Here are the notes and questions from LightHouse last night:
1. As you read the passage what things surprise you, what questions do you have?
2. How would you define faith? (Faith is responding in active trust, active reliance and active obedience to God’s faithful and gracious work of salvation in Christ.)
Matthew is building up an overwhelmingly convincing argument that Jesus is the Messiah; each healing and miracle along with his authoritative teaching provides another piece of evidence in reaching the conclusion that Jesus is the Christ.
His birth fulfils Old Testament prophecy, his teaching is unlike any other which the people have ever heard, he proclaims the good news that the kingdom is here, he claims to be the Christ, and his miraculous work provides yet more evidence of who he is. Jesus healed the leper, then healed the Centurions servant from a distant, then calmed out of control creation with just his voice, he has overcome demonic forces, proven he can forgive sin, transforms and calls sinners whether religious or irreligious and ultimately comes to bring about the new kingdom as he fulfils the old. Matthew is laying out his evidence and it makes a strong case, and now he adds more evidence that Jesus is the Christ.
1. Miracles that point to one conclusion: Jesus is the Christ
It is as if Matthew is piling up the evidence as quickly as possible, providing rapid fire proof with brief pictures of Jesus at work which reveal that he is who he says he is and then moving on the next and seeking to an utterly overwhelming weight of proof that Jesus is the Messiah. It’s worth noticing that Matthew is much briefer in what he reveals about these incidents than Luke or Mark. Matthew doesn’t tell us the synagogue ruler’s name, or all the details of this incident, instead he condenses events to provide a snapshot of it focusing on what it tells us about Jesus rather than filling out all the details.
Jesus is on his way to respond to the leaders request when what happened(20)? This woman touches him and Jesus stops. Both these incidents have something in common; to touch or be touched by either this woman who is bleeding or a dead body was defiling and made you unclean for seven days. For that reason people generally avoided such contact. But not with Jesus, both situations end with an impossible reversal. This woman has been bleeding for how long? 12 years, it seemed unending, nothing will stop it, until she just touches Jesus believing he can heal her. And Jairus’ daughter, well what is going on when Jesus gets to the house (23-24)? They are mourning her death, the funeral has started. Yet Jesus overturns even death itself as he takes her by the hand and brings her back to life. Jesus does the impossible, so impossible that the crowd mock him and laugh at him, you may be a great healer but no one can conquer death. But Jesus can and does.
Jesus makes the unclean clean, he heals, he forgives, he conquers even death itself.
This is a momentous thing, Jesus has just raised a dead girl to life but Matthew doesn’t stop to consider the ramifications of this even or hammer home its significance, in fact he scarcely takes a breath before he carries on his account “As Jesus went out from there, two blind men followed him, calling out, ‘Have mercy on us, Son of David!’”
Can you remember how Matthew starts? It starts with the genealogy of Jesus and David is prominent in it, Joseph his earthly Father is described as a Son of David by the Angel (1:20), and Bethlehem where Jesus is born is the town of David. To call someone Son of David was a clear Messianic exclamation. The irony is that it is two blind men who can see what all the evidence points to! They come to Jesus the messiah and ask him to do what the Old Testament promised the Messiah would do. Isaiah 35:3-6
“Strengthen the feeble hands,
steady the knees that give way;
say to those with fearful hearts,
“Be strong, do not fear;
your God will come,
he will come with vengeance;
with divine retribution
he will come to save you.”
Then will the eyes of the blind be opened
and the ears of the deaf unstopped.
Then will the lame leap like a deer,
and the mute tongue shout for joy.
Water will gush forth in the wilderness
and streams in the desert.”
It is no accident that this recognition of Jesus as the Messiah is followed by their healing and then a mute tongue being unstopped as Jesus casts out another demon. In ch11:3 Jesus will point back to these miracles as proof that he is the Messiah to John the Baptist and evidence that he should not stumble in his faith.
Every incident, every miracle is another exhibit in the bulging evidence folder proving that Jesus is the Messiah, that he is the Christ, and that his words must be listened to and he must be believed in. (35)And such healings and teaching continue as Jesus goes on teaching, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and illness. Jesus keeps on providing more and more evidence that he is the Messiah the king inaugurating his kingdom.
The king is here is what Matthew wants his readers and us to realise, Jesus is who he claims to be the evidence is overwhelming. Jesus is the Christ and you can entrust yourself to him.
