Matthew 8 - Part 5

 

Read Matthew 8

So, the disciples set out across the lake for the other side.  Jesus took a nap.  Who could blame him?  His days were always full.  He had healed many.  He had set forth the challenge as what it was to be his disciple.  Now was a good time for a nap.

A storm arose and the boat started taking on water.  We are not told that it was sinking, but it panicked the disciples, among whom were experienced fishermen.  When the waves are higher than the ship, you have found a real storm.

I have been in a good storm in the North Atlantic.  I was on a helicopter carrier, not as large as the aircraft carriers that launch and recover jets, but still a large ship.  We were being tossed hard.

In trace of us was an LST, a much smaller ship that carried a company’s worth of Marines and their equipment.  I remember being near the fantail of our ship watching the smaller ship that followed.  You would see it, then you wouldn’t.  It would be atop of the waves, then the waves crashed over it. 

It was humorous that when we ate in the wardroom, some plates would slide one way down the table, then slide back.  It was mostly amusing.  Nobody was even trying to eat on the smaller ship that was behind us.

Today’s ships are built to have water crashing across the deck.  Two thousand years ago, the boat that carried Jesus and the disciples was mostly open.  The storm was a legitimate concern.

One thing that I found I could do on ship was sleep through a storm.  You were not going to do anything to the storm by staying awake.  So, when we think of Jesus sleeping through a storm, understand that this part was not a supernatural act.

But the disciples were concerned.  Would everything come to an end so soon?  Was this the end?  Did they have enough life vests?  The disciples did the only thing that they could do.  They woke Jesus.

“Lord, save us! We’re going to drown!”

Jesus didn’t say, “Wow, this is a bad storm.”

Jesus didn’t awaken with fear in his eyes.

Jesus didn’t break into song, “Fellows it’s been good to know ya.”

He replied, “You of little faith, why are you so afraid?”

He didn’t wait for an answer.  He got up and rebuked the storm and it was completely calm.

His disciples wondered what sort of man they had thrown in with—he even commanded the wind and the waves.

The disciples had listened to his teachings.  They had witnessed his mighty acts of healing.  Now they witness his command over nature itself.

Just who was this Jesus?  Simon Peter would answer more definitively in another 8 chapters.

For now, these men were simply amazed.  For us, we should not be surprised at what Jesus can do, but we will always be amazed.

He is the King of kings and the Lord of lords and even the wind and the waves obey him.

Amen.

Matthew 8 - Part 4

 

Read Matthew 8

 Again, Jesus had to deal with a crowd.  He told his disciples that they would go to the other side of the lake.  This was first-century social distancing.  His time had not yet come.  Jesus had other things to accomplish before he would go to the cross.  This wasn’t quite the time.

Remember the beginning of the chapter when Jesus healed the man with leprosy?  Jesus sent the man to the priest but told him not to tell anyone else.  It wasn’t time yet for all of the attention that would cause the religious leaders to have Jesus killed.

The rejection of Jesus by those who should have known him—the religious hierarchy—and the people coming to see him, worship him, wanting to lift him up as king had to come together at just the right time.  That time was yet to come.

His death was necessary.  His life was offered willingly, but it wasn’t time yet.  So, Jesus and his closest followers would cross the lake.

Before he left, a Teacher of the Law came to Jesus and said, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.”

Now that sounds like commitment.  Wherever you go!

Jesus wanted this man to know the terms and conditions of his commitment.  Here’s Tom’s paraphrase.  Every creature in God’s creation has a good idea where it will sleep tonight.  I give you no such comfort with this commitment.  We go where we need to go, do the things we need to do, and don’t worry about things like food, clothing, lodging, and the like.

It’s mission first with me.

If you have been paying attention, you will know this.  It’s not that we are going to go without.  It’s that we go without concern for the things that the world worries about. 

What we don’t get here is the response of the Teacher of the Law.  Did he accept the challenge?  Did he love his comfort zone too much?  Was he counting on racking up some Hilton Honors points?

We don’t know the response.  Perhaps, what this one religious leader did or did not do is not the point here.  What if the thing that we are supposed to take home with us is that a commitment to follow Jesus is an all-in commitment?

It’s not a travel itinerary that we put together.  Let’s do Rome and Athens but I’m not so much for Barcelona.  Maybe, Toulon would be better.

Jesus told this man that his commitment must be to him and not the itinerary, the journey, the things that would fit in his day-planner—ok, his smartphone.

Another person who had been following Jesus—Matthew noted a disciple—asked for a leave of absence to go and bury his father.  It’s surely a reasonable request.

In the Marine Corps, almost every such request would be granted as emergency leave, even in forward-deployed areas. 

We don’t know if this was one of the twelve or another who had followed for a while.  Remember in John 6 that many who had followed Jesus left him because what Jesus was teaching was hard.  It was at least hard to follow Jesus and remain conformed to the world.

But, really, c’mon Jesus, can’t you give the guy a couple days to go bury his father?

The answer is, of course, he could have given him a day or two or a week and still Jesus would have accomplished what he came to do.

