The author of Matthew goes to great lengths in his Gospel to reposition Jesus within the Jewish narrative, the story of the Israelites, and in my previous reflections I have noted how Matthew emphasizes, expounds on and elevates the Old Testament references in order to retell the story of Genesis and Exodus and essentially create a new Pentateuch that establishes Jesus as the new temple in the coming “Kingdom” of God. Understanding the nature of this Kingdom is paramount for the author, especially as he positions it as a contest between two Kingdoms, in which the religious leaders (Israel, the Jewish nation) is caught inbetween.

A Coming Death, A Coming Kingdom, and A Kingdom for the Least
In Chapter 16 we arrive at the first of three foretellings of Jesus’s coming death (16:21-23), where we find two essential markers of this coming Kingdom. First, it reemphasizes the context of the temptation narrative, in which Jesus and the devil drive this contest between the two Kingdoms. Which is interesting, because Matthew positions the confession of Christ as the “revealing” of the Father in line with his resistance to Jesus’s Kingdom as the work of the “devil”. When Jesus (in Matthew’s narrative) then moves to say “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up the cross and follow me”, he is giving definition to where the disciples are following him, which is to the Cross. This revealing gives way to the Transfiguration, which has Jesus once again ascending a mountain, which in ancient Israelite tradition is where God is often revealed (the root of that word “apocalypse” or “revelation”). In keeping with Matthews concern for establishing a new Pentateuch, this is where Jesus climbs the mountain with Elijah and Moses where Moses had his apocalyptic encounter with God (note the voice from the cloud), positioning John as Elijah and Jesus as the fulfillment of the Law (Moses). And then once again, as Jesus descends the mountain, he descends to do his work, which he says is to die and then to rise again (17:9). Just as Elijah came and suffered and died at the hands of their resistance to God’s Kingdom building, so must Jesus.

Here we get a crucial point of Matthew, which is this deep connection between the contest of the Kingdom of Rome and the Kingdom of God, the contest between the Devil and Jesus as the ones driving these Kingdoms, and the contest that exists within ourselves, both externally (the Kingdom of Rome and the person of Jesus) and internally (the spirit of the devil and the Spirit of God). It is a Kingdom that they are being asked to take up residence in, and this Kingdom is Jesus. And the way to this Kingdom, the straight path that John pointed us towards, is through the Cross as that which sets the Kingdom of God in contest to the Kingdom of this world.

This becomes the point of the Beatitudes, where Jesus on the mountain establishes the Kingdom of God as a Kingdom for the least. What we find in the temptation narrative is a contest of “powers”, and what the Cross does is reposition power towards the weakness and shocking nature of the Cross itself. In death comes life, in weakness comes power. This is what Jesus is dong in willingly settings himself under the powers of this world, under the powers of sin and death so as to establish a new Kingdom that proclaim liberation for the oppressed. This is the measure of the Cross.

As we now move towards the Cross, we once again find an establishing of this Kingdom nature sandwiched between what will be two more foretellings of Jesus’ death and resurrection (17:22-23; 20:17-19), beginning with this grand statement that declares children to be the greatest in the kingdom. “Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven (18:4).” Pushing this further, Jesus says, “whoever receives one such child in my name receives me.”

Here Jesus connects His own ministry to the ministry of his disciples, saying that what you do to them you do to me, and to receive them means you are receiving Jesus. Jesus raises up the idea of children as an embodiment of someone who is not yet formed by an understanding of the Law in the way the religious leaders were. They simply come to Jesus and are giving a place in the Kingdom apart from the Law. This is a disassociating of works from salvation, finding Jesus as the new Law, and this forms the idea that where we find Jesus is in the least, the oppressed, the marginalized, the Gentiles, all those who have been marginalized by the Law.

Doubling down on this idea of a Kingdom for children (or coming into the Kingdom as “children”), Jesus now moves to add that “whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin… (18:6)” would be better to have fastened a stone around their neck and thrown themselves into a lake then to face the woes that we find in 18:7-9. For it is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the one by whom the temptation comes.

This is obviously hyperbolic language, but it leaves a question about how Matthew is framing the attention of these verses pertaining to “children” and “temptation”, which Matthew’s Gospel seems to suggest are “necessary”. I think two things can help us as readers make sense of these verses- understanding who the children, the tempters and those being tempted are, and understanding how this relates to the Kingdom Jesus is establishing by way of the Cross,

The first clue I think is recognizing that Matthew is structured so as to kind of bookmark this passage about children with the later verse, “Let the children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven (19:15).” I found this helpful to read this almost like a “so then…” moment. The Kingdom of Heaven is framed by the question, “who is the greatest”, to which Jesus says whoever comes like a child will enter the Kingdom… “so then”, let the children come to me and do not hinder them.

Notice how this naturally shifts the focus away from them to those Jesus is calling into the Kingdom. This means the entire collection of passages are intended to speak to how those asking the question about who is the greatest (the disciples) are called to bring people into the Kingdom.

And who is Jesus bringing into the Kingdom? This is where Jesus positions the religious leaders (that brood of vipers) as the religious elite (the mature in the Law) over and against the gentiles, the oppressed, the marginalized, all those whom the Law has isolated ignored for the sake of building their Kingdom. “See to it” then, Jesus says, that “you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven.” This is curious language, but this reference to angels and “face” (note the face of God hidden to Moses and in the Cloud at the Transfiguration) alludes us to the ancient context of this understanding of the “hosts” of heaven (angels surrounding God in his throne room) and this freedom to imagine God as dwelling with us, watching over us. This is ultimately about the ways in which Jesus has come to reveal God, and in Him all those who are weak and burdened and sick and hurting find rest.

Pushing this further now into the heart of God in his Kingdom, we then find this passage connected to the 99 sheep, and the shepherd (Jesus) going out to look for the one. “It is not the will of my father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish. 18:14”

So again, who are the children, the little ones? This is the world that Jesus came to save. It is the Gentiles, the sick, the marginalized, all those who have been neglected by the temple establishment. This is why Jesus is coming to rebuild the temple as Himself. This is then positioned into a discussion of encountering the people, the ones Jesus is bringing into the Kingdom, in light of the law. Jesus says, “if your brother sins against you”, forgive him (18:15). “Let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector”, which is whom we have found Jesus reclining at the table with earlier in Matthew’s “call”. And if you want to find reasons for why someone should not be in the Kingdom, consider how many times we are meant to forgive our brother. Forgiveness here has not measure, for the Kingdom of Heaven is forgiveness. Therefore woe to you who does not forgive, because (as is often the argument that flows out of these positions), this will simply mean that this limiting of forgiveness will flow back on you.

All of this is wrapped up again in this “so then”. If this is who the Kingdom is for, “so then”, don’t stop one of these little ones (cause them to sin) from coming into the Kingdom. To accent this frame of reference, which is all pointing us towards the Cross, we get a story about a rich man coming to Jesus asking about what it means to follow Him into this Kingdom. Jesus once again flips his reference- if you would be perfect, well what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Don’t present the measure of the Law, present the measure of Christ and that will be given back to you. For, and here is the great proclamation that forms this entire passage as a collective force, “many who are first will be last (19:30), the last will be first, and the first last (20:16).

Who Then Can Be Saved?
There is a really curious dialogue that is worth puling out of the Rich Young Man story in 19:16-30. It says that the rich young man turned and went away “sorrowful” because he had great possessions and knew that he did not want to sell them. I imagine this sorrow coming not from a resolute position, but coming from the revealed tension that the two Kingdoms in contest raises. This causes Jesus to say, “only will difficultly will a rich person enter the Kingdom of heaven.” Matthew’s Gospel gives a great focus on the topic of money, but I think this can be expanded not just to riches, but to the measure of our desire, which is really what the temptation “narratives” in Genesis and in Jesus in the wilderness is all about. One exposes the desire of our heart, the other exposes the heart of God for the world. Which leads the disciples to say, well then who then can be save!?, which arrives with a sense of exasperation. Jesus’ response is to turn their focus back on God’s desire, saying that nothing is impossible with God (19:23-30). Jesus then raises up the 12, which Jesus has brought into His Kingdom work, as the “judge” of the 12 tribes of Israel. There is a lot of context that can be explored within this imagery, but what this ultimately expresses is this ongoing dynamic of God’s Kingdom beginning in Israel, with the disciples bringing the Gospel to the synagogues, and the placement of Jesus as the liberating work of God’s covenant with Israel. There is a connection that exists within the NT understanding, as it breathes life back into God’s indwelling and absence in the temple and life of Israel, between Israel’s stumbling, the Kingdom being built on the Gentiles (the least), and the fulfillment of God’s covenant promise with his people (Israel). This forms the sweeping nature of God’s Kingdom as it presents Jesus as the temple and us in Jesus (God’s dwelling among us).

In any case, the important idea of this judgment comes in how the disciples are raised up as workers, which we find in the parable of 20:1-16, and the Kingdom where the last shall be first and the first last. It is fitting that Israel is both the first and the last in this Kingdom paradigm as Jesus reorients our idea of power in weakness. In this way this judgement has a restorative work, which following the 3rd and final foretelling of the Cross and resurrection in 20:17-19 once again declares that “whoever will be great among you must be your servant 20:26.” The answer to their question is found at the Cross, the very image that we find foreshadowed in the Triumphal entry into Jerusalem (21). He comes in humility and weakness, riding on a donkey, the one who becomes the measure of the Law which is summed up as the “greatest” commandment, Love your neighbors and love God (22:37). You cannot have one without the other. This is what becomes embodied in the placement of John’s death where it is in the narrative, a move that allows it to foreshadow and point to Jesus’ death. What we see is John’s own suffering revealing Jesus’ liberating work in world, and as Herod mourns his death and falls back in on himself, Jesus mourns John’s death and it pushes him to heal and comfort in 3 subsequent narrative stories that underscore this entire repositioning of the Kingdom as for the least.

The Cross as Judgment and Liberation
So, as we recognize this paradigm in which Jerusalem comes both first and last in this Kingdom formation, this establishing of Jesus, we come to this grand collection of 7 woes or judgments directed to the scribes and pharisees, which leads Jesus towards a lament over Jerusalem. Here it is said that in the restorative work of the Cross, the house (the temple) is being left desolate, which alludes to the destruction of the temple (24:1-2), and will eventually be once again overtaken by the Kingdom of this world. All of this arrives as the “signs” of the end of the age, the abomination of desolation, the coming of the Son of Man to bring this new Kingdom to fruition. The image of the fig tree reemerges here as a sign that the season is now upon them, and that the Kingdom has now come. As it says, this generation will not pass away until all of this takes place, and then, when the kingdom is established, the parable of the ten virgins and the parable of the talents allude to the great reversal of power which calls them to not sleep, to work for the Kingdom (for the least) and to be ready. What the final judgement depicted here, in the heavily symbolic language of heaven or eternal fire, brings to the surface is the contest of these two Kingdoms being decided and declared through the Cross and the Resurrection of Jesus. And in the most poignant of expressions, raising to light the character of the Kingdom and the desire for the world that is declared in Jesus at the temptation narrative, Jesus proclamation of the “final judgment” in 25:31-46 asks the question, when did you feed the hungry, attend to the least and the marginalized, because when you did, you attended to me. As you did to the least of these, you did it to me.

All of this judgment is fixed within the raising up of Jesus’ disciples as the judge of Israel. This is whom these words are directed to, is the tradition of God’s people, the temple. As they find themselves caught between Jesus and the Kingdom of Rome, what we have are these images of both the temple and the Kingdom of Rome coming to destruction. The necessary question that emerges from this then becomes, how is this going to happen, and to what end is this moving as Jesus is being established as the new temple and building God’s Kingdom. The answer to this is what we find at the Cross itself.