2. What is a right reaction to Jesus?
Matthew is leading us to an inescapable conclusion about who Jesus is, he is the Christ, the Messiah as Matthew claims ch1v1. The evidence all point to that conclusion so logically (v33) should read ‘so all Israel praised God and put their faith in Jesus and followed him’, but it doesn’t.
How do the crowd react? They are amazed and said ‘Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel’. But notice that is as far as it goes. They recognise the newness of what is happening, that it is unique, that there has never been anything like it before but they don’t conclude what Matthew concludes that Jesus is the Messiah. In fact you will have noticed here that Jesus seems to want to perform miracles in secret, (25)he puts the crowd outside before he raises the little girl back to life and (28, 30)Jesus deliberately waits until they are inside the house with fewer watching eyes before he heals the blind men and then charges them not to tell anyone. Jesus doesn’t want the crowd just coming for miracles, or to misunderstand the nature of his kingship. He is the king that is what the miracles show but the crowd will not recognise that, they are just amazed at the miracles he can do and come to Jesus for that.
But that response is not an adequate one. Jesus is not just a miracle worker, he is not just someone to be in awe of.
There is a second response in (34) what is it? The Pharisees accuse him of being prince of demons. Notice what they do not do, they don’t deny he can miracles, they argue incredibly that they point to the opposite of where the scriptures would lead them. Jesus is not like the Messiah they had in mind so they will not have him as Messiah. And here they question his power attributing it to demonic rule and because they reject his power they can reject his claims.
Jesus brings division, as John the Baptist said Jesus is winnowing Israel dividing the chaff and the wheat. Jesus is setting the pattern of the kingdom, he does not ask his followers to go through what he does not experience “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.”
Some will stop at being amazed at Jesus as a miracle worker, others will always react angrily to Jesus claims and be hostile towards those who follow Jesus. We ought to expect no less among our friends, family, work colleagues, and society; some will simple think Jesus is a good teacher or miracle worker, others will react angrily rejecting him.
But there has also been another thread running through these chapters, it is faith in Jesus. But we need to notice something those faiths have been very different. The leper has a robust faith that acts and believe even risking being in a crowd to come to Jesus knowing he can heal, the Centurion has an exemplary faith greater than any in Israel, the disciples in the boat have a little faith which is not yet fully formed or fully aware of who Jesus is, the friends of the paralysed man have active stop at nothing faith, Matthew has faith that follows even when it costs. To that picture this sections adds Jairus’ faith that Jesus can even raise from the dead, the woman’s seemingly slightly superstitious faith, and the blind men have a clearer faith in Jesus as Son of David and in his power to give sight as the Messiah. What you notice is that each of their faiths is different. There is no one uniform faith.
But what is it that all of their faith has in common? The one it is placed in. It is not faith that transforms, forgives, heals, cleanses, liberates, conquers and saves. It is the object of faith who does that. Jesus transforms, forgives, heals, cleanses, liberates, conquers, and saves. Each person’s faith is in Jesus and it is not the strength of faith that matters but the person and power of Jesus.
Sometimes people talk of having faith trouble, or struggling with their faith, or wishing they had faith like so and so as if faith itself and the amount I can conjure up or feel in and of myself is the issue. As if we can work at having more faith if we just whip ourselves up a bit more. The object of your faith is what matters, Jesus is the one who saves, it is seeing more clearly who Jesus is that strengthens our faith, it is realising how he loves and what he has done for us that strengthens our faith. And saving faith is faith in Jesus, it is the onject of faith that matters.
Matthew wants us to look at Jesus see he is the Messiah and put our faith in him. It may be weak faith, it may be hesitant faith, but it is Jesus who matters, the object of faith because he saves. It is not about our ability to exercise faith but his utter power to save.
1. A friend says to you that they believe Jesus was just a miracle worker what would you say to them and why?
2. What is saving faith?
3. A friend comes to you saying they are struggling with their faith, how would you go about helping them?
Showing posts with label Matthew 9. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Matthew 9. Show all posts
Monday, 25 June 2012
Monday, 18 June 2012
Matthew 9v1-17 Jesus mission unveiled
Here are the notes and questions from LightHouse last night:
1. What did Jesus come to earth to do?
2. Who are our society’s tax collectors and sinners?
Matthew has been hammering home again and again that Jesus is the Messiah; in his words, in his actions, in each successive miracle which is more amazing than the last and which declares him to be God’s long awaited King. He teaches in ways that amaze and astound, he heals and makes the unclean clean, he commands out of control creation and it is calm and he has authority over demons and spirits who fear him as the Son of God who will one day judge them. But why did Jesus come? What was his mission? Was it to be a good teacher? Was it to be a miracle worker? Was it to cast out demons? Was it to give us a glimpse of what the kingdom of God could be like? Was it to be an example for us to follow? These next three incidents show us clearly who Jesus is and what his mission is. But as Jesus reveals who he is and what he has come to do we see the growing conflict between him and the Jews and what they expected.
