Matthew 12 - Part 5

 

Read Matthew 12

If you are at the top of the religious food chain, how do you deal with a man who is healing people like no one before him?  How do you deal with a man who can not be trapped by clever words, even if the argument against him seems solid?

What do you do with such a man?  If you are the Pharisees, you ask him for a sign.  Give us something that is unmistakably of God.   

Jesus told them that they would get a sign but that it wouldn’t be what they were hoping for.  As Jonah  was in the fish for three days, so Jesus will be in the ground for three days.  Jonah came out of the fish.  The implication is that Jesus would come out of the earth.

He would rise from death.

Jesus doesn’t waste the Jonah analogy.  He noted that the people of Nineveh who repented after hearing Jonah would stand in judgment of these religious hypocrites. 

Much as the unrepentant people of the cities where Jesus performed many miracles will be worse off than Sodom; so too these Scribes and Pharisees will be on the wrong end of judgment and delivered at the hands of those whom they scorned as ungodly.

You think that you have cleaned house and there is no evil in it, but because you have not made your house a godly one, evil will return with greater gusto than before.  The One who defeats evil stands before you and you are blind to see him.

You have rejected the One whom God sent to save you; yet, you have grown comfortable in your condemnation.

The same mindset that condemned the disciples for plucking grains from the field on the Sabbath made these religious leaders fodder for evil.  Redemption stood before them but they chose to continue in their blindness.

These leaders would continue opposing Jesus at every opportunity.  They were essential to get Jesus to the cross.  Jesus offered himself as the atoning sacrifice, but someone would need to put the elements of his death in motion at just the right time. 

Now we see what seems to be a strange reaction from Jesus when he was told that his mother and his brothers were nearby and wanted to have a little time with Jesus.

You might think that Jesus would have called time out for an hour to visit with his family, but that was not the case.  Instead, he asks:  Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?

Jesus wasn’t an orphan.  He didn’t have sometimers disease and couldn’t remember who his family members were.  He was on a mission from God—his Father.

Jesus pointed to his disciples and said that they were his family.  The ones who did the will of God the Father were his family.  God’s word sustained them and putting his words into practice not only makes them wise, but family as well.

When we take the yoke of our Master, we are more than disciples.  We are family.  When we learn from Jesus and put his words into practice, we are family.

Saying that we are brothers and sister in Christ isn’t just something cool that Christians like to say.  Jesus called us his brothers and sisters for we are seeking God and his kingdom and his righteousness. 

We have taken his yoke and we learn from him.  We put his words into practice.

We are family and that family belongs to the Most High God and will never be without him.  We stand in stark contrast to the self-righteous who would blaspheme God’s own Spirit by refusing to receive the truth when he stands before them.

It’s good to be family.

Amen.