The repositioning of power that we find Matthew building through the raising up of Herod as the contest of the Kingdoms in the earlier chapters, the the representing of John as power coming in weakness, now positions us into this picture of Pilate and Jesus. The two Kingdoms have now come to a head. What is important to note about Matthew’s Gospel, is that the familiar picture of Isaiah’s Servant in Matthew’s portrayal of Jesus’ death actually kind of fades away. Instead, the Righteous Sufferer of the Psalms emerges. Matthew’s appeal to Isaiah 53 in 8:17, his most definitive dealing of the suffering servant, is actually associated with Christ’s healing work, not his death. It is restorative in is suffering. Matthew underscores most prominently the larger image for Jesus’ death as set within the “righteous sufferer”. Isaiah 40-55 is what actually provides Matthew with the framework for the new Exodus, not the death. What is read into the death is Psalm 69-71, which coincides with the idea in Hebrews of Christ being made perfect “in suffering”, which is what establishes the new Kingdom over and against the powers of the world. The righteous sufferer is actually what frames our understanding of the Cross as both the judgement of the powers and the reforming of the powers. It is framed around one who is “cast out”, which is also how we come to the scapegoat imagery of Yom Kippur, who carries the load of our sin out into the wilderness (those who had been cast out by the religious leaders and institution), and who’s blood becomes the blood that saves the oppressed in the Exodus story on the doorstep.

What is really interesting about working through the Cross by way of the Psalm and by way of the scapegoat imagery is that the sin that God forgives (the sin which the the religious leaders have used to cast out people) is paired with the Sin that holds the world in bondage, forming into this larger language of judgment that positions the religious leaders (in whom the tradition of Yom Kippur would have held value) alongside the Kingdom of Rome. The force of the two goats of Yom Kippur can be seen seen in one of two ways- Jesus emboddies both, or Jesus and Barnabas represent the two goats. In either case, the image that the Cross evokes, when set within Matthew’s desire to present a new Pentateuch, is one in which the sins are being carried away, but also the power of Sin is being defeated. This is what would not have been represented in the usual sacrifice for sin. And all of this in Jewish/Israelite tradition has to do with the presence and dwelling of God in their midst. What is necessary though about Yom Kippur and its context, is that the death of the goat and the sending of the scapegoat into the wilderness are two different things. One sends the sin away, the other sends a message of liberation to the oppressed..

It can’t be missed as well the relevance of the Cross taking place at passover. This is where it emerges as the New Exodus, and this is where Jesus’ blood arrives in the way that it did for the Israelites. And so as we walk through the passion narrative- the plot to kill Jesus, Jesus annointed at Bethany in a way that becomes the expression of the Cross’ reveersal of power, the passover meal, the prayer in gethsemane as a prayer for the work of the Cross to made true for the world, the betrayal and arrest, Jesus set on trial and delivered to Pilate, Jesus before Pilate, the choosing of Barnabas (perhaps as the scapeboat imagery), Jesus then mocked, beaten, crucified, died and buried, the story of Genesis, Exodus, the giving of the Law, the building of the temple, all of this is supposed to come alive in the story of the righteous sufferer.

The necessary focus becomes the understanding of the role of the two goats as that which centers our understanding of what the death on the Cross is doing. It seems to me that this is the part that becomes so misunderstood. If we follow Matthew’s Gospel, he has set up Jesus as a retelling of the Genesis-Exodus narrative (fleeing to Egypt, coming out of Egypt, coming through the water, going into the wilderness, and then establishing life in the promised land (the new Kingdom of his ministry). This reaches forward to the Law being given to Moses in the transfiguration, and Jesus’ resurrection being the building of the temple.

In this sense, what happens with Jesus is He is bearing the weight of sin that has outcast those from the temple, and taking it away from them so that the presence of God can dwell among them freely (they can be invited into the Kingdom). This fits with the imagery of the suffering that leads to the Cross, which is what happens with the scapegoat symbolically before being let go into the wilderness. The death though falls in line with the painting of the door frames, which is a story of liberation, of the Powers (of Egypt) being subverted, and the power of God being made known in the liberation of the oppressed. The difference now though is that the Kingdom has come.

So many conflate the two and miss the force of this story arc, arriving at a retributive God who demands death because of sins. That misses so much of the story itself, which in context of the traditional context functions as both a removal of sins (the righteous suffering of Jesus’ ministry) and a restorative work (the death) which is what subverts the power (of Rome).

And what is so interesting about the way this plays out in the Gospel of Matthew is that it all seems to be in service of Jerusalem, the people of God, the Jewish people/Israelites. They are once again the first and last to emerge in this picture of the powers being subverted, the subject of the judgment that this subverting of power creates. It takes us back to that journey of the Israelites in the wilderness, and what seems to stand on a precarious and unsettled line in this story is this picture of God’s Kingdom being built inspite, and in light of their stumbling and rejection. But what comes after the Cross and Resurrection proclaim the Kingdom here in the not yet reality of their current oppression (under the Kingdom of Rome), is that the wilderness is something we still have to trudge through. the Resurrection moves us back to the way to the Cross as the way this Kingdom is being established. The story is not finished. Jerusalem has been judged, and now it is being rebuilt. To me this leaves so much room for that tension that the Gospel holds of this ultimately being hopeful for Israel itself, of the salvation of the Gentiles breathing God’s liberating force back into Israelites story and history. In rewriting the story (or revealing it for what it is declared to be in Jesus), this question, who then can be saved, comes back to their own story. With God all things are possible become the refrain.

And as we come to the end of this Gospel, we find Jesus once again on the mountain, where they saw him and they worshiped him. And yet some doubted. What an extraordinary picture of this not-yet reality. The Kingdom is here, and yet it arrives in the same doubts that John the Baptist had. The answer comes in the same fashion as it did to John though. If you are doubting, look to the healing work of Jesus, and let that push you to “go make disciples of all nations, baptizing and teaching them to obey.” And as we do so, we do so knowing that He (Jesus, the incarnate presence of God) is with us always, to the end of the age.

How do you recognize false prophets? Sheeps clothing but fruits reveal… tree with bad fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire… many who say “Lord Lord” will enter the kingdom, but Jesus will say “depart from me, I never knew you” (7:21-23)… the relationship between hearers and doers- house on a rock (7:24) or house on the sand (7:26)… fruits and trees from chapter 3
– all of these teachings astonished the crowds, because he was teaching “as one who had authority” 7:29

“Whenever religion becomes a depressing affair of burdens and prohibitions, it ceases to be true religion.”
― William Barclay (The Gospel of Matthew)

While the author of the Gospel of Matthew remains anonymous, tradition has long positioned it to be the words of Matthew, one of the Disciples of Christ and an Apostle (also known as Levi).

What is clear from the Gospel’s biting and often scathing critique of the religious leaders, those caught between competing visions of the Kingdom of Jesus and the Kingdom of Rome, is that the author, whom is clearly writing his Gospel in light of the Jewish tradition and Israelite story (see my previous reflections) has had some sort of a transformative experience regarding how he sees his own Jewish heritage. What we find are the words of someone who has been set on the margins of this tradition, and someone who is desperate to present a Gospel that echo the words of Jesus in his own life, words that say that he belongs, that he is a child of God. This is the force of the Genealogy, his decisions to set Jesus’ story in line with what appears as a new “Pentateuch, and it is the entire force of the Kingdom vision he is trying to point.

In Chapter 9, we find the “call” of Matthew to come follow Jesus. If this is in fact the author, what we have are more of the particulars of his context. He is said to be a tax collector (9:9), a Jewish man who was collaborating with the Romans. Someone who was towing the middle line, which might be why the author of Matthew is so attentive to painting a picture of Jewish leaders and a Jewish tradition caught between these two pictures of the Kingdom.

As the story goes, we find Jesus reclining at a table with other “tax collectors and sinners” (9:11), and inviting Matthew to “follow him”. This invites a distinctive for the Pharisees between a teacher of the Law and a teacher like Jesus. They ask his disciples, why is your teacher eating with these kinds of people. Which arrives with a bit of irony, because in the call of Simon, Andrew, James and John we find the context of humble fishermen whom were likely to have said “why me” as well. Overhearing the question, Jesus says in response, “those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick” do. And then he goes on to make the distinction, “I desire mercy, and not sacrifice”, contrasting the word of the Law with Jesus’ ministry. “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”

What is interesting to consider about these words is that the call of Jesus is consistently followed by them teaching in “their synagogues and proclaiming the Gospel of the kingdom.” In the sending of the 12 Disciples in Chapter 10, we find the workers sent to the house of Israel (10:6), declaring the kingdom (10:7). The message of Matthew’s Gospel, the one that declares a Gospel for the oppressed, the outsiders and the sinners, begins with the house of Israel in order to reestablish the temple as God’s dwelling place. In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus is being raised up as the new temple, the one in whom all of us reside, the new Kingdom, and thus declaring this new temple being built is part of this new Pentateuch that Matthew is drawing out, one in which the death and resurrection declare Jesus as the new temple in the center of this new Kingdom. This, Matthew insists, is what God is up to and has been up to all along, making a Kingdom for the least, the oppressed, a Kingdom that brings with it a true message of liberation for all the nations and all the people of the world as it states in the Abrahamic covenant.

Up The Mountain
Unlike in Luke where Jesus is positioned on a level (equal) place, where Matthew has Jesus is ascending up a mountain in order to now declare the vision of this Kingdom in what we know as the Beatitudes (5:2-12). This elevated place is a continued repositioning of power from the rulers to the lowly, which arrives with a clear picture of who the Kingdom of God is raising up in power- the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, the hungry and thirsty, merciful, pure in heart, the peacemakers, the persecuted, and the reviled.

This elevated position then becomes the image that is passed on to the workers Jesus is calling (his disciples). They are called to be a light to the world set on a hill so God can do a good works 5:14)). You, Jesus declares, are the “salt of the earth (5:13), and these “good works” (the works of Jesus, which is the power given to the disciples when they are called in chapter 10) are to be seen so that God can be seen in our good works (5:16).

And yet there is a distinction between the works of Jesus and the works of the Law. “Do not think that I came to abolish the Law of the Prophets” Jesus says. I have come to fulfill them (5:17).” This leads him to once again express a bit of irony in terms of these competing visions of the Kingdom that Matthew is trying to establish. Just as he tells them to let their works be displayed on the hill, we then get a series of challenges in chapter 6 that caution against “practicing their righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them (6:1).” This includes a call to given in secret (6:1-4), pray in secret (6:5-15), and fasting in secret, all of which correspond to gaining the heavenly riches as opposed to the external praises of people.

So what is this distinction about? At the beginning of the section we gewt this sentence that says, “unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and pharisees, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven (5:20)”, for whoever relaxes even the least of these commandments (and teaches others to do the same) will be called least in the Kingdom of Heaven, and whoever dose them will be called great (5:19). Which all feels slightly convoluted and contradictory given how Matthew has been setting up his Gospel as a Gospel not for the righteous, but for the least. This is followed up with examples of anger (5:21-26), to emphasize this point (you will never get out of the prison until you have paid the last penny, fulfilled the Law perfectly), and then he does the same thing with Lust, Divorce, Oaths, Retaliation, and all matters of the Law.