1. Jesus came to forgive sin
Jesus heads back to Capernaum(1) and some friends bring a paralysed man on his mat to Jesus. What do they want Jesus to do? To heal him. But what does Jesus say? “Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven.” Jesus doesn’t use the obvious words, in fact his words seem almost disconnected from the problem at hand. And Jesus is very deliberate in the words he uses. We see later on that this was a deliberate choice to say your sins are forgiven, because he later on uses the words get up and walk. So why does Jesus use this deliberately provocative phrase knowing how the Pharisees would react? Because Jesus is confronting false expectations about the Messiah and his mission.
(3)God alone can forgive sins. In Psalm 51 David teaches that all sin is against God therefore only God can forgive sin. In Isaiah 43and 44 God says “I, even, I am he who blots out your transgressions” and “I have swept away your offenses like a cloud. Your sins like the morning mist.” The law and the provision of the temple and the sacrifices declared that only God could forgive sin. But here is Jesus claiming to be able to forgive this man’s sin. It’s no wonder they accuse him of blasphemy.
Jesus claims to be able to do what God alone can do, and he explains why? How does he describe himself(6)? “The Son of Man”. Jesus is claiming that he is the Son of Man, the one who in Daniel 7 enters God’s throne room and is “given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshipped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.”
Again Jesus explodes their limited, little ideas of the Messiah as a warrior king who would restore Israel. His claim is astounding; I am the Son of Man worthy of worship because I am God the Son come with his authority, glory and sovereign power and thus I can forgive sin. And in healing the man Jesus proves that he can do it(4-7), the healing is an outward sign of the forgiveness that Jesus has granted the man. Jesus can and does forgive sin.
Jesus gets to the heart of the man’s problem not the paralysis but his real problem, sin. Israel think they need a conquering warrior king who will boot out the Romans and restore them to what they once were in terms of international prestige but Jesus comes as a Saviour to forgive sin because their real problem isn’t the Romans it’s their hearts. Their real problem is sin.
Our society is no different is it? We jump from one social programme to another to another hoping it will solve crime, social breakdown, poverty and so on. But none works, not one solves the problem because they don’t go deep enough. They are about surface change, behavioural change, but Jesus mission shows us God’s diagnosis of the problem, it is sin and the only solution is Jesus who comes to forgive sin.
But notice that the people miss the point(8), they still can’t break out of small expectations, they still can’t see who Jesus is, they just go home amazed that God would give such authority to humans or to a man, they will not recognise who Jesus really is, and because of that they won’t accept the diagnosis of the problem or see him as the solution. You won’t come to Jesus for forgiveness until you recognise who he is.
2. Jesus comes to transform
We see Jesus mission again as he takes the initiative and approaches Matthew the Tax Collector. Jesus calls Matthew and Matthew responds by leaving and following. How did society view Matthew? An outcast, a collaborator, tainted, a sinner. But Jesus knows the power of grace to transform sinners into disciples. Jesus doesn’t just come to forgive he comes to transform.
What does Matthew do next? He throws a party, inviting Jesus to a meal populated by sinners and Jesus goes. Jesus mission is seen again in his actions, Jesus comes to forgive and transform sinners into disciples. But we also see that Jesus mission sets him on a collision course with the religious authorities. The religious thought of such people as defiling and were expecting the Messiah to condemn and crush such people whilst lifting up the righteous. But Jesus again confronts this false expectation, he is bigger than that, his mission is more amazing more radical than that.
(11)So the Pharisees charge Jesus with eating with tax collectors and sinners. The question they ask is a loaded one, eating with such people brought into question who Jesus was. Jesus answers them with a clear statement of his mission; (12)"It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but those who are ill. But go and learn with this means: “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
They expect the messiah to condemn the sinner and uphold the righteous but Jesus seeks for, forgives and transforms the sinner and challenges the hypocrisy of those who think they are righteous. We see that in the quote Jesus uses from Hosea as he tells them that they need to go and look again at this scripture because they haven’t learnt what it means. Hosea is one of the most graphic books in the bible as Israel’s unfaithfulness is portrayed as adultery, with God as the faithful husband and Israel as the unfaithful wife who whores after others. God tells Israel’s leaders that though they practice religiously at the temple their hearts are rotten, they have forgotten what God is like; compassionate, faithful and merciful and they are nothing like God.
