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THE ORIGINAL GOOD NEWS!
I would have never walked across the street to
see him. In fact, that's why I was on the other side of the street. I
was determined to avoid him, to steer clear of him and go about my business. As
I did so, I understood why those stopped at the light avoided making eye contact
with him. They knew what the cardboard sign said about being willing to
work and they knew what the man really wanted you to do was to roll down your
window and hand him a few bucks. But that meant practically touching him,
and for most of us that is way out of our comfort zone.
I wonder if that is how some saw John the Baptist. He
had no job, he was homeless, he dressed as a caveman, and lived off the land. If
he stood on the corner of I-10 and Warner we would lock our car door and ask
God for a green light so we could sail through the intersection while ignoring
him with a clear conscience. We would also remind ourselves that that is
exactly why we provide homeless shelters for people who look like John the Baptist,
so that they aren't standing on the corner making us feel guilty.
But when God's Word introduces us to John the
Baptist, we are not introduced to someone others avoided at all cost. On
the contrary, we are introduced to someone who was quickly becoming the main
attraction even though he wore yesteryear's garb and said things that made people
feel guilty. This is evident in each of the gospel accounts, but for today
we will simply look at Matthew's account. In Matthew 3:1 - 6 we read:
In those days John the Baptist came, preaching
in the Desert of Judea 2 and saying, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven
is near." 3 This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah: "A
voice of one calling in the desert, 'Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight
paths for him.'"
John's clothes were made of camel's hair, and
he had a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey. 5
People went out to him from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the
Jordan. 6 Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan
River.
In our day, where we go out of our way to avoid
the homeless, it is hard to see why people flocked to see and hear John the Baptist. But
in the context of his day, there are at least two good reasons.
First, though it is hard for us to imagine, John's
garments suggested a more honorable profile. His dress was similar to that
of Elijah for in II Kings 1:7 - 8 we read:
The king asked them, "What kind of man was
it who came to meet you and told you this?"
They replied, "He was a man with a garment
of hair and with a leather belt around his waist."
The king said, "That was Elijah the Tishbite."
Furthermore, someone must have marketed the idea
that if you wanted to come across as a prophet than you would be wise to dress
just as Elijah dressed. For in Zechariah's day, hundreds of years later,
this was the customary dress for prophets - even false prophets. For in
Zechariah 13:2 - 5 we read:
"On that day, I will banish the names of
the idols from the land, and they will be remembered no more," declares
the LORD Almighty. "I will remove both the prophets and the spirit of impurity
from the land. 3 And if anyone still prophesies, his father and mother,
to whom he was born, will say to him, 'You must die, because you have told lies
in the LORD's name.' When he prophesies, his own parents will stab him.
"On that day every prophet will be ashamed
of his prophetic vision. He will not put on a prophet's garment of hair in order
to deceive. 5 He will say, 'I am not a prophet. I am a farmer; the land
has been my livelihood since my youth.'
So John the Baptist came on the scene looking
like a prophet, or what people thought prophets were supposed to look like, and
talking like a prophet. In a barren land where people had not seen a good
movie for 400 plus years word quickly got out that there was this guy in the
wilderness who looked and talked like a prophet. Naturally, since people
were more than ready to see a good movie, to be entertained, they flocked to
see him regardless of the lack of accommodations.1
The second reason people flocked to hear John
the Baptist is that he said something that set off a seismic reaction. He
said, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near." Now quite
frankly, these words don't grab our attention. They don't grab our attention
and hold it because we do not hear them in the context of John's day.
The words only make sense for those who know the
story up to that point and are waiting for it to be completed. When John
said, "the kingdom of heaven is near" he triggered a recollection of
what God had said in the past in regards to the long-awaited-for kingdom.
Even if the everyday man in the street couldn't
point to a particular passage in the scrolls of his day he knew of the expansive
nature of David's kingdom and of the splendor of Solomon's kingdom. He
also knew that God's Word spoke of a kingdom that would be established forever. For
example, he may have heard the local rabbi read I Chronicles 17:7 - 14. It
reads:
"Now then, tell my servant David, 'This is
what the LORD Almighty says: I took you from the pasture and from following the
flock, to be ruler over my people Israel. 8 I have been with you wherever
you have gone, and I have cut off all your enemies from before you. Now I will
make your name like the names of the greatest men of the earth. 9 And I
will provide a place for my people Israel and will plant them so that they can
have a home of their own and no longer be disturbed. Wicked people will not oppress
them anymore, as they did at the beginning 10 and have done ever since the time
I appointed leaders over my people Israel. I will also subdue all your enemies.
"'I declare to you that the LORD will build
a house for you: 11 When your days are over and you go to be with your
fathers, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, one of your own sons,
and I will establish his kingdom. 12 He is the one who will build a house
for me, and I will establish his throne forever. 13 I will be his father,
and he will be my son. I will never take my love away from him, as I took it
away from your predecessor. 14 I will set him over my house and my kingdom
forever; his throne will be established forever.'"
