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THE CALL OF THE KINGDOM!
As your teacher, I have a confession to make to
you. I had a nagging feeling that what I did wasn't right when I was doing
it and now I am convinced of it. There is actually no excuse for what I
did except to say that due to my own slothfulness I wasn't prepared to do anything
else.
You see, last week I gave a lesson entitled The
Scepter of the Kingdom and the week prior to last week I gave a lesson entitled
The Kingdom's First and Only Rule. Essentially they both explored the idea
that righteousness is the standard within God's Kingdom. I spent two weeks
teaching what could've been taught in one week had I been better prepared. But
I wasn't, so we spent two weeks studying what Jesus had to say about righteousness
in what has become known as the Sermon on the Mount.
You might respond by telling me that this hardly
calls for a "confession." Perhaps, but suppose we had spent
five weeks looking at what Jesus had to say about the kingdom in this sermon. Would
that have been too much time? Suppose we had spent six weeks? Six
months? Of course, you can argue that as long as we're studying God's Word
it is time well spent. True, but just suppose Jesus himself sat on
that mountainside for weeks on end spelling out the culture of the kingdom. If
so, would he have fulfilled his mission?
So what is the point? The point is that
we could have easily spent six months studying Jesus' Sermon on the Mount without
ever living it out in the real world. What is worse, we could have studied
it for six months without ever being nagged by the thought that we're spending
too much time soaking in the kingdom and not enough time demonstrating the culture
of the kingdom before the watching world.
Jesus didn't make this mistake. Yes, he
taught others about the kingdom of God. He described its citizens as blessed,
he unveiled the high standards of those living within the kingdom, and he gave
us the one and only one rule for living in the kingdom. But, he also came
down from the mountainside and demonstrated to others that the kingdom of heaven
was in their midst. For in Matthew 7:28 - 8:22 we read:
When Jesus had finished saying these things,
the crowds were amazed at his teaching, 29 because he taught as one who
had authority, and not as their teachers of the law.
When he came down from the mountainside, large
crowds followed him. 2 A man with leprosy came and knelt before him and
said, "Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean."
Matt. 8:3 Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. "I am willing," he
said. "Be clean!" Immediately he was cured of his leprosy. 4
Then Jesus said to him, "See that you don't tell anyone. But go, show yourself
to the priest and offer the gift Moses commanded, as a testimony to them."
When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion
came to him, asking for help. 6 "Lord," he said, "my servant
lies at home paralyzed and in terrible suffering."
Jesus said to him, "I will go and heal him."
The centurion replied, "Lord, I do not deserve
to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be
healed. 9 For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me.
I tell this one, 'Go,' and he goes; and that one, 'Come,' and he comes. I say
to my servant, 'Do this,' and he does it."
When Jesus heard this, he was astonished and said
to those following him, "I tell you the truth, I have not found anyone in
Israel with such great faith. 11 I say to you that many will come from
the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham,
Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. 12 But the subjects of the kingdom
will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing
of teeth."
Then Jesus said to the centurion, "Go! It
will be done just as you believed it would." And his servant was healed
at that very hour.
When Jesus came into Peter's house, he saw Peter's
mother-in-law lying in bed with a fever. 15 He touched her hand and the
fever left her, and she got up and began to wait on him.
When evening came, many who were demon-possessed
were brought to him, and he drove out the spirits with a word and healed all
the sick. 17 This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah: "He
took up our infirmities and carried our diseases."
When Jesus saw the crowd around him, he gave orders
to cross to the other side of the lake. 19 Then a teacher of the law came
to him and said, "Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go."
Jesus replied, "Foxes have holes and birds
of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head."
Another disciple said to him, "Lord, first
let me go and bury my father."
But Jesus told him, "Follow me, and let the
dead bury their own dead."
Throughout the Bible you can find a good number
of miracles. Sometimes, as in the days of Moses, they came on a pretty
regular basis. Like intermittent wipers swishing across their line of sight
at regular intervals the plagues allowed the Israelites to see the power of God
being exercised on their behalf again and again. At other times, as with
David, the miraculous wipers that allowed the Israelites to see God's power happened
less frequently - with one swipe Goliath was killed and that was it until David
spared the life of a fool by the name of Nabal. What made this a miraculous
event is that he chose to spare Nabal's life on an empty stomach.
Miracles, as we tend to define them, sometimes
occur intermittently in the Old Testament but normally as a single swipe here
and another swipe somewhere down the road. But in Jesus' earthly ministry
the swipes that allow us to see God's power happen so quickly that we can hardly
keep count. Withered hands were instantly restored. Lifelong cripples
got to their feet and walked in full view of their neighbors. The blind
received their sight. And, leprosy victims with rotten and disfigured
limbs were suddenly made whole as in the case before us in Matthew 8:1 - 4.1
When Jesus came down from the mountainside one
man worked his way through the crowd and knelt before Jesus. Or rather,
the crowd made way for him since he was a leper. Upon inquiry as to whether
or not Jesus was willing to heal him, evidently believing he could heal if he
so desired, Jesus didn't hesitate to give a response to the man.
This is important to see because for this man
it was Jesus or nothing. A moment of hesitation on Jesus' behalf would
have devastated the man. But Jesus immediately did something no one had
done for a long time - he reached out and touched him. That alone must
have done wonders for the man, but on top of that healing touch Jesus instantly
cured him of leprosy.
What is interesting to note here is that Jesus
did not call for the man to follow him nor did he encourage him to join the kingdom. Nor
did he get his e-mail address. Instead he gave the man instructions to
go show himself to the priest and follow the guidelines for being reinstated
into the community as spelled out, in detail, in Leviticus 14. This would
be a testimony to the priest and to the community as a whole.
