His Only Son, Jesus’ Human Nature

And in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord.

            In five little words, “His only Son, our Lord,” the Apostles’ Creed directs us to one of the central mysteries of the faith, namely, that Jesus is both fully God and fully human. Martin Luther, in the Small Catechism explains these five words like this, “I believe that Jesus Christ, true God, begotten of the Father from eternity, and also true man, born of the Virgin Mary, is my Lord.”

            Let’s begin with Jesus’ human nature. Jesus is completely human, just like us, as the book of Hebrews says, “For this reason he had to be made like them, fully human in every way” (2:17). The writer of Hebrew notes the singular exception later on, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin” (4:15). Of course, sin is not integral to our human nature; sin is a corruption of that nature.

            Jesus is like us in every way. He has a body and a soul, just as we have. (His divine nature does not ‘replace’ some element of His human nature; His divine nature infuses every part of His human nature.) He is subject to temptation, just as we are. He know grief and hunger and weariness, so He weeps and eats and sleeps.

            The import of His humanity is manifold. As the Hebrews passage says, He is able to empathize with our weaknesses. He understands us and our trials. That in itself is amazing! The Son of God does not just stand there in judgment over us; He sympathizes with us, knows our weakness, knows our struggle.

            That’s amazing, but it’s not the most important thing about Jesus’ humanity. The most important thing about His humanity is that He is a perfectly appropriate substitute for us. Hebrews 10 talks about the limitation of Israel’s system of animal sacrifice: animal sacrifice must be repeated over and over again, year after year. An animal is not a fully appropriate substitute for a human life. But when Jesus offers His life in sacrifice for us, it is a human life for a human life. The sacrifice completely fits. You can know you are fully redeemed because the One who offered His life for you is just like you.

Continuing Creation

I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth.

            Christians confess their God as the Creator, but we should guard that confession against misunderstanding. Sometimes people conceptualize creation as if once, a long time ago, God set everything up and put it in motion and now He just sort of leaves it to its own devices. We think of God as a divine watchmaker: builds the watch, winds the watch, lets the watch run with no more effort.

            Martin Luther, in his Small Catechism, headed off this misunderstanding when he explained the First Article like this:

I believe that God has made me and all creatures; that He has given me my body and soul, eyes, ears, and all my members, my reason and all my senses, and still takes care of them.

He also gives me clothing and shoes, food and drink, house and home, wife and children, land, animals, and all I have. He richly and daily provides me with all that I need to support this body and life.

He defends me against all danger and guards and protects me from all evil.

All this He does only out of fatherly, divine goodness and mercy, without any merit or worthiness in me. For all this it is my duty to thank and praise, serve and obey Him.

This is most certainly true.

Count the number of first person singular pronouns (I, me, my, mine) in there! The point is God is my Creator. He is still active as the world’s Creator. He’s not just off in His heaven, but He is active in His Creation.

            In Catechism class, I like to summarize this involvement of God in Three Ps: procreation, providence, and protection. In each case, all our eyes see is a natural process. Moms and dads have babies, farmers raise and sell crops, dairy, and cattle; police and military protect us from danger. Where’s God in the process? Well, He’s hidden, but He’s working through the process. He honors us by using us in His work of ongoing creation. King David recognized this: “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb” (Psalm 139:13), and “Praise be to the Lord my Rock, who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle” (Psalm 144:1). Jesus understood it, too. “Your Father in heaven… causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Matthew 5:45).

            God remains our good Creator, giving, sustaining, and protecting life, even if we can’t see His hand involved in it!

The Maker—In the Beginning

 I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth.

            The very first thing Christians affirm about their God is that He is the Creator. This is not some odd, peripheral doctrine; it is the consistent testimony of the Scriptures: from Genesis to Exodus to the Psalms to the Prophets to Jesus to the letters of Paul to Revelation.

            In our age, this assertion often turns into a debate about creation versus evolution. A couple of things: I’m a theologian by training, not a biologist or physicist. Still, I’ve read a bit around the biological side of the evolution debate, and I can’t see how it holds up as settled science. It’s as much ideology as anything. If you want to talk about that, give me a call…

            The ancient Christians who formulated the Creed were not thinking about Darwinian evolution., but they were thinking about ancient paganism—as were the authors of the Bible. In ancient paganism, the world and the gods and humans were all part of the same scale. For example, in Greek mythology, the heaven (Uranus) and earth (Gaia) were considered eternal. They conceived the Titans, who in turn gave birth to the Olympian gods. The point is everything was integrally connected to the other; some were more powerful, some less, but all were basically of the same material.

            The God of the Bible, however, is in Himself and alone, the only eternal thing. He called everything else into being. “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth…For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm” (Psalm 33:6, 9). Whereas the ancient pagan would see everything existing on the same line; the ancient Israelite (and Christian) would draw a great, big, thick line between God and everything else.

            So, nothing in nature is endowed with divine qualities. The true God made it all. And any rebellion against the true God is ultimately foolish (over against the ways that younger generations of pagan gods are always making war and defeating more ancient generations.) And the true God orders the world according to His good and gracious will; there’s no arbitrariness in Him. And when the true God calls the world into being, He makes humans in His image, as caretakers of His creation, delighting both in humans and in the rest of creation.

            All of this—and more—is at stake in the confession that our God is the maker of heaven and earth.

The Creeds

            A few weeks ago, I was leading one of our communion services, and we were reciting the Nicene Creed. Bear in mind, these days, I’m reciting the creed 12 times on a Sunday, so I’ve been thinking about it. Anyhow, it struck me that after confirmation instruction we don’t really go back to the creeds very often, and I thought it might be interesting to take some time on them.

            Just to set the table, a creed is nothing more than a statement of belief. Some people will speak of their personal creeds. For example, Stephen Covey, in his bestselling book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, encourages people to write a personal mission statement, or what we might call a personal creed, answering the question, “What is really important to me?”

            In the case of the church, the creeds are summary statements of the key points of the faith. They come in all shapes and sizes. The Apostles’ Creed is the shortest and was typically used as the baptismal creed. The Nicene Creed, a little longer, delves more deeply into the divine nature of Jesus. The Athanasian Creed, longer still, gives voice to the doctrine of the Trinity and the two natures of Jesus. (In the Lutheran Church, we also have a number of multi-page statements of belief we call the Confessions, although the Confessions, while statements of faith, aren’t really summary statements.)