But then he ends with love (5:43-48), which he has established as the “greatest” commandment. And not just love, but the hardest form of love (the call to love their enemies). In this, Jesus says, “you must be perfect, as your heavenly father is perfect.” Notice the shift here from exceeding even the perfection of the Pharisees under manner of the Law to the call to be perfect “as” your heavenly father is perfect. The difference is this phrase “in love”. The difference between mercy and sacrifice, is that Jesus, God’s chosen servant has come to declare God’s love to the world on that mountain in the work of the Cross. This is not to elevate the Law, but it is, as Paul often says, so that the Law can point to Jesus as the measure of our perfection, the one we are then called to follow and imitate in the work He called us to do, which is to enter into the suffering of others, eat with the tax collectors, reside with sinners, forgive our enemies. We cannot underscore just how radical this would have been for someone like the author of Matthew.

Down the Mountain
And so, as we now find Jesus coming down the mountain (8:1), we see him entering into this work, healing the sick and the broken, liberating the oppressed, with all of this work arriving as a visible sign of the light for the world in declaring the forgiveness of sins, the loving of the enemy. The forgiveness of sins is to that they can know the Son of Man has authority (9:6), the same authority that is then given to his workers.

This is the faith that Jesus continues to uphold in the work of these healings, faith that is found and upheld in the faith of the Centurion (8:8), the healing stories throughout chapter 9 (9:20; 9:29), the faith of those bringing in the paralytic (which coincides with the declaration “your sins are forgiven” 9:1-17)

Jesus upholds the faith of the Centurion saying “with no one in Israelhave I found such faith (8:10).” Contrast this with the disciples of little faith Jesus finds in the boat and in the storm (8:26). And I think it is here where we get Matthew’s point. Jesus continues saying, “Many will come from east and west and recline at the table witih Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven, while the sons of the Kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness…. so go, let it be done for you as you have believed, and the servant was healed at that very moment (8:11-13).” This is in line with the parables (such as the wedding feast) which we find later on. Matthew once again positions Jesus as establishing His Kingdom in Jerusalem “for the world”. This is why he heals a leper and sends him to the religious leaders to offer proof according to the law (8:4). Whereas the religious leaders stand above their disciples, Jesus now declares in 10:24-25 a different picture. “A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant not above his master.” This is their reality. But in Christ, it is enough to be like the teacher and like the master.

What is curious here is that Jesus then adds this. “If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household (10:25).” This of course brings us back to the accusation that in Jesus’ healings and forgiveness of sins, the religious leaders called Jesus the devil. Notice how Jesus spins this into his establishing of authority over the house, and consider the setting (the house of Israel). This blends in Jesus’ words with Him as the new temple for the world. The house of Israel (the temple) becomes a picture of the whole order being God’s temple, which for someone like Matthew would have been recognized in the imagery of Genesis (the whole cosmos is God’s throne room, God’s temple) and the language of the prophets (God sits above the waters of the sky on his throne looking down on us and with the earth as his footstool). The Jewish narrative had to do with God’s presence no longer dwelling in the temple. What Jesus is establishing is not only God’s presence in the temple, but he is reestablishing God’s presence with them in the whole of the world, the world that the religious leaders were rejecting in the hope of their salvation. It is for this reason that it can be said then to “have no fear (of those calling them Satan)”, for it is enough to be “like” Jesus who himself was called Satan. For “nothing is covered that will not be revealed, and nothing hidden that will not be made known.” And what is it to be like Jesus? This brings us back to this up the mountain, down the mountain movement. Jesus is raising up the weak as the powerful (on the mountain) by eating with sinners and tax collectors, healing the sick and the oppressed and the marginalized (coming down the mountain). This is why he ends his walk through the measure of the Law with love. Love is what we find at the Cross, the Way in which they are following Jesus and called to be like Jesus. What Jesus demonstrates on the Cross, the weak being made powerful, the suffering being made strength, is theirs to give to the world. So don’t be like the Jewish religious or the gentiles who want their works to be seen as the measure of their salvation, be like Jesus, whose work is in the business of pointing people to His liberating work on the Cross (6:7). This is the light for the world. Pray so that others may be lifted up. Give so that others may be lifted up. Forgive so that Jesus may forgive. This is the measure of love as the fulfillment of the Law. This is the same hope that Jesus offers John the Baptist as he is languishing in prison. It is enough to be like me (suffering, being called an enemy), because in this the sick are healed, the blind see, the oppressed are freed, the marginalized find acceptance. This becomes the measure of John’s faith, this becomes the measure of the disciples faith, and it must become ours.

As I reflected on in my last post, the writer of Matthew’s Gospel is intently interested in matters of the “Kingdom”. In Herod and Jesus we find a picture of two competing Kingdoms with two different types of Kings. with Matthew playing with these perceptions of power and weakness. The power that we find in Herod’s Kingdom is revealed to be driven by fear, while the weakness we find in Jesus (and John the Baptist, whom Mathew uses to speak to the nature of Jesus’ establishing Kingdom in weakness) is revealed as power.

It is from this repositioning of power that Matthew narrows in on the Temple and the religious leaders (Sadducees and Pharisees), criticizing the way in which their power (as religious leaders) has come at the expense of those who are deemed weak and lowly. This would include the author’s own story as someone who found himself on the margins and oppressed by the religious leaders of his day. As the Kingdom of Jesus is being established in their midst, it begins in Jerusalem, and the concern of the author becomes no more clear than in John’s initial description of the Jewish religious leaders in Jerusalem as a “brood of vipers”.

Brood of Vipers: Fields, Barns, Fruit and Fire
This language, brood of vipers, arrives in the tradition and imagery of the Garden narrative, where a “creature” becomes the personification of evil (death, sin, satan, the evil one). The viper was considered a dangerous creature, and attached to the religious leaders, stands resistant to the ways of the Kingdom that is being established. They are reactionary, and strike in fear, injecting their venom in order to protect themselves.

Now, this is definitely strong language, but there are a couple key, important points to note with about the nature of this viper imagery:
1. Brood is a collective term. It indicates an institutionalized problem. By no means though should we be considering the whole of these religious leaders as bad. They tend to get a bad rep because of the way they were singled out, but for the most part these were well meaning people who thought they were doing the right thing and on the side of God’s law. As becomes clear in Matthew, it is often fear, especially of those who found themselves caught between Jesus and the Roman rule (upsetting the balance meant that the freedoms that they did have could be taken away), that can be most destructive.

2. Second, Matthew is using the imagery of the viper to evoke a bigger picture. “Who told you to flee from the wrath that is to come” is a question that the author (through John) has positioned within the image of a farmers field at harvest. Once the wheat has been stored in the barn, they then set the fields on fire, causing whatever was in those fields to flee. The picture of all these snakes fleeing the fields would have been recognizable to his audience.

Likewise, this picture of the fields, the fire, and the barn is echoed in further imagery of the fruit and the trees that we find working its way (like a thread) through Matthew’s Gospel, beginning with John’s word in 3:9-10. “Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”

All of this imagery has to do with Jesus’ Kingdom first being established in Jerusalem, and the judgement of Jerusalem. The mention of Abraham brings us back to the genealogy, and the picture of the ax is one that is directed at Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple, with Matthew’s genealogical line re-configuring the picture of who belongs and who doesn’t belong as the covenant people. Who warned you to flee is used in a satirical fashion by John to indicate these leaders coming from Jerusalem, the very place that is being deconstructed (set on fire). Clearly this is not why they are there, but this is why John says, “don’t presume” your position in the Kingdom, for even now the fruitless trees (the religious leaders) are being cut down and thrown into the fire. Rather, “repent, for the kingdom is at hand”, the same words Jesus uses following John’s imprisonment (4:17; 4:2). Repent is a a turning towards, a looking in a different direction than one is currently. It evokes a repositioning. What is interesting about the way these words are used for the religious leaders is that they are being asked to turn and look in the direction of the Kingdom that is being established by Jesus, which is in Jerusalem, the direction they have in-fact come from.

A Kingdom Built, a Kingdom Divided
To further unpack the nature of this Viper language, turning to Chapter 12 and 13 can be helpful. In Chapter 12, we find this gradual progression, beginning with the “work” of the disciples (gathering wheat from the field on the Sabbath 12:1-8)) and moving to the work of Jesus (healing on the Sabbath 12:9-14). This leads to the Pharisees condemnation (12:2) and their conspiring on how to destroy him (12:14). This then also leads to Matthew setting up Jesus in light of Isaiah’s prophecy, which declares God’s chosen servant as the one who will “proclaim justice to the Gentiles”, and this servant will not resist or lift a hand until he “brings justice to victory”. In his (the servants name) the the Gentiles will hope (12:15-21).

If this is how God’s servant (Jesus) is going to bring about the Kingdom, against their resistance and not by the power of Herod’s kingdom but by the power found in his willing weakness, the question that then follows is “how will this kingdom stand (12:26).” Here we find a picture of these contrasting Kingdoms once again, with the religious leaders calling Jesus the devil (the brood of vipers calling Jesus the viper), and Jesus being declared as the chosen servant of God. Here, knowing their thoughts, Jesus uses these contrasting images (of the devil and the chosen servant) to a paint a picture of a Kingdom divided against itself and a Kingdom undivided. “Every kingdom divided against itself is laid to waste (12:25)” Jesus says, evoking once again the imagery of the fruit and the trees, the fire and the field. “Satan cannot cast out Satan”, because that would represent a conundrum, a contradiction, a division of reasoning and motivation. This brings the focus back on them labeling Jesus “Satan”. Jesus now turns it back on the religious leaders. “If I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons (presumably their followers) cast them out (12:27)?” Let them be “your” judges about (their) Kingdom, Jesus says. “But”, Jesus pushes further, if it is “by the Spirit of God that “I” cast out demons, then you will know that the Kingdom of God has come “upon” you. Therefore, “whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me “scatters”, once again forming a distinction between the Kingdoms (the Son of Man and the Spirit).

Here, then, is the picture of the vipers fleeing the fire. “You brood of vipers” Jesus conjures up again in 12:34, either make the tree good and its fruit good or make the tree bad and its fruit bad, for “the tree”, Jesus posits, is known by its fruits. The positioning of this picture within this good and evil dichotomy is one that Jesus sets as a demonstration of “the heart” which is revealed by their words (with their words justifying them or condemning them on the coming day “of judgment”). The sign of this judgment is the Cross (the sign of Jonah 38:42), then picturing the rising up of the gentiles that God’s servant came to bring justice to as the judgement of the religious leaders (Israel/Jews). As he goes on to say in 12:49, the world is Jesus’ family.

According to Jesus they will turn (that ironic image of repent) back to Jerusalem only to find a house (a temple) being reoccupied by “unclean spirits” and once again making their dwelling that of evil (the viper as the image of evil). Which leads us to Chapter 13 and the parable of the sower (13:1-9) and the weeds (13:24-30), two parables that will set us up to encounter the death of John and the movement towards the Cross and Jesus’ death. After establishing the purpose of the parables as to give the secrets (the mystery) of the Kingdom to some (the disciples) so that the others (Jerusalem, the religious leaders) may not turn (13:10-17), Jesus explains the parable of the sower like this:
– Those who hear but don’t understand are snatched up by the evil one
– Those who hear and respond with joy but don’t have a good foundation fall away
– those who hear but the desires of the world (power, cares and riches) are choked so that it can’t bear fruit
– Those who hear and understand are those who bear fruit

And then explains the parable of the weeds like this:
– The good seed is sowed by Jesus
– The world is the field
– The good seed is the sons of the kingdom
– The weeds are the sons of the evil one
– The sower of the bad seeds is the devil
– The reapers are the angels
– The harvest is the close of the age.

In the context of the sower and the weeds, “The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, and they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth”, while for those who hear and understand, “then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.” Therefore, Matthew says, “Let both of them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.”