But this was about a commitment to follow Jesus.  Would the man seek God first?  Would he seek God’s kingdom first?  Would he seek righteousness even at the expense of his well-ordered world?

What are the words of Jesus?

“Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.”

That sounds a little harsh.  That’s more like something you would expect from Tom, but not from Jesus.  It was and is a simple dichotomy.  There’s the living and there’s the dead.  Those who do not know and believe in and follow Jesus are numbered among the dead.

Those who believe have passed from death to life.

Do you want to be among the living or the dead?  There was nothing that this disciple could do for his father at this point.  The best burial in the world would not change his relationship with God, but you are in a position to have the right relationship with God at this very moment.

Let the dead deal with the dead.  You have an invitation to life.  Are you ready to live?

Let’s jump to 2020.  I know, some of you would rather just go to 2021, but we are still in the 42^nd month of 2020.  Let’s bring these words of Jesus to our present time.

I’ll phrase this in two simple dichotomies.

All in or try to squeeze in?

Life or death?

Will we commit to following Jesus with everything we are and everything we have or will we try to work him into our schedule and our comfort zone?

Will we follow the one who has the words of life or are we content with a short period of life in the flesh and then letting our flesh rot in the ground as an appropriate tribute to a life lived without God?

All in or not?  Life or death? 

Intellectually, we know the answers.  The real question is will we accept the cost of following Jesus?

Christ died for all.  Salvation is 100% from God so that no man may boast that any part of salvation came of himself, but will we live with Jesus as Lord of our lives?

When we receive the gift of life in the words, Jesus is Lord, have we truly received him as Lord? 

Have we repented of the ways of the world?

Are we seeking the ways of God?

Is God first in our lives?

Do we live in the substance of things hoped for and rely on the evidence of things not seen?

When we sing, I have decided to follow Jesus, do we place terms and conditions on our discipleship?  Do we consider the cost first?  It’s a logical thing to do.  Jesus used the example of a wise person considering the cost of building before beginning construction.

But we don’t really know the cost of following Jesus.  There’s blessing and there are hardships.  There is peace and there is persecution.  Treasure in heaven is of greater value than treasure on earth, but eye has not seen the treasure in heaven.  I can check my accounts online for everything I have stored up on earth.

The only cost that we can assess accurately is that we will live with Jesus as Lord or we won’t.  We live in the blessed assurance of knowing that God has good plans, hope, and a future in store for us that we could not conceive on our own, or we are not quite ready to commit to what is often unseen.

Again, Jesus brought the substance of these encounters to faith.  Do you trust me enough to go all in?  Can you leave the dead for the living?

Jesus asks us, which is greater:  Having Jesus as Lord or resting in our worldly comfort zone?

I pray that we hold nothing back from our discipleship.

I petition us all to trust our Lord with everything that we have.

I have faith that we can set aside our own understanding and the things of this world to which we have been conformed.

I long for the day when Christians will take themselves out of the judgment seat and simply follow Jesus.

I know that we can make God first in our lives, seeking him and his kingdom, desiring to live fully in his right standing.

We can be his light and his love in this dark world.  We can live now.  Daily we can rest our heads with Jesus and without concern for the things this world seeks after.

We can pick up our cross and follow Jesus, not knowing what the world has in store for us, but certain of what our Lord has in store for us.

Don’t squeeze him in.  Make him first.

Choose to be among the living, not the dead.

Amen.

 

Matthew 8 - Part 3

 

Read Matthew 8

Were any of the disciples married?  We know that Peter was.  How?  Jesus healed Peter’s mother-in-law.

Jesus had come to Peter’s house.  His mother-in-law had a fever.  Jesus touched her and she was well.  The fever was gone.

What did she do?  She got up and went to work waiting on everyone.  It’s not like she had a man-cold where she would need a full week to recover.

We can chuckle a little here.  Jesus healed her and she went to work, but why not?  Why not get back to doing the things you couldn’t do well while you were sick.

When we are sick, we want our lives back.  We want to do the things that we took for granted before, even if it’s cooking, cleaning, or rotating the tires.

We should be thankful for every day of good health, but sometimes we have to recover from illness to remember to thank God for health.

Health Care is a big topic these days.  Jesus came to take care of our preexisting conditions—sin and everything that sin brought upon us, but he also came to take away our infirmities—our illness and disease in these bodies and during our time in this world.

Yes, sometimes the answer to our prayer is that my grace is enough for you, but we should not shy away from asking for healing and cleansing because sometimes a condition persists.

Too often we just classify illness, infirmity, and disease as the cost of doing business in a sinful world.  To an extent, that’s on the money.

But we have Jesus.  We have the Great Physician.  We have one not restrained by the rules of the world.  The blood of Jesus has healed us for all eternity.  He has removed the stain of our sin, but we can have healing in this time and in this world and in our infirmities.

Many came to see Jesus with many ailments and Jesus healed them.  Jesus healed them.

What the prophet had spoken, Jesus had fulfilled.

Let’s not just throw our infirmities into the cost of doing business in a sinful world basket.  Let us ask, seek, and knock as directed and expect all of those prayers to be answered, many as proffered.

