I found the on-line site for a quarterly periodical called Azure which seems like a pretty serious publication for discussing Jewish themes. I am only now reading one of the articles, which is about the base differences between Judaism and Christianity and it seems very insightful.

The author begins by writing something that exactly identifies my early understanding of these differences. Simply put, the Christians believe the Messiah came and will return and the Jews were just waiting some more. Other differences were minor. Later on, this point was brought forth...

For Christians, redemption is essentially an act of divine grace, the salvation of a humanity that is incapable of saving itself. For Jews, however, the reverse is true: Redemption depends entirely on the repentance of man, who is responsible for his own fate. As such, the difference in the respective religions' approach to the messiah is, in truth, a difference in the understanding of man's own moral capacity, and of the nature of good and evil itself.

Wow.