Friday June 9, 2017
Today’s passage puzzles the scholars greatly. It could bear several interpretations. The people who were listening to Jesus were clear in their minds that the Messiah would be a descendent of King David—because of a text in their Scriptures, “I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever” (2S 7:13). They were clear: they knew the kind of Messiah they wanted. Whatever interpretation his saying is to bear, it is obvious that he is ruining their clarity. He is either saying that the Messiah will not be a descendent of David, or that he will be much more than a descendent of David.
There are people who insist on clarity above all else, thinking that clarity is a proof of truth. But there are many things that are clear and false. When we think, we have understood something we say “I have it!” We use the words “having”, “grasping”, “holding”, and the like. Even the word “concept” (from Latin capio) means ‘to seize’. These words should make us pause, because fundamentally it is not we who seize the truth, it is the truth that should seize us. As Chesterton put it, we are not here to get the skies into our heads, but to get our heads into the skies. To promote false clarity is to be an enemy of the truth.
