Jesus is in Galilee, travelling among the villages and towns of the area. Galilee is in the north, in the area of the Sea of Galilee, north of the area of Samaria and Judea. Jesus is proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and as a sign that his ministry is from God, Jesus is healing every disease and sickness with power that can only come from God. In chapters 8 and 9, Jesus heals a leper, Peter’s mother-in-law, casts out demons, calms a storm, heals a paralytic and a woman who bled for 12 years without finding a cure until Jesus. Jesus raises a young girl from the dead, gives sight to a blind man and a voice to a mute man, and casts out demons. One after another, Matthew in rapid fire, tells of one healing or miracle right after another. It’s almost overwhelming as you read through these two chapters.
This
follows Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount where Jesus lays out what life looks like
in the kingdom of heaven, how the values of the kingdom of heaven, and how we
understand the reality of life, is different from the world around us. Jesus
reveals a kingdom focused on community and helping others flourish, while our
world encourages us to normally focus on serving ourselves first; the kingdom
of heaven focuses on purity and holiness while our world focuses on pleasure,
power, and gathering stuff for ourselves first. An English Literature class in
a Texas university was given the Sermon on the Mount and asked to write a
response to it. The professor was surprised at the anger the Sermon on the
Mount created in many of the students. One student wrote, “It is completely
unrealistic and unreasonable that anyone would expect people to live by such
outrageous standards. They are impossible to follow.” The gospel does
create high expectations for those who choose to follow Jesus.
Matthew
now shows Jesus moving into the next stage of his ministry. Jesus is travelling
through the towns and villages of Galilee, a more agricultural area in the
north by the Sea of Galilee, calling the people to
repent and believe for the kingdom of heaven is near. Galilee is a place
of regular people who work hard, raise their families to know God and follow
him. Their faith has made them passionate though for the coming of the promised
Messiah, and this led them to produce a number of revolutionaries who fought
against the rule of Rome. The Zealots, which Peter and Judas Iscariot sympathized
with, had their roots in Galilee. Wikipedia describes them this way, “The Zealots objected to Roman rule and
violently sought to eradicate it by generally targeting Romans and Greeks.” Rome fought back, once crucifying
2,000 rebels at one time. At the same time, Jerusalem and the people of Judea
looked down their noses at Galilee as a backwater of ignorant uneducated
people. This created a lot of uneasiness in the land, which increased the hope
for the Messiah. This is the context Jesus is bringing the gospel news in.
Crowds
of people keep coming out to hear Jesus and get healed. There’s a
searching for hope, life is often hard under Rome. Jesus brings a message of
hope. Jesus sees that they are harassed and helpless, disrespected by both Rome
and Jerusalem; like sheep without a shepherd and he has
compassion on them. The people were looking for someone to follow who
would care for them. We hear echoes back to the Old Testament prophets; Ezekiel 34:23–24, “I will place over them one shepherd, my servant David,
and he will tend them; he will tend them and be their shepherd. I
the Lord will be their God, and my
servant David will be prince among them. I the Lord
have spoken.” The prophet Micaiah prophesied in 1 Kings 22:17, “I saw all Israel
scattered on the hills like sheep without a shepherd, and the Lord said, ‘These people have no master.
Let each one go home in peace.”
Jesus
comes as the Good Shepherd, the compassionate shepherd who protects
his sheep, who has come to lead them to places of safety where they can rest
and flourish. In Matthew’s story
here, Jesus moves from sheep imagery to farming and a picture of harvest time.
Galilee is a farming community, and as Jesus is walking the roads, the roads
are lined with fields of grain and wheat and barley. It must have been harvest
time as Jesus is walking through the area and he uses the image of a harvest to
encourage his followers to see and recognize the opportunity to bring the
people hope, Jesus says, “The
harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest to
send out workers into his harvest field.”
I
wonder if the disciples scratched their heads at what Jesus has
just told them? It’s easy for us
to see how Jesus creates the conditions in our hearts where the seed of faith
is able to grow and flourish. The church, our families, Christian schools and
Christian groups in public schools, friendships, and more are all part of how
our seeds of faith grow and we’re able to flourish as followers of Jesus. But
the kingdom of heaven has a way of turning our worlds and lives upside down; in
order to really flourish in our faith, we are called to die to ourselves and
our wants and desires.
In John, Jesus talks about wheat producing many
seeds, John 12:24, “Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of
wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it
dies, it produces many seeds.” Jesus is the
Shepherd who gives us the seed of faith as a gift to grow in our hearts, but
Jesus is also the shepherd who gives his life for his sheep so that the seeds
to faith may produce many more seeds, where his sheep can go and bring many
more sheep into the shepherd’s care. Jesus dies so we can be free from the
punishment our sin deserves, Jesus’ resurrection offers us new life. We’re then
called to die to our own wants and desires and to care for the things and
people Jesus cares for.
Jesus’ teaching, miracles and compassion have soaked into the people’s hearts. The soil has been
prepared, the seeds planted and nourished, and now the fields are ripe for
harvest. Right after Jesus tells the disciples the harvest is plentiful; he gives them authority to drive out evil spirits and to heal
every disease and sickness. Jesus gives them
these orders, “Do not go among the
Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans. Go rather to the lost sheep of
Israel. As you go, proclaim this message: ‘The kingdom of
heaven has come near.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have
leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give.” The disciples are to
call the people to “Repent
and believe for the kingdom is near,” the same message Jesus brought and the power is a
sign they are bringing God’s message. The disciples are to call the people to
follow Jesus and accept him and the harvest is plentiful.
The situation today is not that different from
Jesus’ time. COVID, conspiracy theories, political systems
gone haywire, a tendency to conflict and division have all combined to create a
sense of anxiety, frustration, confusion, fear, and more in many people today.
One study recently has said that up to 60% of the people in Alberta have seen a
negative downturn in their mental health and I would add, that there are many
people wondering if there is anyone left who really cares about them instead of
just using them. People are searching for something, or someone they can trust
and rely on to guide them through this time in a healthy way. I see the Holy
Spirit at work preparing the people’ hearts for the gospel news of Jesus Christ
and we are the workers the Spirit is using to bring in the harvest.
We follow a God who cares, a God who
understands our fears and anxieties because Jesus became
human just like us. This is the hope we offer, a compassionate Jesus who has
placed his people here to bring the gospel news into our anxious, divided
society and create safe communities where people can find rest and renewal in
these troubled times in Jesus. I like how Karen Ehman puts it, “You know,
when we get to heaven someday, I like to imagine what the Lord will say to us.
I don’t think we are going to be congratulated on our successes in our careers
or even applauded for our parenting. Do you know what I imagine the Lord saying
to us? The same thing I say to my son when I notice that he and the shoe pile
have arrived at our place. “Oh, hey. You’re home! Who’d you bring with ya?”
Who’d you bring with ya?
No comments:
Post a Comment