed to be worthy of the title “Lord” by virtue of his exercise of exclusively divine prerogatives. Forgiveness is received through repentance and baptism in his name (Acts 2:28). Healing and the power of salvation reside in his name (3:6, 16; 4:12; 10:43). The risen Jesus indeed is “Lord of all” and “judge of the living and the dead” (10:36, 42).******

The significance of the angel's reported message that long ago night ca. 5 BCE is captured by the great Charles Wesley in his immortal Christmas hymn, “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing” (utilizing motifs from Matthew and John as well as Luke, not to mention reflecting the orthodox, conciliar theology ultimately developed from these texts):

Christ by highest heav'n adored 

Christ the everlasting Lord! 

Late in time behold Him come 

Offspring of the Virgin's womb 

Veiled in flesh the Godhead see 

Hail the incarnate Deity 

Pleased as man with man to dwell 

Jesus, our Emmanuel 

Hark! The herald angels sing 

"Glory to the newborn King!" 

Messiah Jesus—the Lord!—was willing to condescend to become a human being, in the words of the Nicene Creed, “for us and for our salvation.” The baby Jesus we celebrate each December was the baby who, according to the divine plan, would ultimately, about 37 years later, die an ignominious death on a Roman cross to save his people from their sins—born, as Wesley said, that “man no more may die.”

One of the glories of the Christian message is that God himself has done for us what we could not and cannot do for ourselves. Let those of us who bear the name of Christ reflect gratefully on this as we celebrate his birth on Sunday. If any who read this have not done so, please consider the claims made by and about the baby of Bethlehem and, like the shepherds of old, bow down before him in faith as the crucified and resurrected Lord.

I leave you with a video of "Hark! the Herald Angels Sing" from St. Paul's Cathedral, London. The majesty of the setting and spine-tingling performance of David Willcock's famous treble descant by the Cathedral choir perfectly complement the incomparably profound words the choir and congregation sing. Merry Christmas!

*Cf. Michael F. Bird, Jesus is the Christ: The Messianic Testimony of the Gospels (Downers Grove, Illinois: IVP Academic, 2015) 81: " In any case, the titles of Saviour, Messiah, and Lord compressed in 2:11 are indicative of Jesus' identity, authority, and mission. He traverses the heaven/earth divide as Lord, he is fulfiller of Israel's hopes as the Davidic Messiah, and he executes deliverance as the appointed saviour."

**Jewish hopes and expectations were not univocal. For a helpful overview, cf. John J. Collins, The Scepter and the Star: Messianism in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls, 2d ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010).

***Cf. Robert R. Hann, "Christos Kyrios in PsSol 17.32: 'The Lord's Anointed' Reconsidered," New Testament Studies 31 (1985) 620-27.

****C. Kavin Rowe, Early Narrative Christology: The Lord in the Gospel of Luke (BZNW 139; Berlin: De Gruyter, 2006).

*****Cf. Richard B. Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Gospels (Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press, 2016) 253: "In short, Luke in his own narration quite remarkably applies the title [kyrios] both to the God of Israel and to Jesus of Nazareth—occasionally in a way that suggests a mysterious fusion of divine and human identity in the figure of Jesus. This is not the result of editorial carelessness. Luke has deployed his references to Jesus as [kyrios] with careful compositional skill to shape the reader's understanding of Jesus' divine identity."

******Indeed, as Rowe has persuasively argued, such texts as Luke 2:11 demonstrate that, when Peter declared on Pentecost, "God has made him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified" (Acts 2:36, NRSV), Jesus' Lordship was not an appointment only given subsequent to, and by virtue of, his resurrection. No, this was a status he had from the beginning. Rather, the emphasis lies at the beginning, where Peter says, "Let the whole house of Israel know" (ginōsketō) that God had appointed Jesus both Lord and Messiah. The change brought about was in the perception and knowledge of the listeners, not the status of Jesus himself. Cf. Rowe, "Acts 2:36 and the Continuity of Lukan Christology," New Testament Studies 53 (2007) 37-53.