These two parables are then blanketed by three smaller parables intended to explain what the Kingdom Jesus is building will be like:
1. A treasure that one finds hidden in the field (the mystery of the parables revealed) and selling all in order to buy up
2. Searching for and finding a fine pearl and selling all in order to buy
3. Like a net catching up fish of every kind, and sorting those fish into good and bad containers.

All of these parables are positioned once again, as we move in 13:51, into this picture of competing Kingdoms and the focus on the religious leaders and their tradition. The idea of new and old treasures implies that Jesus is establishing a new kingdom among the old, with the final “Kingdom of heaven is like” image pointing this in a definitive fashion towards Jerusalem, the temple, and the religious leaders/tradition. A scribe trained up for the kingdom of heaven (Jesus’ disciples) will be like the master of a house (the temple, which Jesus earlier imagined being emptied and sorted 12:45) and brings out his treasure (Jesus as the new temple) what is new and what is old (the Gentiles and the Jews, the lowly and the rich/elite). As Jesus describes in 13:31-33, the Kingdom will be like a mustard seed and leaven, which although seemingly small and insignificant, will spread into the whole world. And yet, in another great play of irony, “a prophet is not without honor except in his hometown (Jerusalem) and in his own household (the temple and the Jewish tradition).”

Using this “brood of vipers” language. Matthew recognizes that Jesus arises from the prophetic tradition that has both defined and rejected the author. What these pictures of the two competing Kingdoms brings to light is that while the Kingdoms of the world come at the expense of justice and at the expense of the oppressed, the marginalized and the week, God’s Kingdom is being built in power, but power that comes through weakness. As they awaited the return of God’s presence to the temple, this tradition finds itself caught between these two competing visions of the Kingdom, that of Jesus and that of Rome, that of their tradition and that of Jesus. It is for this reason that we continually find Jesus “teaching in their synagogue proclaiming the Gospel of the Kingdom”, and providing parables that they don’t understand, and giving images that distinguish between the Kingdom of men and the Kingdom of God being established in Jerusalem and in the temple.

This is going to be the Way of Jesus, is towards the Cross, and in the seeming weakness of the Cross will come power, power “for” the sake of the weak, the marginalized, the oppressed. This, as we will see later in chapter 21, is what will come to the forefront as we approach the Cross. At last entering Jerusalem, cleansing the temple (calling back to this picture of it being emptied and reordered), and once again conjuring up that picture of that fig tree and the lack of fruit as a matter of “justice” coming to the lowly, this definitive picture of Jesus restoring Jerusalem and the temple “in faith”. The same faith, as he says, the disciples (the lowly) have in them, to meet out justice and injustice and “move mountains for the sake of the Kingdom come, a Kingdom in which the tax collectors and the prostitutes will enter first (21:31).

This is a Kingdom that is like a grand wedding feast (22:1-14) where those who were invited (the Jews, the religious leaders) “were not ready” and “were not worthy”, and thus Jesus was sent (and sent his disciples) to go and invite others, as many as they could find both good and bad, only to be sorted according to many being called and few chosen. What is shocking about this is the chosen part, as this distinction between “good” and “bad” does not come by way of the Jewish religious leaders (according to the Law) but by way of the Cross for the lowly, the marginalized, the sick, the oppressed. What defines the good are those in bondage who find liberation in the Kingdom of God. A kingdom built on the greatest commandment, Love God and love others as yourself, a love undivided, interconnected, and wholly imagined in the Kingdom that Jesus is establishing on the Cross.

A few final words on this whole picture of the competing Kingdoms. First, when we hear of the end of the age in Matthew, what lies ahead, right in front of us is the Cross. This is the arrival of the new age. This is the judgment. And yet, what the Cross is ultimately a judgement of is the Kingdom that is being established. It is defining, over and against the Kingdom of the world, or in a way redefining for the religious leaders who stood in the long tradition of their people who failed to hear, a Kingdom for the least, a Kingdom that gives power in weakness, a Kingdom that gives love where there is hate, a Kingdom the gives justice (freedom) to the injustice. A Kingdom that is making what is wrong right. This is where we need to locate the hard words in Matthew. And as the Cross establishes this in light of Jesus, God’s called servant to bring justice to the gentiles, this Kingdom is then looking to reach back into the life of Israel and the Jews, deconstructing the temple and rebuilding it, and recasting it in Matthew’s Genealogical interest. In a sense, as I said in part 1, he is reimagining the story of the Pentateuch in the light of Jesus and the Cross, God’s full revealing of His Kingdom work, the same work He has been up to all along.

With this in mind, I am inclined to see all of these words as hopeful. Certainly if we were to read them as the oppressed would, through the eyes of someone like Matthew, these words arrive as hopeful words. Striking words in their repositioning of power in weakness (and weakness in power), but hopeful because of what the Kingdom is said to be doing and building in their midst. But I also feel like there is a thread of hope that finds its way through these words of judgment for Israel and the Jews. The heart of Jesus for Israel is clear. He weeps for them. And the trajectory is also clear- the Cross will condemn them in its repositioning of power in the Kingdom come. And yet all of this language, which is apocalyptic language (revealing language of what the Cross is doing in the temple, in Jerusalem, in the Jewish/Israelite story), becomes actualized in the Cross, and further perpetuated in the eventual (full destruction) of the temple that will happen soon after this. When set in the larger picture of God’s story, and certainly in the words of the Apostle Paul (see Romans), what we find in these words is a judgement, but than also something forming out of that, which is where I think we can find a picture of God’s restorative work “in” Israel, in the Jewish world and tradition. As Paul says, were they a stumbling block for no reason? No. They were a stumbling block so that this Kingdom could be established for the Gentiles. Does that mean that they have lost hope for their place as God’s covenant people? No. In this way, Paul says, all Israel will be saved. So don’t think all of this judgment (the fire, the deconstructing), just as they rejected the prophets of old, will be the last word. God is at work, and He is still at work repositioning power within His Kingdom, bringing justice and liberation to the world. Most of all, as becomes clear in Matthew’s Gospel, the greater truth is that on the Cross Christ defeated the Powers of Sin and Death that hold this world bondage, that given way for sin to oppress and ignore the widows and the orphans.

The imagination of this Kingdom is a reality, Matthew says, both one that has arrived and one that is still coming. It is for that reason that we can have hope.

In my previous reflection, I talked about how the author of Matthew establishes his Gospel in line with the Genesis-Exodus story. He does this to raise up Jesus as the New Exodus, not only in a retelling of the Exodus story, but a re-imagining of the story in light of Christ ushering in the new, promised Kingdom.

Matthew continues to paint for us this new Kingdom picture with the way he places of the stories of John the Baptist and Herod alongside Jesus’ ministry, first in chapter 2-4, and later in chapter 11-14.

In chapter 2, Herod is positioned as the one who is behind this movement that takes Jesus to Egypt and eventually out of Egypt. In Chapter 2, we see him devising a plan regarding the Christ child with the magi, eventually massacring the children when things don’t go his way, and then finally his death.

What becomes immediately obvious in chapter 2 is that Matthew is presenting both Jesus and Herod as Kings with contrasting pictures of power. One comes from a humble birth, the other comes from the assumed power of being given position under Roman rule as a “vassal” King (read: puppet). In his article called Power and Authority in Matthew’s Gospel, FP Viljoen talks about how the story of the magi underscores this reality. After establishing Jesus as born “in the time of Herod”, and locating Jesus in the way of the Prophets words, which state “And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who is to shepherd^[d] my people Israel (2:6), we move from royalty and power (Herod) to the least among the rulers of Judah and the picture of a shepherd. This movement comes by way of the Magi, who come from the east to Jerusalem wondering “where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him'” (Matt. 2:1-2). Viljoen notes that the east is indicative of Parthia, Rome’s enemy. In this way, the Magi do not recognize the authority of Herod and place their search for Jesus above Herod’s Kingship.

Viljoen also notes the reaction of Jerusalem when Herod recognizes this threat to his Kingship. “When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him” (Matt. 2:3). This is something that is going to emerge for Matthew following Herod’s death as he narrows in on the Sadducees and the Pharisees in the fear they had of Jesus disrupting the Roman rule and leaving them in even more danger as a people.  

Fast forward to Chapter 14 and this picture of Herod, now a different Herod (the “ruler” 14:1), becomes even more interesting in terms of this question of power. Whereas chapter 2 eventually leads to John’s imprisonment and the start of Jesus’ ministry, here we find John in prison facing his death. Herod is once again represented as powerful and John appears in the position of the week. Only, the way Matthew writes this passage in chapter 14, it becomes immediately clear that what appears as a position of power in Herod is actually a position of fear and uncertainty based on John’s words (14:4), the crowd (14:5), and his own brother (14:3). He is far from in control of anything in this story, and John’s death arrives in his “grieving” (14:9), a picture that is immediately contrasted by Jesus moving to a “desolate place” (to grieve) only to be disrupted by the power of His Kingdom work (the crowds).

Contrast this then with Jesus’ words about John in Matthew 11 as John was languishing in prison and wondering whether Jesus was in fact the true King of the Jews. The message that Jesus sends to John is “the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them (11:5).” This is how John is to know that in his weakness, in the lowly place, comes power. In Jesus’ death, this same liberating picture applies to the work of the Cross. Speaking to the crowd about John’s lowly position, Jesus declares “Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist (11:11)”, and yet, “the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.”

This repositioning of power is now fueled into this proclamation, “From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force. For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John came; and if you are willing to accept it, he (John) is Elijah who is to come. Let anyone with ears listen!” (11:12-15) If they are willing to accept that power comes not by way of violence, force and might, but from the lowly places, from the places of suffering, they will then see who John is, and thus who Jesus is and the Kingdom He is building. Although John stands in chains and in bondage, he is considered within the liberating picture of Christs work.

And then we come to Jesus and Pilate by way of this triumphal entry into Jerusalem, this movement into Jerusalem by way of a humble donkey. Jesus, stripped of power and now presented in front of the seeming powerful Kingdom of Rome. Jesus’ eventual declaration of power through the Cross (which comes by way of this proclamation of natural (supernatural) forces) is contrasted, just as Herod’s power was, by Pilate being revealed as powerless in front of the people he feared.

Two Kingdoms in contest, one in the way of Rome, the other in the way of Jesus. As Matthew moves forward in His Gospel, He is going to show how it is Jesus’ Kingdom that is being established in power, just not the kind of power they expected.

Here is the article on Power and Authority. It is worth a read.
http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1015-87582011000200010

In part one I talked about how the Genealogy sets up Matthews larger concern for establishing Jesus and the new Kingdom as a Kingdom for the least, the oppressed and the marginalized, which is where he understands Jesus found him. The way he weaves the line is unconventional to say the least, and yet also set firmly within the writers own Jewish tradition.

Moving into the birth narrative, we can begin to see how Matthew uses this to now establish Jesus as the New Exodus and establish the religious leaders (the Saduccees and the Pharisees) as a picture of Israel’s long held resistance to the Prophets message of liberation for those on the margins. We even see this in how he emphasizes the magi (pagans) as coming in to this line in the birth narrative.

The Birth Narrative
Emerging from the genealogy, Matthew explains that there are 14 generations in all (1:17), a number that symbolizes the name of David which lies at the center of his genealogy (Abraham-David, David-Babylon, Babylon-Christ), and 3 sets of 14 names which reflects 6 weeks (symbolic of 6 days), which now leads us into the Sabbath week (Jesus).

So with this grand vision in place, we can understand the words to Joseph as redemptive in nature. “Do not fear” the angel says regarding Mary’s pregnancy (1:20), for “he will save his people from their sins” (1:21). This then leads to Jesus’ birth and the establishing of John’s ministry, where the baptism of John’s call to repentance, a word that evokes a turning of direction or turning to face a different direction (which is paired with the idea of the straight paths John came to turn people towards), comes with confession of their “sins” (3:6) and comes because the Kingdom is at hand, the Kingdom being established in this Sabbath week.