Jesus is saying the same thing to the Pharisees here, in fact in an ironic twist their charge in (11)proves it. They are God’s people but are nothing like God or the people he would have them be, they don’t live like a Son in the Father’s image there is no mercy, no love of the lost, just a cold hard shell of external religion. But Jesus is the image of the father in his compassion and loving seeking after the lost to transform and bring them back.
They will never see their need of Jesus, their need of forgiveness, their need to be transformed unless they accept his diagnosis. Their hard cold judgemental hearts show their need as much as the tax collectors and sinners. Jesus comes to save but they will not recognise him so they will not accept his diagnosis and therefore they don’t see their need of a Saviour.
Whose heart do we have? Are we like the Pharisees or like Jesus? Do we believe in the power of the gospel to transform anyone and everyone or think it is just for good people like us? We may know this in our heads but how does that translate into action, into our diary, into decision about where we work, where we send our children to school, where we live, who we invite into our homes, who we invite to church, who we spend time with?
Who are not just societies tax collectors and sinners but our tax collectors and sinners? We are to be like Jesus who is like God in holding out the gospel to tax collector and Pharisee alike because we know their need and we know the transforming power of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
3. Jesus comes to create a new kingdom
Who comes to Jesus(14)? Disciples of John the Baptist. It’s worth noting that Jesus is so different, so radically ripping up the blueprint that even disciples of John come to Jesus. Indeed in 11v3 John the Baptist himself seems to need confirmation of who Jesus is, that might surprise us given John’s role as the fore-runner, but it just shows us how radically different Jesus ministry is from the expectations.
What is the question John’s disciples ask? Why don’t your disciples fast? Jesus answer seems a bit cryptic doesn’t it as he talks about a bridegroom and a feast.
The image Jesus uses is one you can find in a few places in the Old Testament where God is pictured as Israel’s husband (Is 62:4, Jer 2:2, Hosea 2:19), but Jesus applies it to himself. The Jews sometimes used this picture of the Messiah and the Messianic kingdom was often spoken if as a feast hence the image of the bridegroom and a banquet. In effect Jesus is saying they don’t fast, which was associated with mourning, because I’m here and I’m the one you have been waiting for, the waiting is over so they rejoice.
That would be a startlingly arrogant assumption if we said it wouldn’t it, but given what we have seen all the evidence that Jesus is the Messiah it is just a statement of fact. Jesus is the Messiah, the waiting is over, for the moment, the king is here.
But Jesus goes on to raise the stakes even higher with two pictures of the inability of the old to contain the new(16-17). Jesus uses these two pictures to show that the old structure of Judaism can’t hold his kingdom, because with his coming everything changes, he doesn’t come to do a patch up job but to bring something new. He comes to fulfil, he is the one it all points too and now everything is radically altered. Now that Jesus is here it is how you relate to him, whether you accept him or not, that matters.
Let’s just think about that for a minute, think about the Sermon on the Mount what does Jesus do, he raises the bar of the law, not adultery but no lustful looking, not don’t murder but don’t be angry. Think about the Passover at the last supper Jesus reinterprets the Passover; he is the lamb, his body the bread, his blood the wine. Think about the temple which Jesus says is now his body, it is in him that we now meet with God, or the sacrificial system there is no need for sin offerings to be made because he is the sin offering once for all. Everything changes, everything is made new now that the King is here bringing his kingdom, so that even fasting along with everything else changes.
Jesus comes to forgive sin to transform sinners and to bring about a new kingdom where relationship to him as Saviour, king and Lord is what matters not religious practice.
Do you see Jesus mission? To forgive sin, to transform sinners and to bring a radical new kingdom that explodes the confines of the old just as it brings a whole new way of relating to God by grace through him. That is the heart beat of the kingdom, shared by Father and by Son and the adopted blood bought children of grace.
1. Which groups from society are under-represented in our churches? Why is that? How can we reach them? What stops us and how does the gospel challenge that?