In general, Jesus restored cripples and blind
men, who could not join in temple worship because of their disabilities. He
touched and healed lepers, who had been ostracized from every human contact. He
healed a woman whose menstrual flow of blood rendered her unclean and ruined
her possibilities for marriage and family life. He even brought children
back to life, restoring them to their families.
Individuals who were considered damaged goods,
those who had been cut off from society, and those who lived with no hope were
being made whole by Jesus. Shalom was being restored within Israel. This
is why the Gospel accounts refer to healings and wonders as "signs." They
pointed to something beyond themselves. They pointed to the fact that the
kingdom of God had come into their world.
You see, Jesus' healings demonstrated that he
was not talking "spiritually," as though the kingdom would happen in
some invisible inward way. Though admittedly, after being received in our
hearts it does tend to work itself out in the world around us. In fact,
it is supposed to work itself out! But the point of the miracles as seen
in the Gospel accounts is that God's kingdom, through Jesus, was overflowing
into the here and now. He was affecting the "natural" world in
amazing ways.
Then Jesus did two things that were highly questionable. He
healed the servant of a centurion as well as Peter's mother-in-law. Both
request should have set off red lights on his spiritual dash board. The
Roman centurion represented everything alien to Israel. He was a card-carrying
member of those who oppressed the Israelites. Additionally, he was considered
ritually unclean. A pious Jew understood that you just didn't make contact
with those kind of people.
And in regards to Peter's mother-in-law - well
women in general weren't considered all that important in Jesus' day and mother-in-laws
must have been near the bottom of the insignificant-people list. Nevertheless,
Jesus touched her as readily as he touched the leper. He healed her so
completely that instead of being weak after the fever subsided, as we might expect,
she was able to get up and serve others.2
Later, as the sun set, as word spread despite
what Jesus told the leper, the front yard of Peter's mother-in-law looked like
an emergency room on Saturday night. All kinds of sick people, including
those possessed by demons, patiently waited for their turn to see Jesus. He
laid his hands on each one and healed them. He exorcized the demons as
easily as he healed the leper. In some cases, he commanded the demons not
to speak as if they had no choice but to obey him.3
Sometime later, in another emergency room, in
Matthew 12:22 - 29, we read:
Then they brought him a demon-possessed man who
was blind and mute, and Jesus healed him, so that he could both talk and see. 23
All the people were astonished and said, "Could this be the Son of David?"
But when the Pharisees heard this, they said, "It
is only by Beelzebub, the prince of demons, that this fellow drives out demons."
Jesus knew their thoughts and said to them, "Every
kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided
against itself will not stand. 26 If Satan drives out Satan, he is divided
against himself. How then can his kingdom stand? 27 And if I drive out
demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your people drive them out? So then, they will
be your judges. 28 But if I drive out demons by the Spirit of God, then
the kingdom of God has come upon you.
"Or again, how can anyone enter a strong
man's house and carry off his possessions unless he first ties up the strong
man? Then he can rob his house.
So what is happening in this section of Scripture
stretching from chapter 8 through chapter 12 of Matthew? Clearly,
Jesus is on the march. He was acting in accordance with what was said
about him in the Old Testament, in passages such as Isaiah 35, 53, and 61. He
was restoring the nation to a sense of Shalom. He was restoring Israel
to wholeness. The healings were as if a highly energized medic was walking
through a war-torn landscape taking care of the wounded left and right - instantly
restoring them personally and corporately.
But he was an indiscriminate medic. He responded
to the heartfelt cry of the centurion as if no red light had flashed on his spiritual
dashboard. Had not the centurion met him halfway and told him that he did
not deserve to have Jesus under his roof and, in fact, there was no need for
him to come at all since he could just issue the command to have the man's servant
healed, Jesus would've surely entered the man's home.
This, as well as other indiscriminate acts of
grace and mercy, turned the religious rulers against him. Additionally,
it probably confused the everyday Israelite as to the nature of the kingdom. They
envisioned the kingdom as a restoration of the Davidic Kingdom and yet Jesus
seemed to be willing to restore Gentiles as well as Israelites. Forunately
for you and me, he was more wide-hearted than what they expected.
Finally, I want you to note that with the exception
of Matthew 11:28 - 30 Jesus made no appeal for mass response. In fact,
more often than not he discouraged people from joining the kingdom - as he did
in Matthew 8:19 - 22. In like manner, when I've taught the membership
class in the past at Bethany I discouraged people from becoming members. I generally
opened the class up with the statement, "We don't need more members at Bethany,
we need committed disciples." I guess that is why they haven't
asked me to teach the class in the last ten years!4
1 The American Heritage College Dictionary defines the
word "miracle" as an event that appears inexplicable by the laws
of nature, held to be supernatural in origin or an act of God. But quite
frankly the word "miracle" is never used in the Bible to describe
Jesus' actions. He did "wonders" (paradoxa), "acts of
power" (dunameis), "signs" (semeia), and "portents" (terata). None
of these words suggest that God is against nature. On the contrary, these
words could be applied to the rising of the sun or the opening of a flower
both of which are everyday acts of nature.
2 This may seem like a self-serving miracle. Like
when Linda is ill, I might very well pray that God would heal her so that she
could fix dinner for me! But in this case, I believe Jesus restored the
woman to what she enjoyed doing - taking care of her home and welcoming guest
into it.
3 Instinctively, the demons knew they had no
place in the kingdom of God.
4 Matthew 11:28 - 30 reads: "Come
to me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take
my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and
you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden
is light.
JESUS & THE KINGDOM OF GOD 02/18/07 1
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