Jesus’ birth and John’s ministry then sets up Jesus as the picture of the New Exodus.

Jesus and John: Baptism and The New Exodus
Just as John baptized the Jewish people in water for repentance, he now baptizes Jesus (3:13-17) as the establishment of the promised Kingdom. This is said to be fitting “so as to fulfill all righteousness”, and it is here that we hear Jesus declared to be God’s beloved son, being brought through water (the Exodus story) to a new exodus (the wilderness and the temptation narrative).

This word righteousness is one that will reoccur in Matthew’s Gospel over and over again. It is a word that evokes a recognizable Jewish context, a word that shares a root word with justification or justice. It is tightly connected to the idea of a Israel’s hope for a restored Kingdom, God once again taking up residence in their temple. It is communal in nature. Here is a great link to understand the connection between the two words and why it is important.
https://kgsvr.net/xn/tsedeq.html

The use of this word “righteousness” carries with it this grand vision of the New Exodus, an establishing of the promised Kingdom through the promised Messiah raised up from the Prophetic tradition. And all throughout Matthew’s Gospel we find this sort of fulfillment structure (“and this took place to fulfill the prophets” 1:22) repeated over and over and over again. Everything that happens in Matthew is interpreted through a particular (and very intentional) OT passage as a “fulfillment”. And when I say everything, Matthew goes out of his way to do this. In the early chapters alone we see it in 2:6; 2:15; 2:17; 2:23; 3:3; 4:4, 4:6; 4:7; 4:10, and it just keeps going. Take a tally next time you read through it, it’s astounding the number of times this appears.

In Jesus’ baptism we not only find the image of this promised Kingdom, we find the Spirit (again, language the Jewish tradition and experience would have understood) descending on him and the Spirit sending him into the wilderness for 40 Days, 40 Nights. Given how Matthew imagines Jesus as one who fled to Egypt (fleeing the wrath of Herod) and now comes out of Egypt through the waters and into the wilderness in a direct callback to the Exodus story. I get excited every time I read this, because to me this interconnected image arrives with so much wonderful and liberating drama. What is important to recognize though as readers is how this connects directly to the Israelite story and the image of the Kingdom. The entire temptation story revolves around this competing image of the Kingdoms of the world and the new Kingdom that Jesus is bringing and establishing (4:8). So often we relegate this story to be in line with our interpretation of the garden story in Genesis, where we see the temptation as sin and Jesus’ resisting of this temptation as his righteousness proved and declared in his not giving into temptation. There is certainly overlap between what is happening in this story and the idea of sin, but this is not the full emphasis of this story. If you follow the opening narrative in Matthew, we have already moved from the garden narrative and are now in the exodus story. And what the exodus story is about is about establishing a new Kingdom over against their slavery, their oppression. It is a story of liberation.

The Temptation Narrative and The Exodus Story
In Jewish tradition, the Exodus is what they reenact and relive in memory of the grander story of God’s liberating work in their lives, and to push them towards the promise of a new future, a new Kingdom. Jesus arrives not only as a reenactment, but it’s fulfillment. This is the point of Matthew’s Gospel. The story of Genesis and Exodus are recognized as “temple” texts in scholarship and Jewish tradition, texts that revolve around the establishment of God’s Kingdom and the story of God’s dwelling among them. What the Jewish history understood was that God’s presence had left the Temple and their longing was for God’s presence to return and take up residence. This is what Jesus is going to become in the image of the temple being destroyed and rebuilt. Jesus is the new Kingdom and, in the important prophetic words of Jeremiah, God’s presence is written on the hearts and minds of the people.

This is the context of this image of the tempter (4:3), who is called the devil (the one whom we find in the garden narrative 4:10). the tempter (4:3) is the devil (4:10), bringing us back to the garden. If one understands the force of Paul’s own Jewish language, in which sin came into the world through “one” man (Adam), and death through sin (Romans 5:12), we can see him recognizing this as a systemic problem, a collective issue as it moves from person to person leaving nothing unturned (in the whole of creation).

And what is the sin that we find in the temptation of the garden narrative? James helps us to understand the root of the problem:
Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death. (James 1:13-15)

Temptation at its root is about desire. This is what temptation exposes and reveals. And what does the tempter attack in the garden? This idea of true liberation. God has tasked Adam and Eve to be in communion with creation, God and one another, and the tempter suggests that they are not truly free BECAUSE “God knows that when you eat from it (the tree of knowledge of good and evil) your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil (3:5).” So the question is, understanding this as a temple text in which the trees symbolize a key aspect of this broken relationship the Exodus story is looking to restore, what does the tree (or trees) symbolize? It symbolizes life (God’s dwelling among them) and death (knowledge of good and evil). In midrash they understand this life to be found in God’s created order, and in the life of Israel. This is why God singles out trees rather than the garden (symbolically speaking). When set into the context of the temple life, what you have is the hope of their liberation, God’s dwelling among them (the tree of life, or the tree as the source of life) and the knowledge of good and evil (which is understood as the Law). This forms the later understanding of Paul in which his Jewish tradition, set in light of his encounter with Jesus as God’s dwelling among them (life), sees the Law not as life but as death. It is through the Law that we become aware of sin, and through sin comes death. And yet, as Paul declares, through one man (one tree, one cross), salvation (life) comes to all.

Just to reinforce this contest between life and death, note how the conversation unfolds with the tempter. As the Genesis text reads, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel (3:15).”

What this does is set in play this key contest that holds the whole of the created order in contest- life and death, humankind and the tempter, Jesus and the tempter. This is the grand narrative we find being declared in the New Exodus, this wilderness journey to the New Kingdom. What is being established is this reestablishing of God’s Kingdom, and what is being emphasized in the wilderness is the “source” of life that lies at the center of this Kingdom, the dwelling of God in the temple that Jesus is raising up in Himself in the Spirit, as as the new temple. We will reside in Him, and in Him we will find the new Kingdom being established. This is why the reeneactment of the Exodus in the temptation narrative doesn’t move us through the garden, but through the elements of the Exodus story, with each temptation recalling a key aspect of God’s provision (food, water, and ultimately we come to this grand summation in the picture of the coming Kingdom, the promised land).

Here is what is most important though. If James is right and the tree of knowledge of good and evil is about the revealing of the “desire” of our heart, what is being revealed in the temptation narrative, in this grand contest, is the desire of God’s heart. God’s heart is for His creation. It is life giving, not death giving. That is what Matthew’s Gospel is going to begin to unfold as it places this contest between the forces of good and evil that hold this world bondage into the narrative of the religious leaders and Jesus’ kingdom that is about to unfold. Matthew adds to this temptation narrative that this happened “before the time” (3:29), which is super important, because the traditional narrative ends the temptation narrative with the “devil” (the tempter) leaving until a more opportune time. What is going to become revealed in Matthew’s Gospel is that the way this Kingdom comes, the way it is going to be reestablished is not by way of the Israelite story of conquest and failure, but way of God entering into our suffering reality. By way of Jesus, who knew no sin (the knowledge of good and evil) placing himself in bondage to sin along with us. This is how the Gospel will reestablish the source of life in the midst of our suffering world, one held captive by the toiling of the ground, enmity between our natures, and ultimately by death. Jesus is the source of life, not us, and in this we discover (or rediscover) God’s true heart for his creation. He is the temple (the image of the new Kingdom, the garden, God’s dwelling), and we dwell in him, in which traditionally the final thing to be placed in the temple is the idol, the image of God. We are the image of God, bearing witness to the source of life.

Here is a good further resource for understanding the Exodus story in Jewish understanding and the Jewish narrative.
https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-exodus-effect/

Moving forward, what we are going to see in Matthew’s Gospel is a very intentional, parallel placement of the story of John the Baptist, Herod (the two Herods) and Jesus, something that Matthew uses to emphasize the nature of the new Kingdom has set within the competing forces. For now though, what Matthew has established is that promise of the new Kingdom is coming. Liberation is here. This is the declaration of the New Exodus.

Personal confession time: It has been a while since I’ve spent some time with this Gospel. I’ve always struggled to get into Matthew. It might be the language. It might be the context. If this time through uncovered something, it is that Matthew feels and seems more than a little bit feisty, particularly when it comes to the way he positions the Saduccees and the Pharisees. And so I led with a prayer. God, please reveal to me what you want me to hear.

With this in mind, there are 3 essential things that I noticed about the Gospel of Matthew when reading through it again:

1. IT IS VERY STRUCTURED: One of the first things I noticed about Matthew is the structure. Even without knowing the context, one can easily see the use of repetition and key phrases, and the book feels like it is built on patterns.

2. IT HAS A LOT OF DISCOURSE: The other thing I noticed is that Matthew gives us a lot of Jesus’ discourse relatively speaking. In fact, the whole book follows this basic pattern of a block style structure: narrative-discourse-narrative-discourse (broken up in this way: 5-7; 10; 13 18-20; 24-25).

If one breaks it down, you get 5 of these different movements all framed around a recognizable question that starts the discourse, and the shared phrase that marks the end of the discourse (“when Jesus had finished these sayings”: 7:28; 11:1; 13:53; 19:1; 26:1)

3. AND YES, IT IS KIND OF ANGRY: If you set the Gospel of Matthew alongside the other Gospels, there is little question the author is particularly fired up. It becomes clear early on where this anger is directed towards- the Saduccees and the Pharisees. The Genealogy sets up the context, which Matthew molds around the Biblical figure of David, before moving quickly from Herod to the ones who will occupy the attention of his Gospel (the Saduccees and the Pharisees).

These three things stood out to me and helped me to engage with the narrative with a bit more intention. It is structured with a very real purpose, which helped me to distinguish the narrative from the discourse and the symbolism. It has a lot of discourse, which helped to give focus to how each block of discourse is framed, and the angry vibes helped me to note the direction of the anger and narrow in on Matthews very Jewish interest and very Jewish context.

And while Kingdom, Kingship, Royalty, and Forgiveness are all key themes in this Gospel, if there was one reigning theme that jumped out for me it would be this- justice for the oppressed and a Gospel for the lowly.

UNDERSTANDING THE GENEALOGY
Starting off with a bit of a strange lineage, which includes the startling inclusion of gentile women and an interesting list of names each telling its own story of how we get from here to there, there is a single name that Matthew instantly sets us up for us as readers to recognize- David. David is at the beginning of the genealogy, the middle and the end. And in between, if one was to look at the different names that are used to develop the lineage, you see this very purposed movement that skips certain generations, emphasizes some unexpected ones, and weaves its way through the story of Israel (Adam, Abraham, and David) in a creative way in order to raise up Jesus as the Davidic King, the son of David, the fulfillment of what Matthew recognizes as the Davidic promise set within the Abrahamic covenant.

One thing to point out about the Genealogy in scholarship is that there is contention surrounding the differences between the one in Matthew and the one in Luke. There are different ways that scholarship addresses this, ranging from the idea that one is false and one is true, to the idea of Joseph having two fathers (under the legal law of a widow remarrying). Sandwiched in-between are ideas that one is Mary’s and one is Joseph’s, and maybe one of the more popular ones which is that one is legal (royal) and one is biological.

In any case, no matter where one lands on a theoretical level, what is clear is that Matthew constructs the Genealogy with a purpose. There is lots to think about even in these opening words. Borrowing his genealogy from what scholars believe is 1 Chronicles 1-3 and Ruth 4, there is one really intriguing theory that sees Matthews opening verse paired with Genesis (recasting the words of Genesis in Christ), and given Matthews interest in numbers (part of his structure) also the pattern of 5, which fits with his desire establish a new Pentateuch (moving to cast Jesus as the New Exodus in His baptism).

