Jesus travels on with his disciples and confronts the legalism of the Pharisees. The Pharisees have rule upon rule about how one must behave to keep the letter of the law. They had rules about how far a person could walk, how to tie one handed knots, and how to wash ones hands so as not to do work on the sabbath. They confront Jesus on his lax approach to these rules and Jesus response is in essence "You don't know what you are talking about, nor do you know who you are talking to." Jesus law of love supersedes the laws of religion, and so the disciples eat, and he heals the sick and feeds the hungry!
The Pharisees in their frustration present a specious argument that Jesus cast out demons by the power of satan. Jesus shows the bad logic of this and stifles their dissent.
When the scribes and Pharisees request a sign to demonstrate his authority, Jesus refuses them - this is not a circus act! If these people wanted a sign, they had plenty of opportunity to witness all that he has already done! Jesus turns an angry word of discipline on their request saying, "An evil and adulterous generation asks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so for three days and three nights the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth. The people of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the proclamation of Jonah, and see, something greater than Jonah is here!" Matthew 12:39-41 NRSV. Jesus here prophesies about his death burial and resurrection for the first time in Matthew's Gospel.
Jesus continues to speak to the crowds and his Mother and Brothers arrive. A person from the crowd tells him that they are waiting to see him and Jesus makes a fairly amazing statement to them. Jesus says, "Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?" And pointing to his disciples, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother." Matthew 12:48b -50 NRSV. A friend of mine recently noted that this shows that in the Kingdom of God water relatives(baptism) are thicker than blood relatives!
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4 comments:
In my upcoming talk on "apostolic action" [easy for me to say 25+ times] I think of Lynn's comment a few days ago on the media. That with all that is wrong with the world only proves that GOD'S work is not completed here on Earth. We must continue to minister constantly in His name, in all that we do!!
Amen Servant of the King,
Apostolic Action is a great talk for you to give - you model it well!
When I see you remind me of the date and time you are giving this talk so I can be in prayer for you my friend!
Bill
I can't believe how they were acting back then. We have a lot of leading bodies in our world now - take the student-teacher-principal-superintendent relationship: I guess if a student was trying to do things that made his peers follow him instead of the principal, it would look bad. Those Pharisees were probably really jealous, and just wanted to see that Jesus was not allowed to make them look powerless with his incredible power, love, and way with words.
It is pretty great that he resisted the temptation to show them a sign. I think about any time I've been able to do something, or had exciting news, I just can't wait to show people or tell people. I could never resist healing people or "doing some kind of trick." Guess that's why he's the man. Very interesting that he prophesies for the first time about his death/resurrection in terms of Jonah. I'm pretty sure he was holding back about talking about it for a long time. Imagine if you could fortell the future!
The blood relatives thing is really interesting, because it certainly does seem that our Christian brothers and sisters are often closer than our blood relatives. If we share the love of Christ, we know our hearts are connected, and we go together wherever we are...we don't need the same kind of physical atttention and verbal discussions to know that the love is there...and to know we're connected.
We are connected through the blood of Christ...and that blood is far better than ours!
God bless, hope all is well!
Marshall
What a full chapter! "It is lawful to do good on the Sabbath." Jesus makes it hard to argue with him, so the Pharisees just want to destroy him instead...
love the phrase from Isaiah, "brings justice to victory."
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