A Dose of Cold Water

A DOSE of COLD WATER

The command to maintain silence must have been deflating enough, but what follows is far harder to take.
The martyrdom of the Son of man
The exciting title ‘Messiah’ is immediately dropped, and Jesus speaks of himself, as he usually does, as the ‘Son of man’. This was a title without the ready-made associations of ‘Messiah’, and one which therefore Jesus could use to express what he wanted to say about his unique role, without the danger of triggering inappropriate hopes of political liberation…