Matthew
Tuesday, August 09, 2011
It was my first weekend spent in Okoboji last weekend and though it was fantastic, the best part may actually have been the five hour drive back home. One of my God gifted friends, Rachel Sorensen, offered to drive so we carpooled. While she drove on our way back, I broke out my bible and I read aloud from it. I felt compelled to read out of Matthew because while we were at a worship concert Saturday night the band Heart of the City played and the leader gave a short message using Matthew 5, talking straight from the Sermon on the Mount. It reminded me that I had not read it for far too long, so I opened up to Matthew 4 and we began our drive with Jesus’ temptation in the desert and ended our drive with the healing of two demoniacs at the end of chapter 8. We took four hours to discuss four chapters! It’s the same sermon I’ve read, reread, heard, and quote so often, but reading it this way with discussion, bit by little bit, made me appreciate everything Jesus is saying, savoring it all the more.
Throughout the weekend I felt this itch at my back wanting to be secluded with God, to just be with Him. It was studying in the car that scratched my itch. That’s why it was the best part of the weekend for me. I am feeling this calling for a personal retreat, alone with God. Often Jesus went to pray alone in the desert, or on a mountain (my ideal), alone with his Father. I am longing for that, but realize it’d be nearly impossible, and unlikely that I will get the chance simply because of money, time, and place. Where is there a free place that is secluded without having to worry about protecting myself (like camping alone, not the safest thing for a girl..)? Anyway, I can argue with myself about a retreat later. Back to Jesus…
Rachel and I also read my bible’s commentary, suggested our own, and went on many tangents along the way, but that is all in good conversation and learning. We realized some things through talking it out, like girls like to do, and then prayed immediately then and there for further understanding. The way that Rachel and often Tana step into prayer inside conversation so easily is something I love learning to do. That really started at OneThing and since living with Tana has been becoming my norm and that’s the way we really should pray; urgently, unhindered, together. As for our discussion, I just to highlight the things that inspired, motivated, convicted, and interested me from these chapters that we like to think we know so well sometimes.
The first thing that blew me away was in Jesus’ temptation. My bible’s commentary spelled it out like this: “If Jesus had turned stone into bread, thrown himself down from the pinnacle of the Temple, or worshiped the devil (an ascending scale of severity of temptations) in order to feed himself, prove himself to the crowds, or gain his kingdom without dying for it, he would no longer have been the obedient Son of God worthy of emulation. Jesus is portrayed here as not taking shortcuts to glory, but rather following the hard and long path of obedience, living by God’s word, and resisting temptation by relying on that word. Notice the Devil can cite scripture but only Jesus fleshes it out and obeys it. Wisdom amounts not just to knowing the truth by obeying it.” This is crucial! To realize how Jesus knew what he had to do, the pain and rejection and hatred he would suffer, and to have to be tempted from the very get go of His ministry makes appreciating what he did all more amazing. He knew of course that the devil is the father of lies, He created him as well. Jesus knew that the enemy had not even a wisp of authority to grant the things he tempted Jesus with, but I look at this interaction as very curious. Jesus fights the devil with scripture, our model of how to combat the enemy as well, though Jesus could’ve said much more. Jesus keeps his dialogue short and simple, yet right to the heart of each temptation, doing just as the commentary says, “fleshing it out and obeying it.” You would think, again, that Jesus could’ve abolished the enemy then and there, but in order to show the world the qualities of God, how far He will go for His beloved, he let His father’s plan unfold in the way it did. Amazing.
After reading about His temptation, it goes straight to His ministry. Rachel and I paused here to wonder aloud together what on earth Jesus did up until his ministry. Yes we realize he lived a Jewish life with Mary and Joseph in Nazareth. We always hear that he was a carpenter like Joseph, but I remember hearing (and I can’t remember where which may be important to the credibility of this proposition..) that the interpretation of ‘carpenter’ may have actually meant something like ‘handy man’ which paints a picture of Jesus and Joseph doing odd jobs around the city, probably knowing everyone and everyone knowing them, with that intimacy being the reason they rejected Him when He came to his hometown. But Rachel and I were more wondering what Jesus was like in the very little ways, what he did in his adolescence, and most interestingly for our age, what he thought and did in his twenties. I believe men were married by that age, usually to women a lot younger like 14, 15, right? I just wonder if he was mocked for not marrying, assuming what history, scripture, and tradition teaches, that he didn’t ever marry. I wonder what his favorite thing to eat was? His favorite color? What games did he play? Who were his childhood friends and what were they like? Did he create things, and what kind of things were they? Could he play an instrument; was he rhythmic? What were his hobbies? Did he ever have interest in a young woman? What did he sing like and dance like? Did he ever break any bones? How did he deal with puberty and growing up? What did He consider to be fun? Did he perhaps begin his ministry in his hometown by just being himself, the Son of God? What were you like on Earth Lord, really? I’ve frustratingly wondered these things because obviously scripture skips it all except that one incident when He is 12, ‘lost’ and learning in the temple. This is really just me wanting intimacy with Jesus’ humanity, what I am familiar with. I do look forward to asking Him these things, but then again, when I get there before His throne, I suspect I will be way too overcome with every wonderful emotion to even care about these things for at least a while, until the shock dissipates (who knows if it ever does though, He’s God). When I was in 8th grade I had this thought about heaven as being this celestial existence where literally the glory of God was like an orbit and all the saints floated around Him in perpetually eternal state of awe and worship. I have no idea how I conceived that thought in the 8th grade, but I still imagine myself at His throne being so overwhelemed by His glory and just who He IS.