Some more interesting stuff: Matthew also goes to lengths to write the Genealogy, which you can see if you compare it alongside Chronicles, in a way that maintains what is this 14-14-14 structure (the Davidic number). We see this following the Genealogy when Matthew explains the 14 paradigm (Abraham to David, David… and so on). The pattern of 14 also reflects a six week structure, which speaks to a Jewish custom (found in Abraham), which would traditionally be followed by the Sabbath week (see Daniel and the inference then to a coming Messianic age in Jesus).

All of which is to say, trying to fit this genealogy into a theory that reconciles all of the movements and placements Matthew makes here in an overly literal or historical way will miss the necessary symbolism he is trying to evoke. What Matthew seems to be trying to do is establish the Davidic King (Jesus) over all of Israel, working in a really interesting mix of women with questionable pasts, particular lines and remnants that say something important about this Davidic line (especially when set alongside the Chronicles passage in contrast), problematic moments in Israelite history, and a mixing of the line of David and Aaron (which is an important point in recognizing the Jewish context of this writing).

If you are interested in seeing in more detail how each of these names fits together, this is a good resource:
https://isthatinthebible.wordpress.com/2014/07/19/whats-the-deal-with-matthews-genealogy/

His lineage is a ragged, eclectic mix brought together in some creative, some puzzling, some intriguing, some mystical, and some obviously measured ways under Christ. But it is all in service to working with the Jewish backdrop the author emerges from, especially if we move back to this idea of him establishing a new Pentateuch. Just to underscore this, arriving at the last two names you get Jacob and Joseph, which is the same genealogy in Genesis, which then leads us to Jesus and a picture of Jesus coming out of Egypt and going into exile (the wilderness for 40 Days and 40 Nights). This establishes Jesus as the New Exodus. And then, as we shall see, this new Exodus is used to establish the religious leaders as the clear antagonists (under Law and lineage), positioning the New Covenant as liberating to people like the author, whom have been oppressed by the religious leaders, those who’s hearts God is said to have hardened (like Pharoah).

Which is all to say, Matthew’s Gospel begins with a good deal of symbolism that intends to say something very important to his audience and about the tradition he is going to criticize and the liberation he has found in Jesus. Although we have tradition, as is true for most of the Gospels, in truth the Gospel remains anonymous. But that doesn’t mean we can’t fit this into the traditional authorship (Matthew) and be perfectly fine. More importantly though is knowing what the text tells us about the author and why it was written. The author was likely someone who found himself on the margins of his Jewish culture and by way of his collaboration with the Roman Kingdom (which fits with the idea of the tax collector). This makes sense of why the author is so angry at the religious leaders. He himself has been isolated, marginalized and oppressed by them, and therefore finds in Jesus a picture of this necessary justice. If his encounter with and acceptance by Jesus is to have any justification, especially given his experience with Jesus was clearly transformative in nature, it has to say something about the Jewish context that has judged him under the Law. This explains why he bypasses the Roman context and sets his sights straight on the Jewish establishment, having zero sympathy for the religious leaders and far more sympathy for those whom he sees being oppressed by them.

As we move into Part 2 of my reflections, I think one thing that will keep becoming clearer and clearer is how sharp the distinction is between the language Matthew uses to describe and speak of the religious leaders, and the language he uses to describe those who share a position with him. This sharp back and forth between harsh judgments of the establishment and this raising up of the lowly and the oppressed is both sharp and notable.

I had three interconnected experiences yesterday that had me mulling over the idea of “compassion” as an exercise of faith. One was a podcast, the other a post from a friend, and the final one a movie:

THE PODCAST
This was an interview and discussion with Paul Gilbert, an evolutionary psychologist whom founded what is now called “compassion focused therapy” (CFT). In the interview, Gilbert explains the development of this practice as rooted in the following understanding of the world and human development- compassion as a working idea in nature, grew from the instinctual need for a species to care for its offspring. As we develop human awareness, compassion evolves and develops according to our ability to wonder, ask, and eventually locate how and where we can effectively “be” compassionate. This is where, as evolutionists would posit, we grow from a tribal perspective into a necessary universal application of compassion as a working idea.

The idea of compassion in this view is dependent on the affirmation that we have come to “understand” or instinctually know that we (ourselves, or our smaller tribe) are in fact better off when the world is a more compassionate place, and that the same instincts that drove us to care for our offspring (our survival) are found in our care for others around us.

Three things emerged from this for him- one, the reason we are led instinctually in this direction is because the most powerful are the minority and those who stand to benefit the most from compassion are the majority of the human population. Second, it is driven by self preservation, and by nature is a self driven, instinctually driven, evolutionary concern. And third, by nature of these first two realities, it remains predicated not on compassion as a given and forming virtue, but rather on compassion as a necessary human response predicated on our survival and the greater good of our species. It does not protect against forms of tribalism or power necessarily, but rather it drives our natural awareness of something we ser as instinctuallyus dangerous and a threat. We are compassionate because our instincts have understood its value in light of oppressive systems of power, and we are wired to know that if we do nothing, we and our tribe will also be negatively impacted.

This brought me back to when I was doing my Masters. When I was in the process of doing my Masters, I actually started in the study of Christian Psychology and Counseling. And one of the most startling realities I encountered was that, for all the ways in which the Christian faith expresses compassion as a given virtue rather, when we walked through the stories of those who were in the program with me, every single person shared and admitted how their experience of the Church had robbed them of their ability to find compassion for their own story, their own person. In fact, this is what had motivated many of them towards this program. They had been hurt and damaged, and wanted to find purpose in helping the hurt and damage in others.

One of the hardest parts of the course was the idea that the main part of this program was helping us to face ourselves. The understanding was that we cannot gain compassion for others until we gain compassion for ourselves. And so we were asked to go through counselling ourselves as a way of learning how to care for others.


My FACEBOOK FRIEND’S POST
One of my facebook friends posted yesterday in response to the tragic reality unfolding in Minneapolis and across America that, while he can’t fully understand what it is that people of color are experiencing, he wanted to find a way to use the recent tragedy to grow in compassion for their experience by beginning with his own experience of struggle and using that to form empathy. This was incredibly astute and aware, and had me thinking about all of the ways this is so difficult for so many. We much prefer to look outwards rather than inwards.

There was something powerful and revealing about the process that I was invited to go through in my first year of that Masters program. I came to learn that finding compassion for myself, for my own pain, was actually one of the least selfish things that I could engage in when setting myself within God’s story. Because the purpose of this process was to enable us to move outwards into the story of others. We don’t have compassion for others because it is good for us, as the evolutionary psychologist posits (that being our natural driving force), we enter into that incredibly difficult place of uncovering ourselves for the good of others. That becomes our motivation- a given virtue.


THE MOVIE
I recently watched a powerful documentary called Nostalgia For the Light. I’ve linked my review here and will let that speak for itself, but one of the most powerful parts of this film for me was the way it connects our discovery of the distant past (astronomy), our discovery of the recent past (archeaology), and self discovery (compassion and formation). What guides this, the scientific process the film says, is actually an innately religious question, which is why are we here? What is the reason for our existence? This is the question that drives discovery. And yet humanity has a very real tendency to engage in discovery for the sake of progress rather than formation, ignoring our more recent past for the sake of a future that is, rather, driven and connected to our distant past (which is built on the notion of survival). This future-distant past dichotomy is what keeps us from being held accountable in the present because it largely removes us from its responsibility. Through the study of the distant past we can shape our role and our responsibility towards the future. That is the human endeavor.

The title of the film, broken up between those two phrases, “nostalgia” and “for the light”, is built on this idea that light by its very nature represents “the past”, and that all that we see and experience in the present is rooted in the past, occupying that space between when it occurs and when it translates to our senses and our awareness. The light (discovery) is by nature an exercise of nostalgia, a locating of our present in the grander story. This what discovering space is all about. Thus, the purpose of discovery, which can be noted as a revealing or uncovering of the past, is so that we can be formed by it and shaped by it. But where it shapes us is within our human history, the recent past, the past we tend to most readily ignore in or push for progress, and it informs how we are meant to live in the present- what gives this life meaning.

We ignore our most recent past, the stuff we tend to want to ignore for the sake of the bigger picture, because this stuff seemingly bogs us down and gets in the way of progress. It is messy and hard and complicated. The scientists in this film, in this shared Desert where the distant snd recent past come together, eventually end up unearthing evidence of a genocide, something that forces them to have pause and try to make sense of something that is difficult into the bigger picture, that which is being uncovered by the light of distant past. This is where both the recent and the distant past need each other in order to find meaning in what feels meaningless.

The powerful truth about faith is that it calls us towards given virtues such as forgiveness, grace, reconciliation, and formation by nature of our faith in the truth that this is the work God has done and is doing (the New Heavens and the New Earth). The Christian truth says that God, the one who is being unveiled through our Discovery of him, is not in fact distant, but near and with us. He is the one that brings together and distant and recent past and helps us to reconicle the tension by placing it within a given vision and promise for our future. Where we uncover genocide, we find the infinite God broken with us, suffering with us, struggling with us on the Cross. This is where we find compassion.

The future is unveiled to us in the present then by way of His Resurrection promise, only it requires us to face the messiness in the process, to enter into the muck of our past in order to be formed in the present. And it is because Christ had compassion on us in our suffering, in our brokenness and in our failure that we become truly free and motivated to find compassion for others, bringing from the more recent past a greater and realized vision for our present. Finding and locating that compassion in our lives, and for ourselves then, can help us discover it in the experiences of others, and thus find meaning in how we move forward together.

Here is my full review of the film on Letterboxd:
https://letterboxd.com/davetcourt/film/nostalgia-for-the-light/

“I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— one Lord, one faith, one baptism” – Ephesians 4:1-3

Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.- Hebrews 4:16

Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.- Galatians 6:2

Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience,- Colossians 3:12

Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor.- 1 Corinthians 10:24

Traditionally, the author of James has been contributed to James the Just, (the brother of Jesus) and the leader of the Jerusalem Church in the Book of Acts. Certainly, outside of the question of authorship, we can find in the letter of James an interacting with Paul’s ideas, most prominently his discussions of works and faith.

The audience for the letter is a group of Jewish Christians (addressed to the twelve tribes in the Dispersion 1:1) whom are apparently struggling with certain trials that they deem opposed to God’s promise, and part of issue is that they stand divided among one another according to the Law, which has created distinctions for them regarding the relationship of (their) works and God’s promised liberation (as people of the Law). Included in this is an apparent socio-economic divide between rich and poor. Of primary concern is the fact that their current situation (struggle) and this division has led them to question whether God’s promise is true.

The author is deeply Jewish and familiar with their shared Jewish history, connecting their current struggle (their trials 1:1-3) to their prophetic lineage and entrenching it in the language of traditional wisdom literature (such as Ecclesiastes).

The author’s main concern is that his audience is standing divided, and that this division, born of their comparing their own experience to others, is causing them to second guess (be double minded about) God’s covenant promise. The author wants to remind them that God raised them up (as Jews) as the first fruits of His witness to the world out of poverty, and therefore they should find in God’s witness to them (their faith) a love and concern for others (works). It is by loving others, the author submits, that they can be reminded of God’s faithfulness to them and persevere through their trials. This is the nature of the wisdom literature the author employs.