            The Athanasian Creed is named because it sounds like the teaching of Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, in the early 4^th century. The Nicene Creed is an expansion of the statement of faith promulgated by the Council of Nicea in AD 325. (Actually, the form we speak comes from the Council of Constantinople of 381.) The so-called Apostles’ Creed was supposedly composed by the apostles themselves, with each of the Twelve contributing a line. Of course, that’s just a legend. The Apostles’ Creed is the oldest of the creeds and it certainly summarizes the apostles’ teaching and it’s worth our consideration.

            That’s not a very devotional devotion, I know. It’s really just an introduction to what will come in the next days. For today, let’s just reflect that from ancient times the church has understood that what we believe matters and that our faith is indeed ancient. There’s value in understanding that we speak the faith the same way the church has for thousands of years.

            We will have a Facebook Live Bible study on Wednesday, April 29, at 7 pm. We will talk about the last portion of the Gospel of Matthew, which we were scheduled to talk about last week.

A New Age

Matthew 28: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+28&version=NIV

            When Matthew 28 is read in our churches, we often read verses 1-10, about Jesus’ resurrection, and verses 16-20, the great commission. We never have a chance to talk about verses 11-15. Let’s take a quick look.

            A violent earthquake is one of Matthew’s unique details about Easter morning. That’s the third reference to earthquakes in Matthew. The previous one was just back in Matthew 27, when Jesus died. The first one had been in Jesus’ conversation about the destruction of Jerusalem, “Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and will deceive many. You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains.” In including these details it’s like Matthew wants to make sure that we don’t miss it: Jesus’ death and resurrection are the hinges on which history turns. Israel’s fate is sealed, and the world’s future is opened.

            That Israel’s fate is sealed is demonstrated in the middle section, the plot of the chief priests to undermine the news of the resurrection. As the story makes clear, they have no real answer to the question of what happened, but they are willing to bribe the guards to cast doubt on what the disciples are saying. Some things never change, and the religious leaders of Israel refuse even the “sign of Jonah.” Now, everything that Jesus has said will come to pass.

            The last section, the so-called Great Commission, has been understood as the institution of Holy Baptism, the institution of the Office of the Ministry, and the great mission charge to the church. It is all that and more too. When Jesus declares that all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Him, He is claiming His rightful place as Israel’s—and the world’s—king. God’s new creation has begun; the world is under new management; restoration is begun—a restoration that is marked by Baptism into Christ, administered by those who hold the Office of Ministry, and includes a mission to bring the whole world under Christ’s reign.

The Climax of the Climax

Matthew 27: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matthew+27&version=NIV

             The heart of the Gospel is in verses 45-54. Darkness covers the land—darkness, the Old Testament sign of God’s impending wrath. Jesus cries out in despair, quoting Psalm 22, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” And the temple curtain is torn in two

            First the darkness. Darkness is associated with the day of the Lord throughout the prophets. Israel widely expected the day of the Lord to be the day when God raised Israel up, but the prophets flipped the script and declared it a day of judgment over Israel. “Woe to you who long for the day of the Lord! Why do you long for the day of the Lord? That day will be darkness, not light” (Amos 5:18). On the cross, that day comes, but Jesus interposes Himself under the wrath of God. Even rebellious Israel, whom Jesus has been in controversy with throughout the Gospel, can avoid God’s judgment in Jesus.

            Then, the cry of dereliction. What a thing to think about! That the Father would turn His back on the suffering of His only begotten Son! Jesus dies alone. The crowds have turned against Him; His disciples have abandoned Him; His Father ignores His pleas. On the cross, Jesus suffers the very pain of hell, which, by definition, is to be cut off from all the goodness of God.

            Finally, the temple curtain. The temple, and the tabernacle before it, had emphasized the utter holiness of Israel’s God and their separation from Him by a series of gradations. Only ritually clean Israelite men could enter the inner courts of the temple. Only priests could enter the temple building itself, and then only for prescribed activities. Only the high priest could enter the Holy of Holies, and that only on the Day of Atonement. A holy God could not tolerate sin. At the very least, the torn curtain declares that sins are forgiven by the death of Jesus and that humans—of all sorts—are invited into the presence of God again by the grace that He earned.

            In this moment we see the story come to its completion, and we see with clarity what God had always been up to: the undoing of Adam’s course in the person of His Son.

The Climax

Matthew 26: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+26&version=NIV

            When we turn the page to Matthew 26, we have reached the climax of the story. Jesus the teacher is done teaching. (If you were to look at the ending of Jesus’ large teaching blocks, you’d find the refrain, “When Jesus finished saying these things,” or some variant—see Matthew 7:28; 11:1, 13:53, 19:1. Now, in 26:1, that concludes, “When Jesus had finished saying all these things.”) Jesus hasn’t performed a miracle since chapter 21, and that ‘miracle’ was to curse a fig tree. And in 26:2, Jesus not only predicts his death but also puts a time frame on it—at Passover, in two days. At dinner, a woman pours oil on Him and He explains it as being anointed for burial, and Judas makes arrangements to betray Jesus. Everything is set. We have seen Jesus gathering the stories of Adam and Abraham and Moses and David together in His life and ministry. Now only one story remains—the suffering servant of Isaiah 53. As Jesus says in 26:24, “The Son of Man will go just as it is written about him…”

            I know it was a strange Holy Week, but we did just go through a lot of this only two weeks ago. The point is familiar but important: if you want to get down to the brass tacks of Jesus’ life and ministry you don’t look to Him as a miracle worker; you don’t look to Him as a great teacher; you don’t reduce Him to one of Israel’s prophets. He is, indeed, all of those things. But His most basic vocation was to be the crucified and risen One.

            Among American Christians, I think this is one of the things that really makes Lutherans stand out. We understand that there is a place for expecting healing and miracles; we know there is a part of the faith that is about teaching and ethics, But when we are up against it and we have to say something about Jesus, we preach Christ and Him crucified. I mentioned this in a sermon a while back, but years ago I was taking a class populated mostly by Baptist/non-denominational sorts of pastors. One of them asked how often we preached evangelistic sermons. I asked what he meant and he said something like, “You know, the kind of sermon where you preach the crucifixion and atonement and salvation.” And I was shocked. My answer was, “Every week.” That’s the Lutheran difference.

