Is Jesus The Messiah?: Week 12

We've got two puzzle pieces left on our puzzle, which means this coming up week is make it or break it for Jesus. He's got to do something pretty powerful for us to be convinced he's the messiah, and as the kids reminded me this week, if that last puzzle piece doesn't fit, Jesus ain't our man. We're all hoping he is--we've started to really like this guy!

So this week we looked at the prophecy that says the Messiah will be betrayed by a close friend. In addition, the prophecy said that the price for the Messiah's body will be thirty silver coins, that the coins will be given to the potter and thrown to the temple, and that Israel and Judea will be scattered as a result.

The first part we looked at was whether Jesus was betrayed by a close friend. We talked about how Jesus' closest friends were the disciples, and how we knew Judas was one of his disciples. They went to church together, broke bread together.... And Judas was in charge of the money and the scheduling of the whole operation. Judas was of course secretly a thief. But, alas, it was Judas that betrayed Jesus. Check.

We talked about the thirty coins... When Zechariah wrote about the thirty coins, they were worth a lot more. In fact, the thirty coins were the price of a single slave. As time passed, the value of the coins went down, but the price stayed the same. By the time Jesus was betrayed for thirty coins, it was equivalent to about 25 bucks in today's time. You couldn't even buy a Wii game with that! Check.

Judas was so overcome with grief and remorse that he'd betrayed Jesus that he threw the coins into the temple. (CHECK). However, Jewish law prohibited money being put into the temple that had been come by illegally. So, the people gathered up all of the money and sold it to buy a potter's field (money to the potter, check).

As a result of Jesus' crucifixion, there was a huge fight between Israel and Rome. Because of this, one section of Israel stayed with Israel, and the other section joined what is now Palestine... In this way, Judea and Israel were scattered. (check).

Next week is Easter, and we're all so excited to see if Jesus is who he says he is! I'm thinking he is!!!