Trials as Joy: The Wisdom of Steadfastness
Establishing the Jewish nature of his audience (the 12 Tribes of the Diaspora) and the reason for this letter (their trials), the author makes a familiar Pauline assertion in labeling their trails as “joy”. The reason trials should be counted as joy is because they produce “steadfastness” (1:2) through the “testing” of our faith. This word “testing” carries with it a sense of “bearing witness to” or “revealing” or “being made known”. The full effect of this steadfastness is a faith that is revealed as “perfect, complete, lacking in nothing (1:2-3)

What is clear is that the author sees this revealing as a gift, turning to a concern for their “lacking” in this wisdom (1:5) and encouraging them to ask God “who gives generously” without “reproach”, a word that connotes giving without distinction, requirement or judgment. The problem, the author posits, is not whether God is with them in their trials and giving them all they need to persist in their trials, but that they are second guessing the truth that He is. Rather than asking in faith (in awareness of this promise), they doubt (and forget and question this promise). The author presents doubt as the counter image to steadfastness, imagining it as a wave tossed around by the wind (1:6), a picture then applied to the doubter. Doubt leads to this sort of double mindedness, with the author suggesting that if we assume that God is not with us, we might as well not even ask in the first place (1:7), as we will find ourselves in the same position. Rather than seeing their trails as an example of how God is not with them, they should see their trials instead as an opportunity for God to be revealed in faith, not in the taking away of these trials, but in the forming out of these trials. This, the author insists it what can protect their doubts from leaving them “unstable in all their ways (1:8).”

The Humiliated and the Exalted: Steadfastness as a Forward Thinking Idea
The very nature of steadfastness implies a sense of direction. We are being brought somewhere, and our trials “as” testing have a purpose. The author imagines this as a form of a present-future liberation (in their experiences and struggles their faith is being made perfect, complete and lacking in nothing). The author now turns this unfolding admonishment to a concern for the socio-economic division that apparently exists within or around them. Here the Wisdom tradition emerges with a bit more clarity, with a call for the “lowly” brothers to being exalted and the “rich” being humiliated (lowered) (1:9). Just like the flower rises and falls, earthly (material) things will pass away. In contrast, their hope in this steadfastness is the “crown of life”, that which will not pass away (1:12).

To reinforce this idea, the author returns to the idea of trials as joy and trials as testing, contrasting this with trials as “temptation”, which is how the audience is apparently seeing their present circumstance. The author is insistent that no one see their trials as God’s “temptation”, because God doesn’t tempt (our doubting) and God cannot be tempted (our faith). How do we distinguish between the two? By recognizing the nature of “desire” (1:13). Temptation emerges from desire, which leads to sin, which leads to death. This is why we should not be deceived into seeing our trials as temptation. Temptation is born from desire, which the author recognizes as the devil. The revealing of God’s faithfulness in the midst of our trials (that He is still with us and persevering with us and that this world is being liberated) is not given so that we should fall away in our struggle, it is given as a truth that stands above our experiences rather than being dependent on it. The good gifts, the author insists, are what come from God, and they come with no variation of change (contrasting with the variation of the waves in the wind). This is the point of this steadfastness. This is the differentiation between the riches that pass away and the riches that don’t. This is the differentiation between testing and temptation. One if hopeful, one is not.

Their Jewish Heritage and God’s Faithfulness: Hearing the Word
The author now moves to consider his audience’s Jewish heritage. They (the Jews) were raised up as the first-fruits of God’s witness in the created world (1:18). This is what they were brought forth for by the “word of truth” which brought them to life and gave them their witness (to God’s faithfulness). They are called to “receive” this word, the covenant that has been written on hearts and minds (implanted in them 1:21) with the kind of “meekness” that declares life not death. Meekness shares a quality in nature with humility, the position of the lowly and that which the author calls the “rich” towards.

Here the author established the nature of “hearing” this implanted word, employing once again the Wisdom Tradition. The admonition is to be quick to hear, slow to speak, and therefore (by nature of these two things, or as an outcome of these two dispositions), be slow to anger. The inference then is that being slow to hear and quick to speak leads to anger, and anger is what causes them to doubt this word of truth. By being quick to hear and slow to speak in relation to this word, the righteousness of God (the word of truth that is without variation, the fullness of steadfastness that the word promises) becomes our witness rather than our doubt.

Only here, the author insists, the way we can hold on to this word which we hear, the word the precedes our faith, is to actually do it and live it (1:19-22). Those who “only” hear are led to deception, because simply hearing opens us up to second guessing what is true about God. The steadfastness that this “testing” (our trials) produces “reveals” to us what we have forgotten, and acting on the promise (in faith) is the best way to remember.

This is also the nature of the mirror analogy in 1:23-24, where they look in a mirror (hear the word) and instantly forget what they look like (who they are as God’s children). By contrast, by looking into (hearing) the perfect Law (the covenant word written on their hearts and mind, which is Jesus) they are led to blessing and “remembering”, which then leads to persevering (steadfastness). This is the Law of Liberty rather than the Law of Works. What we hear precedes us and is reality we already live in. Only the author insists that it is the doing, the living out of this faith, that reminds us of what is already ours. Our doing acts in faith, it doesn’t produce faith. And what is the doing? The works are “to visit orphans and widows in their affliction.” (1:22-25) This is the work of moving to the lowly places for the sake of those in the lowly places, reminding us not only of what God has done in our lives, but of what God is doing in the world.

The Israelite Heritage and The Work of Faith
Here the author does some neat things in bringing these threads of perseverance (steadfastness), Israel’s heritage, God’s promise, faith and works together. We are brought back to where we started, with God giving generously without reproach (without condition). If this is true, then show no partiality (be without condition) in regards to faith in this promise that they hold to (2:1), because if you don’t, you will become judges with evil thoughts (2:4), and therefore not much of a judge at all as they will remain bound to the bias’ of their own position. What the author is doing here is providing the connective piece between faith and works that can help bring them together in a way that bears witness to God’s promise (our faith). Looking back into their shared heritage and history, this neat argument thread is presented to underscore this connective piece. The question comes, “has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich (2:5)? And also, looking back on their own history and present circumstance, are not the rich the ones who oppress you?

What this means is that they (the Jews) are the recipients of God’s good gifts “as” the poor and the lowly, given to them without reproach (2:5-7). Therefore, find God’s grace for the world in your works. The Law, which has been summed up according to the perfect Law, is this- love others. Don’t show partiality in your love for others, because then you will expect God’s love to arrive with partiality into your own experience, and that will leave you doubting God’s promise (judgement) of liberation for both yourself and the world (2:9). Here the author submits them to being under the Jewish Law, which only reveals their failure to earn this promise (2:10). This is why faith (in the perfect Law) must precede works. The works don’t determine the promise, they simply remind us of the promise (faith) of our liberty. “So speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the Law of Liberty (2:12).

So What Good is Faith Without Works
What good then is faith without works? If this faith isn’t leading somewhere, towards liberty, why then have faith? After all, without faith all we have is death (2:17), so a faith without promise (direction) is nothing more than death. In contrast, faith that leads somewhere is a belief (faith) that is completed. This is what our works point us towards and remind us of. They speak love into those spaces where love has been forgotten, hope where hope has been forgotten. The faith we hold becomes aware and justified in our witness (works) (2:24).

Doubling down on this, the author points out a further distinction between Law and grace (without partiality). Those who teach are most aware of the Law (in their Jewish context), and when you are aware of the Law you become aware of your own stumbling, and thus you are set under greater judgment by nature of this awareness (3:1-2). You can try and say you are perfect under the Law and thus deserving of something better than your present trials (which leads to the trials being evidence of God’s lack of promise), but the Law just proves that you are not (3:2).

It is for this reason then that we should remain aware of how powerful the tongue is, given the words they confess to and the way those words reveal the desires and content of the heart (leading to a piece on the power of the tongue). By trying to present our works as the means by which we should be distinguished within our social and economic positioning (the rich and the lowly), this tongue then blesses God and curses those made in the likeness of God at the same time (double mindedness), and this ought not to be so (3:11). This language of blessings and curses is familiar to the the Israelite history, and something they would have understood very clearly in their context. This is the very paradigm that we find in their own story as God’s people, with God throughout the Israelite story trying to pull them out this way of thinking. In 4:11-12, the author moves to show once again that when you “teach” the law as a means of judging others according to their position under the Law (according to works), you judge yourself, and whoever knows the right thing and fails, that becomes their sin (judgment) under the Law (4:17). This cannot lead to liberty.

Therefore, because wisdom is meekness (3:13), don’t let your tongues boast of falsehoods when you in fact have jealousy and selfishness in your hearts (concerned for your position in the midst of trials, and comparing your position to others). Jealousy and selfishness leads to (earthly and material) ambitions and disorder, which is from the Devil, not God, just as temptation is from the Devil. What God’s promise is about is liberty and hope, not the idea that these trials exist as a judgment or a means of failing. Testing, in faith, is a forming work, not a condemning one.

The Measure of Desire
Now the author brings this all back to this measure of desire when trying to distinguish between testing and temptation. The reason, the author says, you do not ask God (in faith) for the good gifts is because your passions are at war within you (4:1), and this war of passions all begins with the desire of your heart. As it is said, God gives and you spend it on your passions (4:3), which only leads you to doubt whether God’s promise (the good gifts) is true. Friendship with the world, the measure of this desire, is enmity with God, the author insists. You say you are God’s people but are acting opposed to his desire for you and the world. This is why grace comes to the humble (4:5-6) and why testing reveals that promise for the purpose of steadfastness, because when you live in ways that don’t reveal a different reality to the world, you forget the promise yourself. Therefore, submit to God and resist the Devil (4:7). And what distinguishes God from the Devil? The unwavering promise versus the ever changing doubt (thinking that this promise is not longer true), love versus showing partiality to others, attending to the lowly rather than becoming rich.

And here’s the picture we gain from the Letter of James. Draw near to God and God draws near to you (4:8). This is how we remember the promise that God is leading this somewhere, and that we are being formed out of our struggle. This is the picture of the humility we are asked to lean into rather than trying to position ourselves in comparison to others according to our circumstance (4:10). In this conversation of faith and works, there is only one lawgiver and judge (God), the one who is able to save and destroy. And the one lawgiver is moving us in love and liberty. Therefore, don’t worry about tomorrow, but rather lean into the faith (promise) we have been given today. Because when we fail to do this, it is sin, and it positions us within our doubts, and all we are then left with is a directionless life, one that leads to death (which is a world that is left to its struggle without liberation). This is the proclamation of the Ecclesiastical Wisdom in 4:13-15.

This is perhaps most pertinent when it comes to this socio-economic division between rich and poor. This is why we find in the final chapter a warning to the rich, which unfolds as a call to humility. It paints a picture of those enjoying riches and pleasures while others are oppressed and have no means of enacting justice for themselves (5:11). If God is a liberating and loving God, this is the work that we must be engaged in, regardless of our own circumstance. And the reason for this is because the lowly are the righteous in the Kingdom of God, and the riches that do not fade are based on love and humility, not that which leads to earthly riches. This comes back to the book’s audience needing to be reminded about the lowly places that God’s love found them (all) in within their history. This is a reshaping of their understanding of their struggles (and their understanding of Israel’s struggle). Rather than seeing it is a picture of God’s failure, the author raises this up as a picture of God’s promise and faith. The call to have patience in suffering is actually an encouragement to the oppressed. Patience is a blessing and a revealing (5:11), a hopeful and life giving venture.

