Jesus tells his disciples to “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”(5.48) This can sound like an impossible ideal from Jesus. Really, how can anyone be perfect? The key to understanding this passage is “therefore,” because it shows us that this verse is the conclusion of the previous verses. This verse is a calling to live in perfect unity, as the previous verses focus on how Jesus wants us to treat one another. The perfection that we are called to live is discovered in our relationships. Thus, Jesus is urging his followers to be “perfect in love” or to “love completely” in the sense that they are to love not only fellow Jewish neighbours but also enemy neighbours. This is why in the parallel passage in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus says, “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.”(Lk 6:36) This challenges us to form different sorts of communities in which love is lavished indiscriminately. Yet, so much of how we form community is through a “bounded set”sense of belonging—- in which we love those who believe and behave as we do. Jesus invites us to flip the script and love without boundaries.

With the announcement of resurrection ringing in their ears, the disciples make their way to Galilee and “to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them.”(28.16) This is no accidental location. In the Gospel of Matthew, mountains are associated with revelation as a symbolic place where heaven meets earth. Jesus is tested on a mountain (4:8), teaches a sermon on a mountain (5:1), is transfigured on a mountain (17:1), and now meets his bewildered disciples on a mountain. The final mountain is in Galilee, symbolically on the border of the wild “sea” of the nations. It is on this mountain that the disciples will discover that resurrection means nothing will ever be the same again. New creation has burst out of the tomb. Jesus has received all authority and will commission his disciples to “go make disciples of all nations” (28:19). In this great commission, we learn that we are united with Jesus in his death and resurrection—- that we are risen. And if we are risen— people of new creation— then we have work to do. 

Today you are invited to bear witness to the Words of the Cross. Jesus’ journey to the Cross culminates in the actions of men to put him there. As Peter will later say, "with the help of wicked men, you put him to death by nailing him to the cross.”(Acts 2:23) The Cross is first something that is done to Jesus. The Gospel of Matthew bears witness to the words and actions that placed Perfect Love upon the tree. Today, you are invited to bear witness to Words of the Cross: the betrayal of Judas, the rejection of the high priest, the condemnation by Pilate, the mocking of the soldiers, and finally Jesus’ crucifixion, death, and burial. Jesus bears these words of the Cross spoken over him. And in entering into our accusation, Jesus reveals the height, depth, and length of just how far God would go to save us. 

Jesus is making his Triumphant entry into Jerusalem. As he enters the city, the people lay their cloaks and palm branches on the ground in an act of reverence. The people proclaim “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!”(v9) It is a public declaration that Jesus is the King— the Messiah. The whole city was stirred at this proclamation asking, “who is this?” Jesus then immediately clears the temple as a prophetic announcement of his identity as Messiah. Jesus heals the lame and blind, and the children sing out “Hosanna to the Son of David”. In these acts, Jesus is bringing a revolution, but not through some wild show of force. Jesus is reordering the temple to work against the nationalistic impulse that had caused the money changers to set up shop in the outer court — the only place reserved for Gentiles to gather in worship. Similarly, the blind and lame were not allowed to enter the Temple. (Lev 21:18) But to everyone’s surprise, Jesus’ revolution causes those who previously were unwelcome in the temple to now be welcomed in. But not all are cheering the arrival of this revolution. The chief priests and teachers of the law are left “indignant”(v15) at the sight of Jesus’ Messianic announcement. Jesus’ shutting down of the Temple assumed that he had the authority to do so. This was not welcomed by those who had a stake in the ethnic and nationalistic divisions in Israel. 

In this season of Lent, we raise our voices in welcome of the Son of David. And we ask Jesus to challenge our systems of othering and division so that we can more faithfully live into his Kingdom revolution. 

Jesus has left Jericho and set out on his journey towards Jerusalem. Ahead of him is a confrontation with the religious and political authorities. Ahead of him is the long vertical ascent along the pilgrim paths and towards the city of Zion. A large crowd follows Jesus as he sets out from Jericho. Sitting by the roadside are two blind men who hear Jesus passing by. They cry out, “Lord, have mercy on us, son of David.”(v30) The crowds attempt to silence the blind men— perhaps assuming that they are merely wanting a monetary offering. But Jesus sees these two blind men through the cacophony of the crowd. Jesus see what the crowd is tempted to silence. He asks what they want of him and they reply, “Lord, let our eyes be opened.”(v33) Jesus is moved with compassion. He touches their eyes, and heals them. 

We, like the two blind men, often need healing for our vision. We can fail to see clearly. We have the capacity to close our eyes, and harden our hearts. We too can be beggars on the wayside wondering if our cries are heard through the noise of the crowd. And so in this season of Lent, we learn to call out, “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on us.” The good news is that Jesus always hears our cries for mercy.

In Jesus’ day, there was a tradition taught by some Rabbi’s that a person is only obligated to forgive someone three times. It was commonly understood that forgiveness came with limitations. Peter approaches his Rabbi Jesus with a question about the limitations of forgiveness. “How many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?”(v21) Peter was exceeding generous in his application of forgiveness as he has more than doubled the number of times one should forgive! Peter’s question presupposes that he is the one who has sinned against him. He assumes that he is in a position of power against the one who has wronged him.
Jesus’ reply reorients the whole conversation. Peter must learn that he has first been forgiven not seven times, but seventy—seven times. Or in other words, there is no limitation on the forgiveness offered by the Father through the Son. Jesus then tells a subversive parable in which un-forgiveness is likened to an unmerciful servant who harshly collects on his debts, even though he has been forgiven an impossible amount. The point of the parable is that we must learn to forgive as we have been forgiven. 