Amen.

Matthew 8 - Part 2

 

Read Matthew 8

We think of Jesus ministering to the poor and the afflicted and the downtrodden.  He reached out to sinners and even ate with them. 

He spent some time talking with a Samaritan woman at a well in Sychar, Samaria.  In this chapter, we note that he healed a leper, surely the outcast among the outcast.

These people all spent their lives on the bottom or outside of respectable society.  We see Jesus ministering to them.  It’s hard to miss.

Then comes this Roman, and not just a Roman, but a Roman soldier.  He was not just a soldier, but a Centurion.  He likely commanded about 100 Roman soldiers.  In today’s rank structure, he was like a captain. 

The laws and customs of the land over which the Romans now reigned were of little consequence to this officer.  He could pretty much do what he wanted, when he wanted, how he wanted, answerable only to a superior officer or the governor of the region.

The man came to Jesus.  His servant was suffering and paralyzed at home.  This took place in the region of Capernaum, surely a place that Jesus knew well, perhaps he had lived there for a time before beginning the ministry with his disciples.

Jesus was receptive to the needs of the Centurion.  Shall I come and heal him?

What more could this officer want?  Jesus was willing to go with him to his house and heal his servant, but the Centurion proffered his humility.  My house is not worthy of you.  My life is not worthy of you.  I am not worthy, but I am a man under authority.

When my commander orders me to do something, I get it done.  When I give orders, they are followed.  It is the life that I know.  My words are as good as another’s actions.

Lord, just say the word and it will be done.

This could have been the centurion testing Jesus, but this Roman did not have a dog in this fight.  He did not need to best the one who was teaching and healing.  The Centurion lived in the same geography but in a different world and did not have to concern himself with what the Pharisees said or the what the Sanhedrin decided.  The Romans had conquered these people. 

The Centurion had no need to play these games.  In the world that he knew, he was at the top.

The Centurion had a servant who was paralyzed and suffering and he came to Jesus as one who had authority to heal and coming from God, could just give the word and it would be done.

Now that’s some faith!

Jesus told those who claimed Abraham as father and knew they were a people chosen by God, that they had been bested in their faith.  A Roman—a hated Roman—had more faith than he had seen in all of Israel. 

In chapters to come, we see Jesus calling out the Pharisees for their hypocrisy.  We see Jesus teaching his disciples that with God all things are possible, but we just don’t see too many instances where Jesus says, now that’s some faith right there.

Consider the Centurion.  Now, that was some faith!

Jesus continued with the message that began with John the Baptizer.  It’s repentance.  It’s faith.  It’s belief that brings you closer to God. 

Your human lineage is important, but not the most important thing.  Seeking God and his kingdom and his righteousness is more important that who your great, great grandfather was.

Jesus told the Centurion that his servant was healed and in that moment he was.

Here we see a man with much authority in the kingdom of the world and a man who held all authority in heaven and on earth.  Both men understood authority.  Both understood the authority manifested in words.

The hated Roman understood the authority of the Son of God more than those who should have received and accepted him.

It’s a story of healing.  It’s a story of faith.  It’s a story of God’s complete authority and sovereignty.  It’s a story that should remind us that Christ came to redeem all.

We get it that he came for the poor and weak and sick.  He also came for those who are empowered by the world.  He came for those who have money and influence.  He came for those who seem to have it all in this world.

There is more to the story concerning how difficult it can be to let go of the treasures of this world and embrace the things of God, but Christ came and he died for all.

People put parameters on who should receive God’s love.  God loves his entire creation.  God has done what is necessary to reconcile his entire creation to him.

When we divide people into groups of who is more worthy of God’s love than others, we discount faith.

When we devise metrics for receiving God’s love, we discount his authority.

When we discriminate based upon human appearances and circumstances, we ignore the counsel that God sees the heart.

Jesus came to liberate humankind from oppression and slavery and disease and much more.  Sometimes we are enslaved by power or money and sometimes we are oppressed because of reasons that may or may not make sense to us, but Christ came for all.

Sometimes, we seem to be on top of our world.  At other times, we think it couldn’t get much worse.  Sometimes, we seem to be respected by all around us.  At other times, our words seem to matter to no one.

We should take the example of the Centurion and never discount where God is at work and where faith will emerge.

We should take the faith of the Centurion and practice it in our own lives. The God who spoke creation into existence can speak healing and well being and peace into your life.

The God who spoke the words I Am can still the waters or cause men to fall on their backs.

The God who could create a clean heart in King David, can restore you fully from whatever is trying to claim you as its own.

We should heed the warning of Christ to those who thought they had it made because of who they were, that such thinking may cause them to miss the boat.

We should know and understand and believe in the sovereignty and authority of God now more than ever.

We should have more faith than the Centurion.  We have professed Jesus as Lord.  We should be models of faith for our families and our congregations and our communities.

As we live for our Master, Christ Jesus, we should give him many occasions to say, “Now that’s some faith.”

Let’s give our Lord reason to look upon us and say, “Now that’s some faith!”

Amen.