One of the biggest lightbulb moments for me in this lesson was the Jewish theological idea that the Messiah will bring worldwide peace and submission to himself – and that Christians believe that too – it just hasn’t happened yet. Knowing that Jesus was already a suffering servant, and that He has yet to fulfill the part of world peace, brings me as a Christian even closer to my Jewish brothers and sisters. Though I might be oversimplifying it, we are, in fact, talking about the same person!
Growing up, I was fed, in very subtle ways, the supersessionist ideas about the Jewish faith. The Jews rejected Jesus, and are thinking another is coming. But this new thought (new to me, anyway), that the Old Testament prophecies are still being fulfilled, and that two faiths like Judiasim and Christianity have common ground – it speaks so much to the suffering and persecution Jews have faced for thousands of years. Rabbi Kaplan put it so succinctly: “Christianity started with a Jew.”