The next insightful verse was one of revelation for Rachel: Matthew 4:17, “From that time Jesus began to proclaim, “Repent for the kingdom of God has come near.” My bible adds, “This is a call not merely for us to feel sorry for our sins or even just to accept forgiveness for them, but to choose a different and wiser course of living.” I have been blessed with the realization of true repentance, coming to a pretty full understanding of it through a discussion I was listening to years back where it was described as an about face action. I described it to Rachel as it was described to me, “You’re walking in one direction, the direction of sin. You see the sin, are sorry for it, and when you repent, you about face yourself and walk in the opposite direction, cleaning up the mess you’ve left behind while you were walking in sin. It’s a complete 360 degree change in your life.” She made an “Ah ha!” sound and said, “Now I get it!”
Next chapter 5 arrived, ahh the beatitudes. The “blessings”. I went to the Cathedral after kickboxing class Tuesday morning to pray. Thankfully there was no person in that whole huge church and I prayed aloud kneeling. With my bible before me I prayed beginning right at the Beatitudes. I prayed every point Jesus was driving over my life and asked for clarification where I felt unsure. The first beatitude is this: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs in the Kingdom of Heaven.” My bible adds something interesting saying, “Poor in spirit simply means ‘the poverty stricken in spiritual things, the simple-minded, untalented, and religiously unsophisticated’. This is so contrary to our human way of thinking about what makes people well off that many English translators cannot bring themselves to translate it directly. They will often add something about “consciousness” of spiritual poverty, which of course, draws the sting from the teaching.” This made me wonder about the verse, and my overall thought process about the beatitudes in general. I remember thinking of them in my youth as individual gifts of sorts that people had, not thinking that one person could have all of those attributes, or that we should strive for them, something I learned as a teen. But now I was looking at ‘poor in spirit’ and wondering why or how someone should be lacking in spirit. How does the kingdom of heaven belong to someone who lacks spirit? What does that mean? I asked this to Jesus, and when I kept reading the rest of the beatitudes the puzzle pieces seemed to fall into place and I saw a picture of heaven. Jesus states that the first will be last in His kingdom, that the orphan, widow, lonely, sick, and rejected of the world are the first in His kingdom. So while He is telling us to do these things like be meek, to hunger and thirst for righteousness, to be pure in heart, and merciful, He is also telling us that those who suffer in this Life and look to Him, to His Kingdom, will receive what they lack, will be vindicated, saved, appreciated and loved, ruling with the King Jesus in his reign. For we are partakers in His reign. He is giving us hope, while telling us how to live at the same time through the beatitudes, the blessings. Another beatitude that I specifically appreciate is, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see their God.” This was spoken over me during One Thing back in December. While I was in the healing room, the women praying for me told me of how God delighted in my pure heart, and again in a prayer circle with another group of people I did not know I was told by a woman to rejoice that I have a pure heart and that I will see my God. I continue to pray for that purity but I am encouraged whenever I read that verse. And of course another beatitude that grabs me is the last one, “Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” I really prayed into this, just thinking about rejoicing and being glad in our sufferings as Paul talks about it. I was reminded a saints who suffered horribly and maintained joyfulness throughout it knowing that their suffering was uniting them to Jesus’ suffering and that their reward was going to be great in Heaven. This is something sort of unimaginable and difficult for me to relate to, so I felt I needed to pray all the more about it, especially in these last days when we will be threatened physically or otherwise because of our faith. To be able to rejoice during such things is a grace only obtained by God through praying for it, much like a lot of things. I prayed for Jesus’ messages within every chapter over my life up to the tree bearing good fruit in the middle of chapter 7, knowing that’s the best way to soak in the gospel and continue living it. That hour didn’t feel like an hour at all.
But back in the car Rachel and I are looking at Chapter 5 verse 18 where Jesus says, “For truly I tell you, until and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter will pass from the law until all is accomplished.” This leaves us with some questions. Way more questions than answers it feels like. Question A) What does Heaven and Earth passing away mean? Question B) What extent of the law is Jesus referring to, especially since he is so specific that ‘not even a stroke of a letter of the law will pass?’ Is he referring to the 10 commandments only, like much of Christianity has assumed, or is He referring to the totality of the Jewish law? (I feel like Paul answers this somewhere and right now I am forgetting.) Question C) What does He mean ‘until all is accomplished’ exactly? His passion and resurrection? Or the Final Judgment? Rachel and I mulled these questions over, and for a time debated why all Christians aren’t Messianic Jews, if all of the law is to be observed until the final judgment. My bible suggests that this means the ‘kingdom of God’s saving reign fully come on Earth.’ It goes on to remind us that Jesus is addressing Jews not gentiles. I feel this is monumental because as obedient children we want to follow what the Lord is saying to the letter and Jesus is telling us to here, so what exactly is the law that we may follow it? I believe most would say the ten commandments, and I know Paul talks an awful lot about the law vs. our righteousness in faith. I just wonder if we should observe some of the Jewish traditions, or if like Paul says, the law does not bind us but we have righteousness through faith in Jesus. But then what does Jesus mean by what He is saying in this verse?
Things to pray and research. I believe this is what we need to do often to learn who Christ is and therefore to love Him and become like Him. Look at His life as detailed and scrupulously as we can, with prayer of course. Really life boils down to modeling ourselves after Him so every detail of us should be mimicking every quality of Christ. This what I loved the most about that weekend, as nerdy as that is, it was being with Jesus in community with Rachel and exploring who He is deeper together.
Lord I love you, more and more, though I think I can’t, I really do. J