            And that Lutheran difference pays careful attention to the story of the Gospel. These last three chapters, covering a period of only about 3 days, are clearly the thing that the Gospel has been building toward. This is the climax, the heart of the story. This is what Jesus came for: to, as He put it in chapter 20, give His life as a ransom for many. There’s nothing more important.

Keep Watch

Matthew 25: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matt+25&version=NIV

            I made the case briefly on Saturday that Jesus’ horizon had changed at the end of Matthew 24, that is, He shifted His focus from the nearer, more immediate event of the destruction of Jerusalem to the further, more remote event of the end of the age. That argument is bolstered in chapter 25, in which Jesus tells three parables. In the first, He warns about the hiddenness of that Day, in the second He calls for preparation for that Day, and in the third He describes the work His people should be engaged in until that Day.

            Jesus’ explicit point in the parable of the 10 virgins is, “Keep watch.” Permit me just a comment on the religious culture we live in. If you’ve ever paid attention to the Christian television or publishing industries, you’ve heard preachers or seen books that tell you that the end times are near. They’re all about watching the signs and making events in our day and age match events or prophecies in the Bible. There are so many problems with that approach I don’t know where to start! We could just start with the issue of horizons I talked about yesterday; these ‘teachers’ want to force the horizon of the text to today. The problem is that ancient prophecy had to mean something in the day of and for the first hearers. It makes no sense that a prophet would utter a word that wasn’t going to mean something for 2,500 years and that anyone would remember it if they didn’t understand its importance in their own day.

            Anyhow, the point of the parable of the 10 virgins is that if they had known the hour the bridegroom was coming, they wouldn’t have been unprepared—but they can’t know the hour! They needed to be awake and watching the whole night. Jesus’ command, “Keep watch,” does not mean looking for signs and trying to figure out the whats and the whens of God’s hidden counsel. It means stay awake, stay prepared, and keep at the work the Lord has given to His Church until He unexpectedly returns.

            The second parable builds on that understanding. The man with one bag of gold is not chastised for poor results. Yes, the 5-bag and the 2-bag man each doubled their master’s investment. But the 1-bag man is chastised for not doing anything. He didn’t put the money to work at all. The Church has work to do in the period between Jesus’ ascension and His second coming, and woe to that church that doesn’t stay at it—even if the results aren’t everything they could wish.

            Then, in the third parable, Jesus turns His attention to what that work looks like. We’d be easily forgiven if we summarized the work as reaching out to others; there are certainly passages in this very Gospel that lead us in that direction. Yet here Jesus’ focuses on acts of love and service: feeding the hungry, welcoming the stranger, visiting the sick. Now, if we took account of everything the Scripture had to say about the work of the church, we’d have to say that no one comes to faith because the church ran a food pantry, but that food pantry can be an act of love and create an open door to share the Church’s truest treasure, salvation in Christ. Set that all aside, the Church stays prepared by staying engaged in its world.

Multiple Horizons

Matthew 24: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matthew+24&version=NIV

            This is a difficult chapter because it is difficult to know what the horizon of the text is. What I mean is it’s difficult to know what the text looks forward to. On the one hand, I tend to agree with commentators who think that the bulk of the chapter looks only to the destruction of Jerusalem a generation after Jesus’ death and resurrection. This works pretty well all the way up to verse 36. Even the bit about the sun being darkened could be understood as a prophetic commonplace, a usual figure of speech for judgment.

            But when Jesus makes the comment in verse 36 about no one knowing the day or time, it seems like He has moved on to something different. After all, in the previous paragraph He had said that it was possible to know it was near. So, the horizon seems to have shifted. Now Jesus seems to be talking about the Last Day.

            Why is it important to sort through such a strange topic? Well, for example, a lot of people read the first part of the chapter—wars and persecutions and false messiahs—and they read about the fig tree, and they think that their job is to figure out when the Last Day will arrive. But, of course, in those verses Jesus isn’t talking about the Last Day at all; He’s talking about the destruction of Jerusalem. When He does turn His attention to the Last Day, He’s all like, “No one knows.” So, lest we take the wrong lesson from the text, we consider carefully the text’s horizon.

            There are other complications. For example, especially with prophecy, it’s hard to know exactly what is on the horizon because sometimes the prophets are looking past the immediate horizon to a more distant one. Or sometimes we try to force our horizon onto the text. This is a reminder that the Scripture is often not easy. It’s worth our best effort, but it’s not easy.

            I feel like a broken record, but these are issues we can talk about in more depth at our Wednesday Bible study on Facebook Live (7 pm).

The Seven-fold Woe

Matthew 23: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matthew+23&version=NIV

            I haven’t been looking forward to commenting on Matthew 23. It’s a difficult chapter that demands a lot of background and a lot of care in how we apply it. Very briefly, part of the Pharisees’ project was to find ways to apply laws that originally applied to entry into the tabernacle to contemporary life. I’m thinking especially of the laws regarding ritual cleanness. The effect was to create a hyperawareness and with hyperawareness came anxiety: Am I doing enough to maintain my place among the people of God? That’s why Jesus says that Pharisees place cumbersome loads on the people. Remember back in chapter 11? Jesus’ project involves a light yoke and rest. The Gospel is about comfort, not burdens.

            Then follow seven woes against the Pharisees and the teachers of the law. It’s the bulk of the chapter, and it’s great reading because the language is vivid and sharp: I mean, just read it! “Woe to you who go across the sea to make a single convert only to make him twice the son of hell you are!” “You white-washed tombs!” And it fits as a sort of climactic moment in Jesus’ ongoing controversy with the religious leaders of Israel. But what in the world does it mean for us? The most basic lesson for us is a familiar one: faith not works. What matters is a heart renewed through faith in Jesus. Which is not to say that good works are unimportant—it’s just that they’re not of ultimate importance; they don’t save. Any number of people who claim to be Christians, when asked, “Why are you sure you’re going to heaven?” will say, “Because I’ve lived a good life…” That’s giving works ultimate importance; that’s making the mistake of the Pharisees. Here’s a thing that’s stuck with me since my school days: the Law, which demands and doesn’t save, is always asking the question, “Is it enough?” The Gospel, which is the pure gift of God, simply gives. The Gospel is the way of faith; the Law is the way of works.