In this season of Lent, we learn that forgiveness is the name of love practised among people who love poorly. The hard truth is that all people love poorly. We need to forgive and be forgiven every day. That is the great work of love shown to us by Jesus. 

In Matthew 16, Jesus and his disciples enter the region of Caesarea Philippi— a city on the border between the Gentile world and Israel. Jesus uses the opportunity to ask a probing question: “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”(v13) There were all sorts of replies to that question, but Peter is one who dares to say what the other disciples only think. Peter says, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”(v16) Jesus confirms this heaven sent confession of Peter’s as revealed from his Heavenly Father. It’s on this confession that he will build his church. Jesus then describes how the Messiah’s Kingdom will come. “He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things…and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.”(v21) This was not what the disciples expected. They thought the Messiah was going to kick the Gentiles out, not die at their hands. Peter can’t bear the thought of a suffering and dying Messiah, and so he cries out, “never Lord!” Jesus rebukes Peter’s objection as the word of the accuser— the satan— who does not have in mind the things of heaven. Peter doesn’t realize that how the Kingdom comes, is what the Kingdom is.

We, like Peter, often struggle to imagine that any good can come through a suffering and dying Messiah. We want the Kingdom to come like all the other kingdoms and empires of the world. We want the upward path of success, power, and achievement. 

In this season of Lent, we learn that whoever wants to be a disciple of Jesus must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow him in our own the way of suffering. This may sound like foolishness, but the promise of Jesus is that when we give up our lives, we find them. 

Jesus begins Matthew 13 with a parable of the sower. It’s a parable about a farmer who sowed seed into four kinds of soil: the path, the rocky soil, the thorns and weeds, and finally the good soil. This parable serves as an analogy about how people receive the message of the Kingdom.(v.19) Not everyone who hears the Kingdom message will accept it. “For the people’s hearts have become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes.”(v.15) At the end of Matthew 13, the parable becomes embodied in the reception of Jesus in his hometown of Nazareth. They are amazed and shocked that this mere carpenters son is teaching and healing with miraculous powers. And so “they took offence at him.”(v.57) Jesus’ rejection at Nazareth foreshadows the wider rejection of his message and ministry by his Jewish contemporaries. Their challenge to his prophetic and healing powers is a distant sign of the violent challenge that would come from the chief priests, and the Roman soldiers, right at the end.

We are reminded in the parable of the sower and Jesus’ hometown rejection, that the message of the Kingdom is not something that is always joyfully received. As N.T. Wright suggests, “If new creation and new life are going forward, those who have invested heavily in the old creation, the old ways of life, are bound to be offended.” As we journey through the season of Lent, we want to name that following Jesus will sometimes come with rejection from without —-and from within our own hearts. And so we need to ask ourselves: Where are our hearts calloused? Where might we be resistant to the message of Jesus? What is the condition of our own soil? 

In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus’ ministry begins not with the roar of the crowds, but with the invitation of the Holy Spirit into the Wilderness. Out of the wilderness, Jesus will launch his public ministry, call his first disciples, and announce and enact the Kingdom of Heaven. Yet, before all this takes place Jesus is first called into the wilderness. The wilderness is a place of lacking, and longing. It is emblematic of a season of testing, and refinement. In the wilderness, Jesus is tempted by the devil to turn stones into bread, to seize control of the kingdoms of this world, and to jump off the temple to make a clear display of God’s power by the public rescue of angels. The devil tries to bring Jesus over to his side, by grasping the right goal but through the wrong means. 

As we journey through this season of Lent, we begin not with a shout but with a time of self-examination and testing, because we also are guilty of grasping the right goal with the wrong means. We often fail to see our inward motivations. So the invitation of the Holy Spirit is towards the wilderness— the season of examination, testing, and refinement. This invitation can feel like losing. But in Jesus we learn true spiritual growth is not found in the acclaim of victorious self-assent, but in the self-emptying dependency that is indicative of the wilderness season. 

Jesus tells us to love our enemies. He doesn’t mean a hypothetical imagined enemy either. When Jesus said ‘love your enemies’, everyone listening in could identify an enemy in the Roman occupation of Israel. So on the surface, this teaching goes against all reason. It is a love that goes beyond common sense. This teaching reflects the love revealed at the Cross, and this goes against our instincts of self-preservation which we have all been enculturated to believe. We are trained to operate within the logic of the myth of redemptive violence, which assumes that violence solves problems. Jesus enters into our binary world of retributive violence or inaction and asks his followers to consider third-way creative responses. Jesus wants his disciples to go further than the law which only tried to minimize and restrain retributive violence (Eg. An eye for an eye) by overcoming evil with good and loving those who are not like us. To live out this teaching is impossible without the power of the Holy Spirit. We cannot will our way or easily make ourselves love our enemies. We can only love our enemies when we have been deeply loved by God. We can only love our enemies when we realize that “while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son”. (Rom 5:10)