"Foxes have their holes, the birds of the air have their nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head" (Luke 9:58). Wherever Jesus went he was placed under incredible scrutiny, forcing him to confront many issues and struggles in his private prayer during his mortal ministry. Not only did Jesus struggle with the powerful assertion that he was the Son of Man, but he couldn"t understand why humans had such a tough time accepting the "love" that Jesus preached about to the people of his time. Endo explains, "That the people appearing before him were looking not for "love" but for signs and wonders" (Endo 72). Jesus didn"t understand that if he was truly the Son of Man that people claimed he was; why would God allow everyone to abandon his own son? These struggles and issues were so complex that not even his disciples could understand them, because they too had not yet grasped Jesus" ideal of love.
The Gospels show that not once during his Galilean ministry did Jesus say a single word to suggest that he was the Messiah, the one who would liberate Israel. Endo quotes Stauffer as saying:.
The fundamental and incontestable fact is that the idea of being the "Messiah" can be found nowhere in the collection of the sayings of Jesus [i.e., nowhere in the historical materials assembled before the New Testament was written, and consisting of a collection of the words spoken by Jesus]. The same applies to any similar messianic titles like son of David, or king of Israel, or king of the Jews (70).
The fact that Jesus never refers to himself as the Messiah only points towards one explanation; that he in fact did not know for sure if he really was the Messiah that would come to liberate Israel. With so many people claiming that he is the Son of Man, and with so many people turning away from him, he must have struggled with God in his private prayer to realize his true calling. Also in the times of Jesus, society was waiting for a Messiah that would put an end to the suppression of Israel, and establish Israel as the greatest nation with force and determination.