            It’s a tricky chapter, and we can talk about it more on Wednesday, April 22, at our Facebook Live Bible study. Hope to see you there.

Marriage, Nation, and Allegiance

Matthew 22: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+22&version=NIV

            In some ways, chapter 22 is just more of the same: Jesus is in controversy with the religious leaders of Israel; He speaks judgment against Israel, and He asserts the priority of the reign of God. That narrative framework is familiar from the rest of the Gospel. There are, however, two particular topics I think warrant comment. First, there is the issue of one’s relationship with the powers of this word, and, second, there is the question of marriage in God’s new age.

            The incident around the temple tax is a trap for Jesus. If He affirms paying Caesar’s tax, He looks like a collaborator with a hated enemy. If He says not to pay the tax, His opponents have occasion to charge Him as a revolutionary before Pilate, the Roman governor. (They may not like Pilate, but they will use him when he suits their purposes.) Jesus neatly sidesteps the trap with His aphorism, “Render to Caesar’s what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.” Caesar (and his coins and taxes) belong to the order of the fallen age; insofar as we live in that age, we obey it. However, we also live in God’s new age and our ultimate loyalty belongs to that age.

            I don’t know if I have space here to lay all this out. American Christians seem to struggle with this. Many of us are deeply suspicious of our government, but we deeply love our country., and both are, in their own ways, problematic. As far as the government is concerned, I refer you to Romans 13, where Paul asserts that everyone in authority is there because God has placed him there. So, the Christian is called to obedience to the government, except when the government would order us to do something contrary to God’s will (compare Acts 5:29). As far as loving our nation, we face questions of syncretism and of allegiance. Syncretism is when you try to merge two different things and worship them together as if they were the same thing. And indeed, since the founding, Americans have often conflated their nation and their faith. (The Puritan settlers in New England were the most obvious offenders with their talk that their new colony was “the city set on a hill.”) Syncretism is an attempt to be equally loyal to two different things, to have the best of two worlds. And throughout the Gospel, Jesus has been clear—primary allegiance belongs to God and to God alone.

            These are difficult questions, and they’re not as simple as yes and no. They are about living with the appropriate balance. I’d be happy to speak to this in our Wednesday Bible study on April 22. Bring it up then, if you’d like to pursue it further.

            The second topic is marriage. Here again, Jesus’ enemies are trying to trap Him, and He neatly avoids the trap. But His answer gives us pause, “At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven.” We live in an era of family values. For many of us, nothing is more important than family, whether our children or our spouses. And this is just the latest in a series of sayings in which Jesus is almost dismissive of family.

            I’ve been studying the Biblical teaching on marriage for two decades; I even wrote a chapter for a book (never published) on the topic. Here’s a summary of that study: marriage is a penultimate estate. This statement is plain even in our wedding vows, where we declare our faithfulness “until death parts us.” Marriage lasts until death, not beyond. In the resurrection.

            Consider this: if my spouse is a believer (and for the record, mine is…), then we relate to each other in at least two ways: first, we are husband and wife, but we are also brother and sister in Christ. When one of us passes, we will cease to be husband and wife; what will remain into eternity is our relationship as brother and sister in Christ. This, too, is a difficult topic and one that I am happy to address at our midweek chat next week.

            To briefly summarize: Christ’s people are to keep their priorities straight. As Jesus says in Matthew 6:33 (incidentally, my confirmation verse): “Seek first God’s kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” It is good to rejoice in God’s good gifts of country and family, but let us never fall into the trap of making them the highest value, a position that belongs to the Giver of all good gifts.

Competing Visions

Matthew 21: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+21&version=NIV

  

            When we turn the page to Matthew 21, the time of the story slows down. The first 20 chapters have taken us from the announcement of Jesus birth to His adulthood in two chapters and they have described His ministry—maybe one to three years—in 18 chapters. Now, the events of the last week of His life occupy 7 chapters, a full quarter of the book. This is the beginning of the climax, and everything is coming together.

            Among the many things we could talk about, the one that really defines this chapter is Jesus’ conflict with the religious leadership of Israel, and that conflict centers around competing visions of God’s plans and purposes in and through Israel. Notice these things.

            First, Jesus is hailed as Israel’s king, establishing His bona fides to speak authoritatively to God’s plans and purposes. Then, He enters immediately into the temple courts and conducts His famous action in the temple. I choose not to call it the cleansing of the temple, because there’s a lot going on there and it’s not 100% clear that we can reduce His action to merely cleansing it. Indeed, I’d go further and say that He is condemning the temple, or, at least, what the current leadership of Israel has made of it. Whatever else we might say, what is clear is what Jesus says, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a den of robbers’” If you were to look up Isaiah 56:7, the first part of Jesus’ quote, you’d find that the whole verse says, “My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations.” Israel’s purpose was never just her own glorification; Israel’s purpose was always the blessing of all the peoples of the earth (Gen. 12:3).

            And Jesus keeps making the point. He curses a fig tree, a thinly veiled statement about Israel’s failure to produce the results that God wanted. He tells a story about two sons, one who agrees to work for the father but doesn’t (a stand in for Israel) and one who refuses to work but does (a stand in for the Gentiles). And He tells a parable about wicked tenants in a vineyard, a vineyard that is so thinly veiled that the chief priests immediately know He was talking about them.

            We can draw at least two lessons out of all of that. Let’s start with the bad news. If we want to apply this to the church today, we start by observing that the church that is no longer engaged in mission—the church that is not reaching out with the Good News to its neighbor, the church whose members aren’t concerned to share that Good News—is a church in the same position as Israel. The church exists, Jesus says in Matthew 5, to be salt and light to the world. If the church hides its light or loses its saltiness, it’s lost its purpose. The church dare never lose sight of what God has called it to do.

            On the positive side, though, the church’s purpose is glorious and wonderful. The church’s purpose is to announce that God’s salvation is for all people and it is a salvation that comes by grace. It doesn’t depend on biology or history or personal worthiness. It is purely a gift. In some ways, that’s the heart of Matthew 21. Jesus breaks open what has only been implicit and hinted at in the Gospel, namely, that God’s salvation is for all people, Jew and Gentile. And, as I like to teach our youth, if God’s salvation is for everyone, then it is for you. Good news indeed!

