Question 4

QUESTIONER: WHY DID JESUS CLAIM?

Jesus did not. He did not claim that he was the messiah. His claims were quite different. In fact, his claims don't come in the form of statements; he claimed through his being. People recognized that he was the messiah.

As I mentioned earlier, john the Baptist, a rare sage, had declared that the messiah was coming and he was his messenger. He also said that the day the messiah would arrive he, the messenger, would depart from the world. He lived on the banks of the River Jordan and initiated people in the water of that river. Thousands of people were initiated by him. Jesus too, had his initiation from John the Baptist. When Jesus was standing in water up to his neck, John initiated him and then said, "Now, you should begin your work and I go."

The news of this event in the River Jordan spread like wildfire all over the country, and people came to know that the messiah had arrived. And that very day John disappeared and nobody ever heard of him again. John's disappearance was the real declaration of the coming of the messiah, because he had gone to every village saying that the messiah was com ing and the day he would come, John would disappear He said that he was only the forerunner of the messiah; he was there only to prepare the way for his coming, and that he would leave the world when the messiah came So John's disappearance announced that Christ, the messiah, had arrived. Now people began to ask Jesus if he was the messiah. And he could not have lied to them; he said that he was the one they were waiting for, he was the one who was there everlastingly, who was there even before their first messiah Abraham was.