Why Jesus Needs Wisdom

This is sort of a strange thought, but it’s straight from the Bible: Jesus needed a lot of wisdom for something in particular. In the prophecy of the Messiah in Isaiah 11, there’s this whole big build up around how the Spirit of God would give wisdom to the Messiah for a particular purpose. Four times it’s repeated…

The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him—
  the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
  the Spirit of counsel and of might,
  the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the Lord
- Isaiah 11:2

And, as it turns out, the Spirit is not given to the Messiah so he can teach you three simple steps to a healthy marriage or the best business decision. Instead, the Spirit is poured out on the Messiah precisely for the sake of discerning how to do justice:

[so that] with righteousness he will judge the needy,
    with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth. - Isaiah 11:4

It’s tricky to render wise judgment on behalf of the poor because it means upending systems of privilege without damaging the people involved, it means maintaining the dignity of those who’ve been pushed to the margins even while lifting them up, and it means threading the needle between toxic charity and healthy giving. And that’s exactly what the Spirit was up to in Jesus - inspiring that sort of wisdom, so that true justice could be done and all could flourish.

How have you thought about the wisdom of Jesus before? Did it include his wise decisions for the poor and his discernment of how to rearrange unjust structures in society? If not, why might that be? And how does it change things for you to embrace a Messiah who’s focus of wisdom is on those who live on the margins of our society?