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At the beginning of today’s reading, when a paralyzed man is placed before Him, Jesus again makes an apparently unnecessary comment during an otherwise ordinary healing.  Instead of telling the man to “Rise and walk,” Jesus assures the paralytic, “…Your sins are forgiven.”  “Blasphemy,” the Scribes mutter under their breath.  This sets up a tension that will drive the rest of the chapter, but there was no immediate need for Jesus to provoke them.  Why did He?  The answer might be embedded in His response.

Matthew 9 seems to be designed to heighten the distinction between regular citizens and the religious leaders.  Just listen to how ordinary people approach Jesus: “My daughter has just died, but come and lay your hand on her, and she will live.” … “If I only touch his garment, I will be made well.”… “Have mercy on us, Son of David.”…and “Never was anything like this seen in Israel.”

Now compare that with the dialogue Matthew records from the Scribes and Pharisees: “This man is blaspheming.”…  “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”  and “He casts out demons by the prince of demons.”  There is a clear fracture between Jesus and the religious leaders, but there seems to be an even greater one between these leaders and the common people.  Listen as Matthew observes Jesus’ compassion on them: because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.

Jesus’ prayer at the end of chapter 9 marks a transition from public to private space.  After praying for “the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest,” notice as twelve are called to Him as disciples and a few words later are sent out as apostles.  This is no slip of the pen, but a commissioning: those who sat at Jesus feet were being sent out to the lost sheep of Israel.  And they were not emptyhanded: to these twelve Jesus gave authority over unclean spirits…and to heal every disease and every affliction. 

They were also sent with Jesus’ foundational message: “…the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand…” and with a solemn warning about how the world would receive them.  “I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves”… “you will be flogged before governors and kings for my sake… For I have not come to bring peace, but a sword…”

Our verse for this week is Psalm 19:4: Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.

Matthew 9 and 10.  Now let’s read it!

Today’s reading drops in for the final third of the Sermon on the Mount.  The sermon began with Jesus ascending a mountain, presumably to escape the crowds, to speak with His disciples.  What Matthew hides from us until the end is that the crowd has followed, as eager for Jesus’ teaching as they were for His healing. 

Their response to Jesus’ teaching comes in three parts.  First, they were astonished, blown away by what they heard.  Matthew then qualifies this by describing what astonished them: it wasn’t just the message; it was the authority with which He spoke.  And finally, Matthew tells us that these crowds were making a comparison: Jesus was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes.” 

Jesus continues to be followed by these crowds when he descends the mountain in chapter 8.  Among these crowds Jesus performs a series of healings: the leper, the centurion’s servant, the demon-possessed, the sick, and even Peter’s mother-in-law. 

The story of the centurion in chapter 8 creates an early thematic climax for Matthew’s book.  The story is an ordinary healing (if there is such a thing) of a centurion’s servant, but the dialogue pushes way beyond the events.  Jesus telling the Roman “I will come and heal him.”  The centurion’s understanding of authority, and recognizing it, as the crowds do, in Jesus.  And Jesus marveling privately to His followers: “Truly, with no one in Israel I have seen such faith…”

Jesus didn’t need to say this to perform the healing.  Nor did He need to add that “many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness.”  This is a clear shot at the very foundations of His countrymen’s faith: that being a child of Abraham would not guarantee security in the kingdom of heaven.  This adds another layer to Matthew’s preoccupation with connecting Jesus’ story to Abraham’s, and is worth remembering in future chapters. 

Our verse for this week is Isaiah 40:31: “But they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.”

Matthew chapters 7 and 8.  Now let’s read it!

So His fame spread throughout Syria…and the great crowds followed Him from Galilee and the Decapolis, and from Jerusalem and Judea, and from beyond the Jordan.  When Jesus looks out on these great crowds, he climbs, at the beginning of chapter 5, up on the mountain. 

It’s often depicted that the sermon that Jesus gave on that mount was to the crowd, but the first verse only says, and when He sat down, His disciples came to Him.  It’s possible that Jesus was leading the crowd up this mountain to preach to them; the language indicates the possibility that Jesus ascended to get away from the crowds.  Maybe there’s a reason Matthew leaves this ambiguous for right now. 

The preaching is packed with conviction and encouragement: the hearers both reminded of their duty to the LORD and impelled to not settle for mere obedience.  “You’ve heard it said…” Jesus begins – connecting to their knowledge of the law – and then presses beyond:“…but I tell you…”  Later, Jesus’ hearers are reminded of the smallness of their faith both in the power and in the attention of their Heavenly Father. 

Connecting it all is the integrating concept in the middle of chapter 5: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them.”   This question of Jesus’ relationship to the Jewish past and faith will prove central to Matthew’s story: Is Jesus an aberration, is He an abomination, or is He truly Immanuel – God with us – the grand climax to which Abraham’s story always aspired?

Our verse for this week is Isaiah 40:31: “But they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.”

Matthew chapters 5 and 6.  Now let’s read it!