Bringing Things Together

Matthew 20: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+20&version=NIV

            There are a host of things to talk about in chapter 20. The first parable builds off the last chapter, that achievement under the reign of God doesn’t count like it does in this fallen age. Those who work only an hour receive the same gift as those who labor all day. That plays into another theme that we have seen throughout Matthew, namely, the sense of privilege that first-century Israel carried with them. They’re the laborers who went to the field first and they expect more than agreed on wages.

            Questions about the aims of the kingdom occupy the middle part of the chapter with Jesus announcing His impending suffering, death, and resurrection for the third time. That declaration is paired with a mother’s request for greatness for her sons. An interesting twist there is that the sons (James and John) were right there with her. They are part of the Twelve and had heard Jesus predict His death and teach about the first being last, but here they are, hiding behind their mom, seeking glory by the world’s standards. The cup He is going to drink and the seats at His right and His left are clear foreshadowings of the cross (see Matthew 26:39 and 27:38).The disciples just can’t see that the victory of God will be won through what the world considers abject loss.

            The last bit of the chapter, frankly, the last bit of the story of the Gospel before Jesus comes into Jerusalem is a small story of healing. The important detail here is in verse 34: Jesus had compassion on them. This is now the fourth time in the Gospel that Jesus motivation has been His compassion (9:26, 14:14, and 15:32). As events turn in the next chapter to Palm Sunday and Holy Week, what a great summary of who Jesus is: the compassionate Son of God, who gives His life as a ransom for many!

Privilege and Blessing

Matthew 19: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matthew+19&version=NIV

  

            The story of the rich man who approached Jesus dominates most of chapter 19, and in some ways it continues the themes we saw in chapter 18 about status under the reign of heaven. The man asks Jesus the burning question in Judaism of his day: how does one become worthy of life in God’s new age. (I’ll invite you to Wednesday’s Bible class to hear more about what the man is really asking; suffice it to say, it’s more complicated than a question simply about dying and going to heaven.) Jesus leads the man through the commandments, which he boldly claims to have done (but compare the way that Jesus had sharpened the commandments in the Sermon on the Mount; more on that Wednesday, too.) Jesus, understanding the man better than the man understands himself, challenges him where it hurts: he must give up his wealth. And the man went away sad.

            Here’s where privilege and status enter. Jesus tells His disciples that it is hard for the rich to enter the reign of heaven, and they are shocked. The presumption was that rich meant uniquely blessed by God, so if it was hard for the rich to enter the kingdom, what chance was there for anybody? Jesus’ answer is profound: “Impossible for humans, but God is able.”

            Once again the usual measures of the world don’t work. The young man’s defense of his righteousness doesn’t matter; the young man’s wealth doesn’t matter. We’re reminded in the snippet before the rich young man about the place of children. (Remember Saturday’s devotion about the status of children in that world.)

            If I could just summarize a much longer discussion, what matters is grace. God does things that are impossible with humans, and that’s not just a statement about His power. It’s a statement about His character. He does things that we can’t do and that we don’t deserve! A little child has done nothing to deserve the kingdom, yet it belongs to them by grace. A rich man doesn’t deserve the kingdom, yet, if He would have embraced that kingdom’s call by faith, he would have received it. Our perceived goodness doesn’t merit the kingdom; it’s God who calls us out of the darkness (1 Peter 2:9).

            The kingdom is a kingdom of grace from top to bottom. We don’t bring anything into with us; as a matter of fact, the Scriptures teach that we resist and oppose the kingdom by nature. But God works this miracle of grace, that while we were sinners, while we were God’s enemies, God acted for us, sending His Son to die for us (Romans 5:9-10). What humans cannot do, God can—and does, in Jesus.

The Topsy-Turvy Kingdom

Matthew 18: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matt+18&version=NIV

This Holy Saturday just a reflection on the very first part of Matthew 18: Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? There are a hundred metrics by which the world measures greatness: biggest, strongest, fastest, tallest. I think of movies like Wall Street from the 80s, where the measure of greatness is how much money you can make and your willingness to do anything necessary to achieve that goal. Even that word, achieve, is a word the world recognizes as a mark of greatness. It starts when we’re children: what grades did you make in school? Who won the game? (When they were young, my children played in a soccer league that didn’t keep score…but you can bet everyone from players to parents knew the score!)
Then here comes Jesus, defining greatness with a little child. In that era, a child was nobody. Any standing they had was only because of their parents, especially their father, and that standing was really only potential. A child might grow up in his father’s image. The child himself, though, was better seen and not heard, or even better neither seen nor heard. There was no idealization of childhood in the first-century. When Jesus called that little child, the disciples most likely responded with a cringe: “Oh, man, what’s he bringing a kid over here for? We’re trying to have a serious conversation!” And that’s exactly Jesus point: in the topsy-turvy way of the kingdom, humility matters more than achievement. Grace dominates over self-assertion. The failure is lifted up.
Why is this a good reflection for Holy Saturday? Because the cross looks a great deal like abject failure. There were plenty of messiahs in Jesus’ day, and each one of them ended up dead at the hands of the Romans. To get crucified meant that you had challenged Rome’s might and lost. That’s what was on the minds of the disciples that first Saturday after the crucifixion. “We backed the wrong horse. Despite the crowds and the miracles and everything we hoped, Jesus was just one more false messiah.”
But the cross is not failure for Jesus. It’s the ultimate act of selflessness. Jesus wins by losing, because in His death the failures of an entire race—the human race—are swallowed up. In His death, death itself is swallowed up. On the cross, Jesus accepts that the wages of our sin is His death. Tomorrow is Easter, the day when the Father vindicated His Son, the day when He declared, “This death, shameful as it was, does not make my Son a failure; this death shows my Son the one who is faithful even to death; this death shows that grace and mercy and humility are better than anything fallen humans could ever do for themselves. This death is not a failure, but a victory for my topsy-turvy kingdom.”

Turning Point

Matthew 17: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=mat+17&version=NIV

            Although Matthew 17 begins with the Transfiguration of our Lord, in a larger way, it’s a fitting reading for Good Friday. This section of the Gospel is the turning point in the story. From Peter’s confession of Jesus as the Messiah, through Jesus’ first prediction of His suffering and death, the transfiguration account, and on to Jesus’ second prediction of His passion, everything changes. The time of miracles is more or less over. (There are a couple more miracles in Matthew’s story, but the summaries of Jesus healing many are past.) Now we are on to the serious business of the cross.

