It will help to remember that Matthew is recounting the story of Jesus life as a biography in Gospel form. He has started with the genealogy, birth and baptism of Jesus. He then begins the ministry portion of Jesus' life with the temptation segment. Next, Jesus calls disciples and for 3 chapters teaches the basis on which he will build this Kingdom community. It makes sense in the narrative that Matthew now turns to describe the power he saw in Jesus life.
He begins chapter 8 with a rapid fire set of healings and miracles. First the leper, then the Centurion's servant (from a distance!), and Peters mother-in-law. This portion concludes that night with these words, "That evening they brought to him many who were possessed with demons; and he cast out the spirits with a word, and cured all who were sick. This was to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah, "He took our infirmities and bore our diseases." Matthew 8:16&17 NRSV.
Matthew will next demonstrate Jesus' power over the competing "idols" of the day by commanding the storm, casting out a legion of demons, and destroying them in a herd of swine. The reactions of the locals is interesting, "Then the whole town came out to meet Jesus; and when they saw him, they begged him to leave their neighborhood." Matthew 8:34 NRSV. Jesus is scary, and bad for business when your business runs contrary to him and the Kingdom.
Where are there places in our lives where we ask Jesus to leave us alone in our swine business?
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2 comments:
haha - your last comment really made me laugh, even though it's not really funny. We do have things in our lives that having a relationship with Jesus make harder, or that don't exactly coincide with our faith. I think of my career that I'm pursuing - teaching English - when I really want to be telling the lost souls in my classroom about Jesus, I won't be able to because it's probably illegal and will make me lose my job. That's really lame.
Sara and I talked about how the pigs of then would be the common man of today's car or computer or something - you know, something that's worth money to him without demons in it, but worthless with demons in it. I wouldn't want something in my car to make it go jump in water either.
The faith of the Centurion in this chapter is also really awesome for me. Sara's dad's been talking a lot about faith in prayer recently, because of the miracles that have happened when praying for Sara's feet. I think it's really interesting - we talk so much about faith, but do we really believe in the healing power all the time? We certainly should. Look what it did for the centurion. Don't doubt, it doesn't get you anywhere. We need to have the faith of the centurion...and why shouldn't we? That was even before Jesus rose from the dead!
God bless!
Marshall
I love where Jesus says, "I do choose." I'm too lazy to look up the Greek sentence structure though.
Matthew and his Jew/Gentile emphasis - Israel doesn't necessarily get a 'free pass' he seems to say - because some Gentiles get it better than Israel does.
Jesus isn't looking for 1/2 way, 1/2 hearted followers.
Which is more important? The person healed? Or the pigs lost? A person in need? Financial stability?
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