As I heard one scholar say, "As you read the gospels, you can't help but come to the conclusion that this guy [Jesus] was trying to get himself killed."
If Jesus were a political messiah, he was a pretty poor one. Getting himself crucified did nothing for the Jewish people in the short run but the diaspora. If he were not divine and trying for something, it wouldn't be:
"I'm going to get myself executed so that one crazy emperor will crush and scatter the Jews and a later one will come to believe in a religion based on me and the backwoods parts of the Empire will adhere to that religion so that, 1300 years later or so, they will emerge from a plague and along with Jewish and these new Jesusian* values and traditions, will rebirth themselves into being the most pre-eminent culture on the planet, eventually bringing the ideals of justice, peace and individual empowerment to the world."*He wouldn't have even thought of the word "Christian".
Although I have some problems with the book, "The Passover Plot" by Hugh Schonfeld (recently reissued) does a good job of explaining the meaning of messiahship in the time of Jesus, and makes a good case that that is how Jesus viewed himself.
One other thought: the New Testament itself repeatedly describes Jesus as the Messiah, so it is hardly a stretch to say that that is how he viewed himself. As Schonfeld points out, Jesus' actions - particularly leading up to the final Passover - were deliberately intended as an acting out of Old Testament oracles concerning the Messiah.