Daily Liturgy and Scripture

With the centurion, Jesus makes an astounding confirmation: God is with all those who put faith in Jesus. This was a pretty big deal, because the covenant with Abraham was for one family line, not all family lines. Jesus is ushering in a new covenant, fulfilling the old one, and establishing a new family under his own name.

Jesus is making a new way of understanding the world, and it is not about money or power. This is a pretty radical departure even from the Jewish world. and it was an almost reckless abandon of worry for self in light of loving God and neighbor. Of course, this was modeled by Jesus himself. It if looks like he is asking us to go first, giving before we have received, we should remember the servant that Jesus came to be, and also remember that we are heirs to a new kind of riches in his Kingdom.

Jesus being lord of the Sabbath does not mean Jesus is more important that the Sabbath, but it does mean that his life reframes the meaning of that day. It was never meant to be a legalistic day, where you must measure and watch your every move to make sure you do nothing wrong. Jesus brought life to the Sabbath so it could be seen above all else, that communion with God should be whole-hearted.

The new Kindgom Jesus is bringing won't fit into the old mold. This is why it was important for Jesus to come as a person: the news needed to be conveyed, and the best way to give that news was to live it out in front of others.

Jesus isn't creating this new kingdom in isolation, he didn't come to build a wall around himself. He is making others whole, restoring them to their community (which is one of the purposes of the sacrifice after being healed of leprosy), and he is recruiting others to lead. This is what we call the Church now, but it is still the Kingdom of King Jesus, and it works like no other organization that has ever existed.

The way in which Jesus brings his Kingdom into the world is ludicrous. He doesn't toot his own horn. In fact, when those from the spiritual realm who know who he is -- even though they are his enemies-- try to say who he is, he stops them. Because that Kingdom would not be brought about by making other feel conquered and riding around as a victor. It would come by bringing wholeness to the world, the way that God originally intended, and showing a way other than the one to which the people of his time were accustomed.

Jesus certainly had the human experience. Temptation, rejection, and even attempted murder. Hopefully none of us will ever experience that last one, but whatever we face, we can feel confident that we are understood by our Savior.

There may be a few familiar names in this list of Jesus’s genealogy, and for good reason. This list is full of promise, including Abraham, the object of God’s first covenant. Jesus was situated in a time and in a family, he was introduced into the line of mankind and did not hatch from the earth or fall from the sky. He was a person, God made man, God among us.

Not just anyone can be a Messiah. John brought the first signs of the Kingdom into the world, and not all of those were convenient for those around him. For Herod, it was confrontational. Everyone had their own adjustments to make to walk in step with that way. Even John would eventually step aside to make way for Jesus, God himself, who could fully bring that Kingdom to bear.

Even Jesus's early life was moving through God's purposes. From the intersections with people who had devoted themselves to God to his seemingly defiant behavior on the trip to Jerusalem, the unfolding plan of God was always traveling with him.