            Remember last week when we read Matthew 11 about John’s doubts? There I said that John was reading the wrong portions of the prophets and that’s why he was expecting fire and judgment from the Messiah. Part of Jesus’ genius was the way He re-read the Old Testament. He saw Messiah’s work centered around Isaiah’s visions of healing and restoration. And when He accounted for those passages about judgment, He saw them fulfilled in the suffering of the Messiah. He read Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53 and He understood that ultimate healing came through the death of the Messiah. No one else in Jesus’ day was thinking like that.

            So, to steal Luke’s phrase, here in the middle of the Gospel, “Jesus set His face resolutely toward Jerusalem” (Luke 9:52).

            Today is Good Friday. The readings we’ll hear in our services, especially tonight, we won’t cover in these devotions for several days yet. However, the story is already pointing that way. The goal of Jesus is the cross and the empty tomb beyond it.

            Just a reminder: we’ll have a recorded service on our website (divinesaviorlutheran.com) by noon today. We’ll also be livestreaming our Tenebrae service on Facebook Live (facebook.com/divinesaviorlutheran/) at 7 pm. Easter service will be posted to our website and linked to our Facebook page early Sunday morning.

Once More, Who Is Jesus?

Matthew 16: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matt+16&version=NIV

            Matthew 16 consists of three blocks: a warning about the “yeast” of the Pharisees, Peter’s confession of Jesus, and Jesus’ prediction of His passion.

            To start, a word about the yeast of the Pharisees. Jesus compares the teaching of the Pharisees to yeast because of the way that yeast works: you only add a little bit, but it makes the whole loaf swell slowly over time, so slowly that from minute to minute you hardly even notice it. That’s how false teaching works, too.  It’s insidious; you hardly even notice that it’s warping the truth.

            Here’s a thing I’ve observed: in seminary and especially in graduate school, we learned quite a bit about philosophy. Many people are inclined to think that philosophy is a weird, irrelevant discipline, but a student of it can see how ideas that begin in the ivory tower slowly work their way into the popular mind. Several phenomena that we see in our world today—the reduction of our politics to power games, the bending of reality in regard to gender fluidity, the reduction of truth to personal preference—all these ideas are the consequences of modern philosophy. I don’t want to belabor the point, but philosophically it’s important to understand where ideas came from, and theologically it’s important to stay connected to the Scriptures in order to weigh our thoughts against the one, true standard of belief. Otherwise, well, it’s like yeast…

            Second, Peter confesses Jesus. The question, “Who is Jesus?” is a driving concern in the Gospel. Here Jesus asks it point blank, “Who do people say I am?” and “Who do you say I am?” Peter, in a moment of God-given clarity, declares Jesus “the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” That confession is the rock on which Jesus says He will build His church. It’s a theme through the whole letter of 1 John, too, that the essential doctrine of the faith is the coming of the Son of God in the flesh. I think sometimes modern Christians don’t have much use for doctrine, so conversation about the incarnation seems esoteric and difficult to them. “Just tell us how to live,” seems a much more contemporary desire from the church. But if we take Matthew (and 1 John and other places) seriously, we discover that we cannot begin to understand how to live until we’ve really grappled with questions of who Jesus is and what He did.

            And what He did is the third block in chapter 16. No sooner has Peter declared Jesus the Messiah than Jesus declares what it means to be the Messiah: the Messiah must suffer, die, and be raised to life again. Predictably, Peter objects because everyone knows that the Messiah is supposed to lead Israel to a glorious restoration of her fortunes, and being crucified is abject loss. But Jesus insists: in order for His church to have authority to bind and loose sins, the Messiah must first earn the forgiveness of sins by His death and resurrection. Everything hinges on it.

            Today is Maundy Thursday, and although we won’t get to Jesus’ death in these devotions for another week and a half, I hope you’ll tune it tonight and tomorrow and Sunday. These observations remind us what is central and foundational to our faith: Jesus, the Son of God suffered and died for our forgiveness and rose in glorious victory that we might live. (Tonight, we’re livestreaming on Facebook Live at 7 pm. We’ll have a recorded service with a sermon on our website and Facebook page by noon tomorrow. Good Friday Tenebrae will also be on Facebook Live at 7 pm on Friday. Easter’s recorded service will be posted early Easter Sunday.)

Who's In?

Matthew 15: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+15&version=NIV

            One of the driving questions in Israel in Jesus’ day was the question of belonging: who was truly a member of God’s holy people. The Sadducees’ answer was more or less, “Anyone who is descended of Abraham.” The Pharisees answer was more narrow—those who practiced the key practices of Judaism (circumcision, Sabbath-keeping, kosher law, ritual purity) with sufficient rigor. (The Essenes, a first-century Jewish group that is nowhere mentioned in the Bible, were even narrower than the Pharisees.)

            When the Pharisees challenge Jesus in these chapters, they are trying to figure out where Jesus is on this spectrum, and they don’t like the answer. Jesus believes that all of their answers are seriously flawed.

            First, we have the incident around washed hands and the traditions of the elders. Jesus is clear: exterior practices don’t define who you are. It’s what’s in the heart that matters. Or, to put it differently, it’s faith that matters. Now, just the other day, Monday as a matter of fact, I said that it would be good if those who claimed the name Christian took the commitments of the faith more seriously. So, let’s think about how these two things go together for a second. Lutherans believe that we are saved through faith alone. And at the same time our Confessions teach the necessity of good works—not to earn salvation but as a sign that faith truly lives in the heart. The Pharisees’ error was not in expecting that God’s people would act like God’s people; their error was in believing that works got you in or kept you in. Our works do matter, but not in determining our status before God. They are the legitimate fruit of faith.

            Jesus also challenges the assumptions of the Pharisees with a Canaanite woman. We should note that by the time Matthew writes, there hasn’t been a true Canaanite in Israel in, like, 600 years. It is a deliberate anachronism, and it is meant to sharpen just how outside the norms of Israel she is. Yet, Jesus commends her for her great faith. Even a Canaanite—one of the most outside of outsiders—receives the reign of God by faith. Faith opens the reign of God to everyone, no matter how unlikely!

Who Is Jesus?