2. What does society say is wrong and how does it try to solve it? What does Jesus say?
3. What should our approach to fasting be? Should we or shouldn’t we and why?
4. How, why and where is Jesus mission both liberating and challenging for us?
1. What did Jesus come to earth to do?
2. Who are our society’s tax collectors and sinners?
Matthew has been hammering home again and again that Jesus is the Messiah; in his words, in his actions, in each successive miracle which is more amazing than the last and which declares him to be God’s long awaited King. He teaches in ways that amaze and astound, he heals and makes the unclean clean, he commands out of control creation and it is calm and he has authority over demons and spirits who fear him as the Son of God who will one day judge them. But why did Jesus come? What was his mission? Was it to be a good teacher? Was it to be a miracle worker? Was it to cast out demons? Was it to give us a glimpse of what the kingdom of God could be like? Was it to be an example for us to follow? These next three incidents show us clearly who Jesus is and what his mission is. But as Jesus reveals who he is and what he has come to do we see the growing conflict between him and the Jews and what they expected.
1. Jesus came to forgive sin
Jesus heads back to Capernaum(1) and some friends bring a paralysed man on his mat to Jesus. What do they want Jesus to do? To heal him. But what does Jesus say? “Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven.” Jesus doesn’t use the obvious words, in fact his words seem almost disconnected from the problem at hand. And Jesus is very deliberate in the words he uses. We see later on that this was a deliberate choice to say your sins are forgiven, because he later on uses the words get up and walk. So why does Jesus use this deliberately provocative phrase knowing how the Pharisees would react? Because Jesus is confronting false expectations about the Messiah and his mission.
(3)God alone can forgive sins. In Psalm 51 David teaches that all sin is against God therefore only God can forgive sin. In Isaiah 43and 44 God says “I, even, I am he who blots out your transgressions” and “I have swept away your offenses like a cloud. Your sins like the morning mist.” The law and the provision of the temple and the sacrifices declared that only God could forgive sin. But here is Jesus claiming to be able to forgive this man’s sin. It’s no wonder they accuse him of blasphemy.
Jesus claims to be able to do what God alone can do, and he explains why? How does he describe himself(6)? “The Son of Man”. Jesus is claiming that he is the Son of Man, the one who in Daniel 7 enters God’s throne room and is “given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshipped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.”
Again Jesus explodes their limited, little ideas of the Messiah as a warrior king who would restore Israel. His claim is astounding; I am the Son of Man worthy of worship because I am God the Son come with his authority, glory and sovereign power and thus I can forgive sin. And in healing the man Jesus proves that he can do it(4-7), the healing is an outward sign of the forgiveness that Jesus has granted the man. Jesus can and does forgive sin.
Jesus gets to the heart of the man’s problem not the paralysis but his real problem, sin. Israel think they need a conquering warrior king who will boot out the Romans and restore them to what they once were in terms of international prestige but Jesus comes as a Saviour to forgive sin because their real problem isn’t the Romans it’s their hearts. Their real problem is sin.
Our society is no different is it? We jump from one social programme to another to another hoping it will solve crime, social breakdown, poverty and so on. But none works, not one solves the problem because they don’t go deep enough. They are about surface change, behavioural change, but Jesus mission shows us God’s diagnosis of the problem, it is sin and the only solution is Jesus who comes to forgive sin.
But notice that the people miss the point(8), they still can’t break out of small expectations, they still can’t see who Jesus is, they just go home amazed that God would give such authority to humans or to a man, they will not recognise who Jesus really is, and because of that they won’t accept the diagnosis of the problem or see him as the solution. You won’t come to Jesus for forgiveness until you recognise who he is.
2. Jesus comes to transform
We see Jesus mission again as he takes the initiative and approaches Matthew the Tax Collector. Jesus calls Matthew and Matthew responds by leaving and following. How did society view Matthew? An outcast, a collaborator, tainted, a sinner. But Jesus knows the power of grace to transform sinners into disciples. Jesus doesn’t just come to forgive he comes to transform.
What does Matthew do next? He throws a party, inviting Jesus to a meal populated by sinners and Jesus goes. Jesus mission is seen again in his actions, Jesus comes to forgive and transform sinners into disciples. But we also see that Jesus mission sets him on a collision course with the religious authorities. The religious thought of such people as defiling and were expecting the Messiah to condemn and crush such people whilst lifting up the righteous. But Jesus again confronts this false expectation, he is bigger than that, his mission is more amazing more radical than that.
(11)So the Pharisees charge Jesus with eating with tax collectors and sinners. The question they ask is a loaded one, eating with such people brought into question who Jesus was. Jesus answers them with a clear statement of his mission; (12)"It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but those who are ill. But go and learn with this means: “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
They expect the messiah to condemn the sinner and uphold the righteous but Jesus seeks for, forgives and transforms the sinner and challenges the hypocrisy of those who think they are righteous. We see that in the quote Jesus uses from Hosea as he tells them that they need to go and look again at this scripture because they haven’t learnt what it means. Hosea is one of the most graphic books in the bible as Israel’s unfaithfulness is portrayed as adultery, with God as the faithful husband and Israel as the unfaithful wife who whores after others. God tells Israel’s leaders that though they practice religiously at the temple their hearts are rotten, they have forgotten what God is like; compassionate, faithful and merciful and they are nothing like God.