On the one hand, hindsight tells us that this
passage was fulfilled when Solomon took the throne and built a house for God. But,
Solomon's kingdom became a divided kingdom and eventually the northern and southern
kingdoms were leveled by Israel's enemies. Nevertheless, the promise of
an everlasting kingdom remained on the books and was underscored by prophets
like Daniel. For example, when Daniel interpreted Nebuchadnezzar's dream
he told of an everlasting kingdom in vv. 39 - 45 of the second chapter. We
read:
"After you, another kingdom will rise, inferior
to yours. Next, a third kingdom, one of bronze, will rule over the whole earth. 40
Finally, there will be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron-for iron breaks and smashes
everything-and as iron breaks things to pieces, so it will crush and break all
the others. 41 Just as you saw that the feet and toes were partly of baked
clay and partly of iron, so this will be a divided kingdom; yet it will have
some of the strength of iron in it, even as you saw iron mixed with clay. 42
As the toes were partly iron and partly clay, so this kingdom will be partly
strong and partly brittle. 43 And just as you saw the iron mixed with baked
clay, so the people will be a mixture and will not remain united, any more than
iron mixes with clay.
"In the time of those kings, the God of heaven
will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another
people. It will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will
itself endure forever. 45 This is the meaning of the vision of the rock
cut out of a mountain, but not by human hands-a rock that broke the iron, the
bronze, the clay, the silver and the gold to pieces.
"The great God has shown the king what will
take place in the future. The dream is true and the interpretation is trustworthy."
The old old story tells of kingdoms that have
come and gone. But it also tells of a kingdom that will last forever and
ever. Clearly, the men and women of Israel who currently lived under foreign
domination dreamed of the day when the kingdom would be restored and become an
everlasting kingdom. In this context, John the Baptist came on the scene
and said the very words everybody was waiting to hear - Saddam Hussein is dead.2
No, though admittedly those words are good news
for a lot of people. But it is not the gospel of the kingdom of heaven. The
good news in John's day, the original good news that Jesus preached was this, "the
kingdom of heaven is near." In other words, he proclaimed that the
everlasting kingdom, the Kingdom of God, was just around the corner.
Incidentally, the phrase "kingdom of heaven" is
used exclusively by Matthew. The other gospel writers use the phrase "kingdom
of God," a phrase that can be found only four times in the book of Matthew,
in the New International Version of the Bible. Naturally, the question
arises as to whether or not the two phrases are synonymous.3
Well, here is the correct answer to that question. Maybe! Those
who believe the two phrases are synonymous point to the fact that parallel verses
between Matthew and the other gospel writers use the phrase interchangeably. We
see this when we compare Matthew 13:10 - 11 with Mark 4:10 - 12.
The disciples came to him and asked, "Why
do you speak to the people in parables?"
He replied, "The knowledge of the secrets
of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. 12 Whoever
has will be given more, . . .
contrasted with
When he was alone, the Twelve and the others around
him asked him about the parables. 11 He told them, "The secret of
the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything
is said in parables 12 so that, "'they may be ever seeing but never perceiving,
and ever hearing but never understanding; otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!'"
Others believe the "kingdom of heaven" includes
all those who see themselves as belonging to the "kingdom of God." While
the "kingdom of God" refers to those who are actually in the "kingdom
of God." That is, the "kingdom of God" contains true believers
while the "kingdom of heaven" contains professed believers who may
or may not truly believe in God.
This position is based on how Matthew used the
phrase in parables such as the parable of the weeds as found in Matthew 13:24
- 27a. It begins in this manner:
Jesus told them another parable: "The kingdom
of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. 25 But while
everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went
away. 26 When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also
appeared.
"The owner's servants came to him and said,
. . .
Clearly, the kingdom of heaven, in this case metaphorically
pictured as a field, includes both the wheat and the weeds. A similar scenario
is seen in other parables where the kingdom of heaven is pictured as a mixed
bag.
My guess is that Matthew stuck to the phrase "kingdom
of heaven" simply because of the audience he was trying to reach. They
would have readily understood that he was referring to the everlasting kingdom
promised in Scripture since Nebuchadnezzar referred to God as the "King
of heaven" in Daniel 4:37. Now does that mean I think the two phrases
are synonymous? Yeah - sort of - maybe.
Finally, I want you to note that while John was
baptizing all of those who were willing to repent Jesus got in line with everyone
else (see Matthew 4:13). Now you know and I know, as did John the Baptist,
that he was way too good to be in that line. Nevertheless, he identified
himself with those who had made a mess of things. In a sense, he began
his public ministry with a family of losers.
He could have joined a more prestigious family,
maybe a Greek family that loved to philosophize or a Roman family who knew how
to exercise power. But he didn't, he played history out God's way. And
this meant being willingly to identify with a group of people who were not known
for anything special - other than the fact that God had chosen them.
In our consumer oriented culture where we even
choose churches and Sunday School classes based on what they can do for us, Jesus'
example serves as a stinging rebuke. It's a reminder that he came to serve
and not to be served. He was willing, first and foremost, to serve, reach
out, and stick with those who grumbled and rebelled against just about everything. How
about us?
1 While we normally think of prophets as making predictions,
in reality they more often than not simply spoke on behalf of God in regards
to the events of the day. They encouraged people to respond to the challenges
facing the nation in a manner pleasing to God. Moral, economic, political,
and spiritual choices had to be made and in this matter of making choices the
prophets bluntly and unashamedly told others,usually the leaders, what God
advised them to do in light of current events.
2 This isn't good news to anyone who does not know the story
of Saddam's reign in Iraq. But to those who survived twenty-four years
of terror, to those who know the story, it is very good news.
3 See: Matthew 12:28, 19:24, 21:31, and 21:43. In
all four cases Matthew is quoting Jesus.JESUS & THE KINGDOM OF GOD 12/31/06 1
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