Matthew 14: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matthew+14&version=NIV

            The story of John’s gruesome death at the beginning of chapter 14 brings us back again to the question of Jesus’ identity. Remember that John had wondered while he was in prison whether Jesus was the one they had expected or not; he had wondered, in other words, just who Jesus is. The question haunts the Gospel at every step.

            Today, we get two more glimpses into the answer. First, Jesus feeds 5,000 men (not counting women and children). In the first instance, it is a glance back to Moses, because in the wilderness, when they had no food, God provided bread (Exodus 16). This is just one more piece of Jesus bringing the Old Testament forward to its ultimate fulfillment. Of course, if we’re paying careful attention, we’ll notice that although the story goes back to the days of Moses, it is really God Himself who provides the manna. And if we go all the way back to Genesis 1-3, we’ll realize that the world was created to abound in food and that it was only the curse of sin that made the earth resist our efforts to bring a living out of it. In this one little story, God is bringing to fulfillment what He started in the Exodus; He’s giving a foretaste of the restoration of the creation that awaits on the last day; and there’s the hint—who’s Jesus? Well, He looks a lot like God Himself.

            That same hint is in the incident of walking on the water, too. A couple of cool Old Testament moments: Psalm 104:3, “The Lord makes the clouds His chariot and rides on the wings of the wind,” and Job 38:11, “The Lord said to the sea, ‘This far you may come and no farther.” Who commands wind and wave? Yahweh of Israel. Who commands wind and wave? Jesus of Nazareth? Yes, Jesus of Nazareth! No wonder His disciples worshiped Him and said, “You are the Son of God.” Of course, they hadn’t thought through what that meant yet. (Son of God was probably more a statement about Jesus’ royalty and messiahship than a statement about His deity.) But the hints are there. Jesus is clearly more than meets the eye.

Presumption

Matthew 13: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matthew+13&version=NIV

  

            Sometimes we think of parables as simple illustrations designed to make a point clearer. Matthew 13 shows us that’s not the case! First, Jesus Himself says so, “Because the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them” (Matthew13:11). Second, there are parts of the chapter that seems really clear only to show themselves really difficult to apply. In truth, it’s often better to think of a parable as a form of veiled speech designed to deliver a hard message without the audience realizing just how hard the message is.

            Take for example the first parable in the chapter: the parable of the sower. On the one hand, it’s a fairly straightforward agricultural story. On the other hand, the point is kind of dark: don’t presume you understand the kingdom; instead open your ears and listen. In that sense, it’s of a piece with a lot of things Jesus says. “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 7:21). “For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it” (Matthew 7:13-14). There are others that make the same point.

            To a certain extent, the warning is for Jesus’ immediate hearers. Last week I noted in relation to Matthew 10 that Jesus was reconstituting Israel around Himself, and in that context there were going to be those who belonged to “old” Israel who wouldn’t be part of “new” Israel. (We see this playing out in the book of Acts, where the fledgling church’s first and biggest persecutors are actually Jews who do not accept Jesus as Messiah.)

            In another way it’s a sharp but good lesson for modern hearers. We rightly talk a lot about grace and God’s free gifts; however, there’s a moment at which we need to talk about the commitments of faith, too. It’s possible—and unfortunately many do—to claim the name “Christian” without taking any of those commitments seriously. Just to put a couple of things that we don’t take seriously out there: worship attendance (Hebrews 10:25), making offerings (1 Corinthians 16:2), sexual purity (1 Corinthians 6:18). As Jesus has already said in this Gospel, good trees produce good fruit (Matthew 12:33).

            So, listen: the kingdom of heaven is a kingdom of grace. No one enters it because they deserve it. We are called to it and given it purely as a gift. Yet, as with any gift, we should treasure both the gift and the one who gives it. In some ways, that’s the thrust of these parables: if you don’t treasure the gift, do you really treasure the giver. It’s a hard chapter, but it is certainly food for thought.

Attack and Counterattack

Matthew 12: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matt+12&version=NIV

            There is a lot going on in Matthew 12, but since we are on the cusp of Holy Week, I will just focus on the rising controversy between Jesus and the religious leaders of Israel. First, we see Jesus “on the attack.” His disciples’ pluck some wheat and the Pharisees, who value Sabbath observation as a sign that one is a faithful Jew, leap on it. “They’re breaking Sabbath!” Jesus takes the opportunity to poke them—twice, maybe even three times. First, he compares Himself to David. Second, He downplays the temple by saying He’s greater than the temple. Third, He declares Himself Lord of the Sabbath. Anyone of those things would rile a Pharisee. It’s like Jesus is being deliberately provocative.

            The counterattack comes at least twice. In verse 14, the chapter says they went out and plotted how to kill Jesus. That, at least, is how NIV translates it. The word is usually translated destroy, and it’s just possible that they are looking for a way “to destroy” Jesus in the sense of ruin His reputation. They might not be thinking murder just yet, although by the end of the Gospel that’s where they end up. Then in verse 24 they accuse Jesus of being in league with Beelzebul, another name for Satan.

            Let me lay out three quick takeaways. First, within the story, we see things progressing towards the events of Holy Week. It’s not like in that week the religious leaders of Israel just suddenly said, “Hey, we should get rid of Jesus!” Throughout His ministry, His vision of what it meant to follow the God of Israel and their vision had been diverging. Holy Week is the explosion at the end of a long fuse. Second Jesus is completely capable of poking us in those spots were our allegiances are confused or our hearts are divided. Jesus doesn’t come to affirm us. He comes to challenge our subtle idolatries, to condemn our sin, and to provide atonement for it—that we might be fundamentally changed, making us by the power of the Spirit “good trees: (verse 33).. Third, following Jesus means that His enemies become our enemies. In the Small Catechism, we name those enemies as the devil, the world, and our sinful selves. Sometimes we (naively) assume the world around us is on our side—or should be. So it’s good to be reminded that our trials and challenges aren’t out of the ordinary. If the world opposed Jesus, we shouldn’t expect anything else. Ultimately, in His death and resurrection, Jesus bested those opponents, so we shouldn’t fear them too much but it’s helpful to be reminded they are there.

What Kind of Messiah?

