You know how it is...people ask you questions as if they wanted to learn something from you, to "pick your brain" as it were, but in reality they were looking for an excuse to jump down your throat. It's a bit of a catch-22, isn't it? No matter how correctly or even how skillfully you answer, it will be used against you.
In Mass today we will hear a Gospel passage where Our Lord encounters the same...yet again. (Mt. 22.34-46) His opponents among the religious elite of Judaea constantly peppered Him with such questions just waiting for that one slip where they could destroy Him, either figuratively or literally (they really didn't care which...or at least some didn't). However, as one can imagine, even He tired of the constant nitpicking and came up with a brilliant one Himself.
The Scribes and Pharisees were testing Jesus constantly, but here He put them to the test. He asks them a simple round of questions:
Q: Who will be the Messiah?
A: The Son of David (meaning a descendant).
Q: How can David in the Spirit call a descendant his Lord?
A: Duhhhh...
Neither side here is talking about any run of the mill anointed like Joshua son of Nun, or an historical King of Israel, or even someone like Judah Maccabaeus, heroes in Israel's past. This Messiah (Anointed One) was to be the One to effect Israel's final deliverance from its enemies. Here Jesus is trying to cement their expectations and get them to admit what is staring them in their face, that the expectation was greater really than what they were prepared to admit. Jesus posed them a question they were not prepared to answer, a question that those who presumed to teach Israel about such matters should have been able to know, a question that since they could not answer called into question their competence in questioning Jesus.
Ouch.
Jesus here was not only pointing out their shortcomings, but He was offering them a path to a realization, however. "So you don't know the answer. Think about it. Talk about it. It will come to you...eventually." They say hindsight is 20/20, but various Early Church sages like Origen, John Chrysostom, and Augustine pointed out the teaching, the miracles, the unique and deep insight into the character of God, the absolute self-emptying to be a channel of God's mercy and truth on the part of Jesus pointed to the solution to the dilemma. Jesus' descent from the line of David was likely known (elsewise why would practically every New Testament make mention of it), and his actions were nothing short of uncanny and even impossible. The answer was someone descended from David yet greater than David was here before everyone. One to Whom the Lord would say, "Come sit at my right hand."
Can you too work out the puzzle? The mercy of the Early Church shines through at this moment when they explain, "Truly, this is the Son of God." Not just David, but God. Descended from David, but also the Incarnate Son of God. How can David call a descendant his Lord? Truly when God has chosen to become incarnate from His servant, that is how a descendant can become David's Lord.