decisive victory over the power of evil would have to be won, a victory no ordinary human being could achieve.
So they looked forward to the arrival of a supernatural deliverer, one who would be anointed like the mighty heroes of the past: a new David, but greater even than David was. They waited, in a word, for the Messiah. 'Don't worry,' said the prophets, 'things are pretty bad for us Jews in this present evil age. But soon the Messiah will step out of the wings of history. And then, at long last, the kingdom of God will begin.'
Can you imagine the shock, the tremor of hope that must have gone through the population of Galilee when Jesus, a young carpenter from Nazareth, started to wander around their towns and villages saying it had happened? 'The kingdom of God has come. Repent and believe the good news,' he said.
No doubt initially many were sceptical. They were not unfamiliar with lunatics who indulged their megalomaniac fantasies by pretensions to be the Messiah. But this man did not just make messianic claims. He cast out demons. He healed the sick. And he taught; oh, how he taught! There was a charisma about him that had not been seen in Israel since the days of the greatest prophets half a millennium before. There was even a rumour that he was Elijah or Jeremiah risen from the dead. That was the measure of the astonishing impact he had made.
Had he wanted to exploit the opportunity, he could have set in motion a bandwagon of religious revival and political revolution that the authorities in Jerusalem and perhaps even in Rome would have been unable to stop. That word 'kingdom' resonated with all the Galilean masses' most glorious dreams, fired their most fanatical zeal and inspired their most passionate commitment. All he had to do when confronted by this vast multitude was to work a miracle or two and deliver a suitably firebrand speech; the whole of the Galilean countryside would have erupted in volcanic enthusiasm for his messiahship.
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