Matthew 11: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=mat+11&version=NIV

            John was in a crisis of faith. He had proclaimed a Messiah who would bring judgment and fire, purifying Israel and ushering in God’s new age. Now he was in prison, probably facing execution. His timeline was getting shorter and shorter and he wanted to know when Jesus was going to get busy with the fire.

            “Go tell John what you see and hear: the blind receive sight, the lame walk, the good news is proclaimed to the poor,” Jesus says in reply to John’s doubts. It’s Jesus’ way of saying, “You’re reading the wrong prophets. Go back and read Isaiah.” Isaiah’s vision of the Messiah is a vision of one who brings healing and wholeness, it is of a Messiah who acts as God’s beloved servant, a servant who ultimately suffers for the people (cf. Isaiah 53).

            So, the Baptizer’s expectations of Jesus were wrong.

            Fast forward to our day. These kinds of days can provoke a crisis of faith for us. “Where is God in all this mess?” we ask. We expect a Messiah who will bring healing and wholeness, and yet here we are locked in our houses for fear of a sickness. When Luke tells this same story, he includes this line, “At that very time Jesus cured many who had diseases, sicknesses and evil spirits, and gave sight to many who were blind” (Luke 7:21). Man, would we like to see that!

            So, we seem to have the right expectations—healing not judgment—but we can be every bit as disappointed as John. What gives?

            The ministry of miracles that Jesus did were signs of the reign of God; they weren’t the fullness of the reign of God. Jesus struggled with this misunderstanding throughout His ministry. For example, in John 6, following the miraculous feeding of the 5,000, the crowds that pursued Jesus were more interested in full bellies than anything else. “You were only looking for me because you ate your fill,” Jesus says. (John 6:26).

            The fullness of the reign of God wasn’t made known until Jesus hung on the cross. It’s on Good Friday that Jesus wears a purple robe (put on him in mockery) and a crown (of thorns) and a scepter (in fact, just a walking staff). It’s on Good Friday that He is declared Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews. The healing that He brings is not just of the ailments of the body; the healing He brings is a healing of the whole person, starting by making us right with God by His atoning death and extending to the resurrection on the last day, when death, the last enemy, will be destroyed (1 Corinthians 15:26).

            So, we need to keep our expectations of Jesus the Messiah firmly focused on the cross. John wasn’t completely wrong, but he failed to see that the harshest judgment would fall on Jesus the Messiah for our forgiveness. We aren’t completely wrong when we pray for and expect healing, but we fail to see that the deepest healing is ours already. There’s so much more to say, but let it suffice to say, when we are focused on the cross of Jesus and His resurrection, then we know the truth of Jesus’ saying, “Come to me you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).

God’s People

Matthew 10: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+10&version=NIV

  

            Matthew 10 is the second great discourse of Jesus in Matthew. It’s usually called the missionary discourse, because Jesus speaks it as He sends His disciples out to carry his message to the people of Israel. The fourth discourse in chapter 18 is usually called the ecclesiastical discourse, or the discourse on the Church. However, I’m not sure exactly how helpful those titles are. I think they place an artificial wedge between the church and mission, and those two things always belong together. The church is the answer to Jesus’ prayer to send workers into the harvest field. The church exists for the sake of her mission.

            Consider this detail: Matthew 10:1-2 is the first time Matthew specifies that Jesus has 12 disciples, or, at least, 12 disciples who are designated apostles. The twelve-ness should make us take note. After all, that’s the number of sons that Jacob, also called Israel, had, and those 12 sons became the forefathers of the 12 tribes of Israel. 12 ought to make us think of the people of Israel. When Jesus designates these 12 men, he is in effect reconstituting Israel—renewing her, rebuilding her, re-energizing her—around himself.

            And “old” Israel, Israel according to the flesh as Paul calls it, is the object of the “new” Israel’s outreach. “Old” Israel, after all, had failed of her promise; she had rotted on the vine. By Jesus’ day she was concerned with her own special status and keeping others out of it than she was with being salt and light for the world.

            Listen there’s a lot going on here, but I think the point to be made is straightforward: God will always have a people. Who they are and where they live might change over the years, but he will always have a people who will carry His message of grace and forgiveness into the world. The call for us is to remember the incredible gifts we have been given and to share those gifts with the world around us.

A Trick Question

Matthew 9: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+9&version=NIV

            Matthew 9:1-8 is one of those stories that has always stuck in my head, although, to tell the truth, it’s Mark’s and Luke’s accounts that stick out. Both Mark and Luke include the detail that the house was so crowded that the paralyzed man’s friends have to lower him through the roof. As a child the thing that stood out was the dedication of the friends, so desperate to get their friend to Jesus. In mature theological reflection, what a great visual of the sinner, powerless in his sin! Our salvation, as this man’s healing, is pure gift. Mature theological reflection also makes one wish that more friends in our day were more desperate to get their friends to Jesus.

            But Matthew doesn’t tell us how the man gets before Jesus; Matthew wants our attention somewhere else. He wants us to focus on Jesus’ statement that the man’s sins are forgiven (remember chapter 1? That’s why He’s named Jesus, after all, because he will forgive his peoples sins) and His question about which is easier.

            It’s a trick question. On the face of it, it is much easier to say, “Your sins are forgiven,” than it is to say, “Get up and walk.” Think about it: you can’t see another person’s spiritual condition, so if you say someone’s sins are forgiven, who is going to prove you wrong? On the other hand, everyone can see the man is paralyzed, so if you say, “Get up,” and he doesn’t, well, then you’re a fraud.

            But here’s the trick: it doesn’t cost Jesus a thing to restore this man’s movement. It’s just one more thing like stilling the storm, completely natural for Him as the Son of the Creator God. It is, for Jesus, an easy miracle. But to forgive the man’s sins? Ho, ho, ho! Now we’re counting the cost because forgiveness means the cross; it means Jesus suffering; it means death for Jesus. Salvation might be free for us, but that doesn’t mean it was cheap! It just means that Jesus paid the price for us!

            I think about that in these days. Right now, our fears and our worries are on display; just log into Facebook or flip on the evening news. And we are praying, “Deliver us from evil,” pretty fervently. And I’m not trying to minimize those fears. But I do hope that we don’t lose sight of the deeper problems and the greater gifts—sin and grace and forgiveness for Jesus’ sake. And I hope that when this is all over and past, we don’t take for granted the thing that really matters, the most precious of gifts, the salvation that Jesus earned for us.