Jesus is saying the same thing to the Pharisees here, in fact in an ironic twist their charge in (11)proves it. They are God’s people but are nothing like God or the people he would have them be, they don’t live like a Son in the Father’s image there is no mercy, no love of the lost, just a cold hard shell of external religion. But Jesus is the image of the father in his compassion and loving seeking after the lost to transform and bring them back.
They will never see their need of Jesus, their need of forgiveness, their need to be transformed unless they accept his diagnosis. Their hard cold judgemental hearts show their need as much as the tax collectors and sinners. Jesus comes to save but they will not recognise him so they will not accept his diagnosis and therefore they don’t see their need of a Saviour.
Whose heart do we have? Are we like the Pharisees or like Jesus? Do we believe in the power of the gospel to transform anyone and everyone or think it is just for good people like us? We may know this in our heads but how does that translate into action, into our diary, into decision about where we work, where we send our children to school, where we live, who we invite into our homes, who we invite to church, who we spend time with?
Who are not just societies tax collectors and sinners but our tax collectors and sinners? We are to be like Jesus who is like God in holding out the gospel to tax collector and Pharisee alike because we know their need and we know the transforming power of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
3. Jesus comes to create a new kingdom
Who comes to Jesus(14)? Disciples of John the Baptist. It’s worth noting that Jesus is so different, so radically ripping up the blueprint that even disciples of John come to Jesus. Indeed in 11v3 John the Baptist himself seems to need confirmation of who Jesus is, that might surprise us given John’s role as the fore-runner, but it just shows us how radically different Jesus ministry is from the expectations.
What is the question John’s disciples ask? Why don’t your disciples fast? Jesus answer seems a bit cryptic doesn’t it as he talks about a bridegroom and a feast.
The image Jesus uses is one you can find in a few places in the Old Testament where God is pictured as Israel’s husband (Is 62:4, Jer 2:2, Hosea 2:19), but Jesus applies it to himself. The Jews sometimes used this picture of the Messiah and the Messianic kingdom was often spoken if as a feast hence the image of the bridegroom and a banquet. In effect Jesus is saying they don’t fast, which was associated with mourning, because I’m here and I’m the one you have been waiting for, the waiting is over so they rejoice.
That would be a startlingly arrogant assumption if we said it wouldn’t it, but given what we have seen all the evidence that Jesus is the Messiah it is just a statement of fact. Jesus is the Messiah, the waiting is over, for the moment, the king is here.
But Jesus goes on to raise the stakes even higher with two pictures of the inability of the old to contain the new(16-17). Jesus uses these two pictures to show that the old structure of Judaism can’t hold his kingdom, because with his coming everything changes, he doesn’t come to do a patch up job but to bring something new. He comes to fulfil, he is the one it all points too and now everything is radically altered. Now that Jesus is here it is how you relate to him, whether you accept him or not, that matters.
Let’s just think about that for a minute, think about the Sermon on the Mount what does Jesus do, he raises the bar of the law, not adultery but no lustful looking, not don’t murder but don’t be angry. Think about the Passover at the last supper Jesus reinterprets the Passover; he is the lamb, his body the bread, his blood the wine. Think about the temple which Jesus says is now his body, it is in him that we now meet with God, or the sacrificial system there is no need for sin offerings to be made because he is the sin offering once for all. Everything changes, everything is made new now that the King is here bringing his kingdom, so that even fasting along with everything else changes.
Jesus comes to forgive sin to transform sinners and to bring about a new kingdom where relationship to him as Saviour, king and Lord is what matters not religious practice.
Do you see Jesus mission? To forgive sin, to transform sinners and to bring a radical new kingdom that explodes the confines of the old just as it brings a whole new way of relating to God by grace through him. That is the heart beat of the kingdom, shared by Father and by Son and the adopted blood bought children of grace.
1. Which groups from society are under-represented in our churches? Why is that? How can we reach them? What stops us and how does the gospel challenge that?
2. What does society say is wrong and how does it try to solve it? What does Jesus say?
3. What should our approach to fasting be? Should we or shouldn’t we and why?
4. How, why and where is Jesus mission both liberating and challenging for us?
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