Year 3, Day 183: Matthew 9

Miracle Group #2, Continued

In Matthew 9, we start with the healing of the paralytic man.  This is a neat story because the man is a paralytic.  The man needed help from friends to get to Jesus.  This man has friends who are devoted enough to him to get him the help he needed.  Jesus does not disappoint.  Jesus sees the faith of all those involved and heals the paralytic man.  Once more, God’s power is on display.

However, now we begin to see trouble on the horizon.  Some of the scribes begin paying attention to Jesus.  They don’t like that He has begun to attract attention and that He is putting the power of God on display in this manner.  They especially don’t like that Jesus was talking about the forgiveness of sins.  After all, if Jesus could forgive sins, what would the people need of the temple and the religious system that kept them employed and in power?

Jesus takes the opportunity to make a simple point.  He has the authority to forgive sins.  However, also notice that Jesus could have backed away.  At this point, the scribes were only thinking these thoughts to themselves.  But Jesus takes the fight head on.  Jesus pushes the fight to the scribes.  Jesus could have walked away and let them continue to think.  But He draws the battle out of them.  When God’s power is on display, Jesus isn’t afraid.  {For the record, it does lead to His crucifixion.  So don’t take this as carte blanche to always go head first at every problem.  Jesus went head first because He knew it was God’s plan for Him to die.  That’s a really important point to not miss.}

Second Discipleship Interlude

Having come through three stories about Jesus bringing peace into the lives of those around them, we now see Jesus teach.  In order to begin the teaching, He calls Matthew to leave the life of being a tax-collector.  Jesus then goes to eat dinner in Matthew’s house.  The Pharisees see this and the trouble on the horizon grows a little larger.  They wonder what Jesus is doing hanging around with people who are “sinners.”

I love Jesus’ answer.  It is not the healthy who need Him.  The sick need Him.  It’s a perfect back-handed compliment.  Jesus is telling those around Him that they are sick and in need of healing.  Which, of course, they are.  But He is also reassuring them that they can find healing in Him.  Yet, he is telling the Pharisees that they cannot be helped by Jesus because they do not consider themselves sick.  Without repentance and recognition of sin, there is no forgiveness of sin.

Then Jesus begins to teach about fasting.  John’s disciples come legitimately wondering why it is that Jesus’ disciples don’t fast.  Jesus tells them that He is the bridegroom – the one for whom everyone’s been waiting.  Jesus is teaching us that true peace comes in Him.   The Christian life – while difficult at times – is a festival and not a dirge.  In Jesus we are more than merely patched up; we are made anew.  There is reason to celebrate indeed.

Miracle Group #3

This third group of miracle stories involves those who are physically broken.  In the first story we actually see two stories.  Jesus is on His way to heal a dying girl when a woman touches Him.  Although she had been experiencing a hemorrhage of blood for twelve years, she was healed. 

Imagine, if you will, what it would feel like for this woman.  Because of her constant flow of blood, she was perpetually unclean.  She couldn’t go into the temple or the synagogue.  She couldn’t go near a religious teacher.  She couldn’t go anywhere that her culture told her that she could get close to God.  She was banned from anything resembling holiness and restoration for over a decade.  In a single moment of touch, Jesus changes her life completely.  She goes from broken to restored in the blink of an eye.  Such is the grace of God.

Bookending this story we have the story of the dying daughter of a synagogue leader (other Gospels tell us this man’s name was Jairus).  Jairus’ daughter had been alive for as long as the woman had the hemorrhage of blood.  We know Jairus’ name, yet the woman with the blood remains anonymous.  God’s grace falls upon the young, the old, the high in status, and the unknown.  Such is the grace of God.

Returning to the miracle, Jesus encounters Jairus’ household.  Jesus is told the girl is dead.  They laugh at Jesus for continuing to help Jairus’ need.  However, Jesus goes in and raises Jairus’ daughter up.  Like the woman who was instantly restored, this young daughter of faith finds new life in the simple touch of the Lord.

The next two stories likewise tell about physically broken people who are restored with a simple encounter with Jesus.  Blind men receive their sight simply because they believe Jesus when He says that He has the power to do it.  A man who is mute because of a demonic oppression finds that he is able to speak again.  The crowds began to grow once more.  In spite of Jesus’ directives, the message of Jesus was spreading like wildfire. 

The glory of God was now on full display.  The Pharisees couldn’t stand it.  They were backed into a position of disarming Jesus.  When God’s power is on display, people will go to great lengths to undermine God’s hand at work.

Third Discipleship Interlude

This brings us to the third discipleship interlude.  Jesus saw the crowds gather.  They were like sheep without a shepherd.  This insult is two-fold.  First, it was an insult to the religious leaders of Jesus’ day.  They should have been the shepherds of the people – leading them in righteousness.  But they weren’t.  Second, this was an insult to the people.  Sheep without a shepherd roam aimlessly to whatever suits their pleasure at the time.  They don’t consider things like danger.  Jesus knows that the crowds that are coming to Him are doing the same thing.  They are coming to Jesus because He seems to fit the bill while He is doing miracles.  But Jesus knows that the time is coming when the crowds will find an excuse to abandon Him and move on to other seemingly green pastures.

So what does Jesus say?  The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.  Jesus invites us to pray for the harvest – specifically that the Lord will send out laborers.  The crowds will wander aimlessly if they are allowed.  The crowds need to be collected, gathered, guided, challenged, and taught. 

Let’s look back at these three groupings of miracles stories in the perspective of this last teaching.  The crowds are full of “less than significant” people.  The crowds are full of people in need of peace.  The crowds are broken in life.  But who is there to deal with any of these realities?  This is why Jesus made disciples. 

Now we come to the full reason that Matthew divided up these stories as he did.  The miracles display the power of God.  When the power of God is on display, truth is exposed in the lives of people.  Those people need disciples of Jesus who can speak truth into their life.

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