The Word was available to those around Jesus in a way it had never been before: it was embodied in him. But of course, not everyone received it the same way. Just because the news is good doesn’t mean it’s wanted. The list of reason Jesus gave haven’t changed much in 2000 years, and the impact of Jesus’s Kingdom plan is still lessened because hearts are hard.

The stories of Moses and Jesus have a common theme today: a sign is demanded. In the story of Moses, a sign is given, because God needs to show his people living in Egypt that he is greater than the gods of Egypt. Jesus does not do this for the religious leaders, though, because they already know the God who showed up for Moses in Egypt. This time, Jesus did not need to show God’s power, but the weakness that he would take on in the crucifixion.

Jesus had very little patience for those who prized Law above the wholeness of God's people, and this scene illustrates that. There was a debate at hand about whether or not work was permitted on the Sabbath, but that wasn't the point: the Sabbath regulations were intended to create a place of rest for God's people, and that Spirit could never be fully captured in Laws. This is why Jesus came to bring life to them.

Jesus's Kingdom didn't come without expectations, not even for John the Baptist. The message was good, but Jesus came to transform us into a different kind of person. His talk of the towns that heard the message but did nothing about it is a good indication of this. Especially with the use of Sodom in the list, the people would have probably been a little offended... and rightly so.

A lot of the guidelines for life in Jesus’s Kingdom have to do with other people, but the central relationship is with Jesus. There is even some overlap: welcoming Christs’s ambassadors is welcoming Christ himself, and he holds those who are his very closely. This is all wrapped up in relationships, which are the basic building blocks of the Kingdom.

The group Jesus set up was more than a fan club, it was an intentional gathering of Jewish men who were to become the beginning of the early Church. Replacing the fallen Judas with Matthias was important because, not only was it a prophetic moment, but the gap left with only 11 needed correcting. The places each of these apostles actually went in their journeys are the stories of legend, but the combined efforts that they shared created the Church that we have today.

Sorry to be a day late on Ash Wednesday! This is absolutely an important day in the Church calendar, because it starts the season of Lent and reminds us, through the application of ashes to foreheads, that we are dust. But we are also loved, and the Savior who took on our dusty body has much to say during this season.

Why would you have recruited Matthew to be a disciple? The obvious choice is his skill with financial matters, but Jesus doesn’t capitalize on that. Instead, he seems eager to take advantage of the group of rabble that Matthew apparently ran with. Maybe he was trying to find a way to inject himself into a crowd of people who might not have followed of their own accord? Whatever the reasoning, he uses the opportunity to remind those around him that these are the very people he came for.

It seems like Jesus is in the business of thinning the crowd in this scene, not growing one. While that’s not the model that most modern churches would want to follow, he had a good reason. The work of the Gospel wasn’t just about doing magic tricks and gaining fame, it was about sacrifice and service. This would be modeled perfectly by Jesus later, but he didn’t want anyone to miss it right now. The way you build your Kingdom is important to sustaining it, and Jesus was laying a strong foundation, even if that meant smaller numbers.

Jesus is establishing an upside-down Kingdom where those who were thought to be outsiders are suddenly included. As with the Roman who requests help for his servants it only takes faith and an inquiring Spirit; Jesus does the rest. Those who find themselves “outside the gate” in Jesus’s illustration are all the religious leaders who have used their position to prosper themselves but impoverish the Kingdom of Jesus.