Questions for discussion (from Good Word Online):

Leading Question: If the mission of the coming Messiah was clearly announced in the Old Testament, why did no one want to believe it from the lips of Jesus – until after the resurrection?

Looking back at the Old Testament through eyes that already know the story of Jesus gives quite a different picture than if one starts with the Old Testament and asks how much God’s people could see in advance from their day. A sobering quotation from C. S. Lewis provides a helpful backdrop for any study of the “announcement” of the Messiah’s arrival: My idea of God is not a divine idea. It has to be shattered time after time. He shatters it Himself. He is the great iconoclast. Could we not almost say that this shattering is one of the marks of His presence? The Incarnation is the supreme example; it leaves all previous ideas of the Messiah in ruins.” – C. S. Lewis, A Grief Observed, 4:15