So (reaching back into the Israelite tradition), don’t be divided by the Law (5:9), because then you will just judge yourselves. The one who can bring justice (the one who has the power to save and destroy… the one lawgiver) is coming. This is your and our faith, so trust in this (5:8;5:9). And if you forget this, look to your own tradition (the prophets) as an example of this patience in suffering (5:10). Just as Elijah was a man fallible (doubting like them), he prayed for the oppressed and it was given in his righteounsess (his right positioning, his trusting in faith rather than doubting it, a trusting that came from acting on it). So do the same, sick and healthy together, the suffering and the cheerful together. Help one another out. For whenever we bring back a wanderer (one who is doubting), we save our own soul from death (we remind ourselves of the promise of God’s liberating promise) and cover a multitude of sins (doubt, evil thoughts, actions that do not come in love, partiality). Here the author is talking about spiritual death, a living as if there is no grace versus living like there is. God’s declaration is that grace breaks through our trials in a way that is forming us into this promise of a future where this suffering will give way to liberation. Therefore, coming back to the idea of asking for good gifts in faith not doubt, let your yes be yes and your no be no. Don’t swear to any other promise than the promise of God’s liberation (5:12). This is the direction to which the prayer for faith points.

The Book of Hebrews has been notorious in the field of Biblical scholarship for being difficult to pin down in modern language. Entrenched in the language of it’s ancient Jewish culture, the anonymity of both it’s author and it’s audience ends up being both a blessing and a curse (if I can borrow the Biblical language of ancient Israel). In some ways it allows us as readers to apply a degree of imagination to the book on a contextual level. On the other hand, the heavy language can make it feel a bit distanced and anchored in a time and place foreign to modern ears.

There are New Testament books that I read more often than others, and with the above in mind, Hebrews is one that I sometimes pass over (in my rush to get to something like Paul’s letter to the Philippians). That is probably why I left this to near last on my journey through the New Testament (with James and the Gospel of Matthew, two other books I tend to not come back to as often for similar reasons). I’m really happy I found space for it again though. My prayer going into it was that God would help me to see it afresh, and I found the book coming alive to me in ways that it hasn’t in the past.

In terms of the book’s anonymity, there are two distinctives that help set Hebrews apart- it’s high Christology, and it’s intimate understanding of the Jewish sacrificial system, two things that the author is trying to bring together. The book was likely written to a group of Jewish Christians, although all we really know is that both author and audience shared a mutual friend in Timothy. In terms of this interest in the marriage of this high Christology and the Jewish sacrificial system, the author is looking to help the readers understand both their heritage and how Christ fits into this heritage. The book wants to establish Jesus, not the Temple (or the Priestly Law), as the founder of their faith. It reads, “Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil”, going on to say “he had to be made like the brothers in every respect, so that he (we) might have a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people (2:14-18).” Propitiation carries with it this notion of “giving” and affording something to us, which is God’s mercy and his faithfulness in the midst of our shared suffering (which comes by way of Jesus sharing in our suffering), which, after being given to us (for the purification of sins 1:3), reveals these grand “Christ is” statements (our confidence):
Christ “is” the superior name (1:4), the beginning and the end (1:8-12), God’s saving work (1:13), the exact imprint of God’s nature (1:3).

This is the concern for the witness that the author of Hebrews is interested in establishing (of the work of Jesus) within their Jewish Heritage, beginning his letter with “long ago”, “at many time and in many ways” God spoke by the prophets, and now Jesus (1:1-2)”, leading up to the grand witnesses of Jewish history in Chapter 11 which “received” this propitiation (11:2) by faith. “Therefore”, the author says, “since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith.”

After all, the Priests give gifts (propitiate) according to the Law (according to the covenant promise 9:4), but they “serve a copy and a shadow of the heavenly things (9:5).” What Christ has “obtained” (9:6), that which he looks to give (propitiate to us), is a much more excellent covenant than the old one. Evoking Jeremiah, the author recognizes something similar as the Apostle Paul (albeit with a slightly different edge), which is that the Law was given to expose Sin (Israel’s failure to live into the promise of God in the rejection of the prophets) and reveal Christ (God’s giving of the promise in their failure). Instead of the shadow, they will have this covenant promise written on their minds and hearts (9:8-12).

This is the truth the author wants them to hear, to pay close attention to (2:1), the truth that the angels, God’s servants (1:14) have born witness to as well. If all we see is the shadow, how can we live into the promise of the full revealing? If the Law only reveals Sin (as the just retribution of every transgression or disobedience), how then can we escape the shadow if we neglect what has been given (Christ’s propitiation, which is the full revealing of God’s mercy and faithfulness written on our hearts and minds 2:2-3)?

What I really love about Hebrews is how it brings in a necessary theology of Creation as well. Christ is Lord of the whole of the created world, and the world, which has been swept up into the same covenant promise, is under the same bondage (Sin and Death). The author then uses Psalm 8:4-6 to unfold a contrasting image of the shadow (the Law) and the light (Christ) within this created order. The contrast is one of question (doubt) and control (faith). Like we see elsewhere in the New Testament, one of the struggles of Jewish Christians was the struggle they faced looking back on their history and their ongoing struggle. Their failure, in their eyes, also meant the they would not find God’s covenant promise. The promise for their liberation as Gods children had failed. And yet, in their suffering, in their failure, God has left nothing outside of his control (2:8), even if we only see the failure of this promise in our present struggle. Rather than the shadow, we can now see Him (Jesus), who entered into our suffering to reveal the new covenant to them in their suffering (failed) reality, which is the promise that they are being made new and will be made new in their suffering. It is Christ’s suffering, then, that is the “perfection”, not the letter of the “Law” (2:10). In setting himself under the Power of Sin (in subjection to), the Power of Sin and Death was defeated (2:14) and those in bondage (in question and wait of God’s promise to liberate their situation) were and are being liberated (2:15) . The shame that the Hebrew audience feels in their failure gives way to Jesus’ declaration that they are in fact God’s children (2:11-13), because Jesus understands the suffering, the same suffering we face, under the Power of Sin and Death (2:18

What we have been given, what has been propitiated to us, is a heavenly calling, one which we share in Jesus (3:1). That is why the Hebrews authors call them to consider Jesus (3:1), the one they find in their confession as “Jewish Christians”. If Moses is a witness to God’s building project (the spiritual house), then Jesus is the builder. (3:3-4). Moses was a servant, Christ is God’s Son, and as Sons and Daughters of God we are all God’s house (3:5-6). This is our hope. This is the New Covenant.

Here the author connects Jesus’ resisting temptation in the suffering he faced under the Power of Sin and Death (in the wilderness and on the Cross) to the Israelites in the wilderness with Moses, thus bringing his readers together in Moses and Jesus (3:7-11). This becomes a continued exposition of Psalm 95:7-11 (3:15 and 4:3; 4:5; 4:7), with the call to not fall away (as the Prophets did) and be given to a different confession (3:14). Instead, rest (from their worries about where God is in their midst) in the promise that they find in Jesus (3:18). This rest has a sweeping force, reaching back into those who died (rest), and applied to their present situation (4:7) in the hope of what Christ is doing and bringing to fruition, His works (the building of thos house) which were finished from the “foundation of the world” (4:3). For, if Joshua had given them rest, Jesus could not have come for the world (4:8).

Moving to apply this to their life in Christ, the author of Hebrews then moves to say, let us (therefore) work “now” for the sake of all (4:11), knowing that the word of God is “living” and “active” (still at work) healing the division that Sin and Death creates (4:12). After all, coming back to that theology of creation, no creature is hidden from his sight (all are naked and exposed to him to whom we must give account 4:13), so this then becomes our confidence. God saw us in our suffering and in our temptation, and suffered with us. There is, therefore, no shame. We have been called sons and daughters of Christ, since he (bringing together both Priest and High Priest) is beset with weakness (5:2), and therefore can deal gently with the ignorant and wayward. Just as Jesus prayed for the Power of God to defeat Death and “learned the obedience” of suffering (5:7-10), hear and listen (don’t be dull of hearing). The milk is the basic truth of our salvation, don’t double back on it. Rest in it so that you can then work for the sake of others, because solid food is for those who can distinguish (in the power of the Spirit) good and evil. That is what they have been called for. Let’s not dwell on our salvation then, but move on to maturity, for maturity (the sanctified life) cannot redo what Christ has already done (6:3-7). It is for maturity (confidence; 6:11-12 and our confidence) that we have been raised (6:7-8), a maturity that rests in the confidence that finds in a suffering world a God who is not unjust (6:16). This distinguishing between good and evil, and in the same way in which Christ is made perfect in suffering, pushes back against this idea that perfection is what makes the suffering worthwhile. Christ’s work on the Cross was not a demonstration of the perfect life as the way to salvation, but rather the perfection, “under Sin and Death”, came through suffering. That was the hope the Hebrews author wanted to instill into his readers.

What is their confidence (as Jewish Christians)? Their confidence is the covenant promise (6:14). This leads to a piece that is likely to confuse modern readers, a section that talks about the order of Melchizedek and Jesus. In the history of the Israelites, Melchizedek symbolizes the bringing together of both King and Priest (the name literally means “King of Righteousness”, and he was the first to be named Priest), establishing him in the Book of Genesis as the beginning of an order of Priests related to Abraham (and the covenant promise), in whom we see him giving bread and wine (Genesis 14:18) as a blessing for this salvation (God’s saving work for the world) and a foreshadow of the New Covenant. This contrasts with another Priestly Order, that which was established later with the Order of Aaron in the Law of Moses (the Levitical Preisthood, or the Law). The reason for this comparison was to emphasize this old and new Covenant promise. In Melchizedek, it says the inferior is blessed by the superior, in that the blessing of the Priest is given (propitiated) to Abraham. In the same way, Jesus does not arrive out of the Law, but rather arrives according to the order of Malchizedek (7:11-18). He gives his promise to us. So what then distinguishes Jesus from Melchizedek and all prophets, priests and kings  who have died? The fact that he is alive. He was resurrected from the grave. Jesus lives forever (7:23-24), and in the weakness (suffering) of the Cross is making perfect our suffering in Him (7:28). In this, God is building the true tent 8:2, a new covenant which we find (in their place of suffering and exile) in Jeremiah, one that is built not on the sacrifice of the Law, but a sacrifice on the Cross (8:3-5). As he is made perfect in suffering, this suffering leads the way to the liberty we long for (8:8-12), becoming the model and basis for our hope.

The author of Hebrews finds in this distinction between the Priestly Orders some imagery to apply to the Temple itself, something that fits with his emphasis on the building of the Spiritual house, which is the work of Jesus. Under the old Covenant, the Order of Aaron, a Priest offers himself in the temple (and in his weakness) for the “unintentional sins of the people” (9:7). The Hebrews author sees the tradition of the two sections of the temple as symbolic of the old and new covenant, using it to help his Jewish audience understand the hope they have in Christ. There was no way for them to get into the second section. The age of the Old Covenant is then placed alongside the first section of the Temple. The New Covenant established in Christ becomes symbolic for the second section. In Christ’s weakness, just as it was in the priests weakness, the blood which represents his being made perfect in suffering brings about their liberation (eternal redemption), establishing this second section in us (written on our minds and hearts). We are the building, and this truth is “purifying our conscious” from the Law (dead works) so that we are free, in our rest, to serve God in Christ’s resurrection (9:14).

In the Cross, the author of Hebrews sees in the metaphor of the Covenant (a legally bound document of will) the idea that death is what makes a covenant (life will) good. That is when it is established, is when someone dies. This is what the Cross does. In Jesus death, the New Covenant, not as an abolishment of the old covenant but as its fulfillment, is enacted. This is how suffering makes Jesus perfect, is that the greater sacrifice (9:23) is the sacrifice of God Himself (9:23-28). Sin (the Powers of Sin and Death) has been dealt with, so death need not be feared. God’s work is bringing about liberation

This idea of “one” who did something “once and for all” is a reoccurring theme in Hebrews, and it pushes us towards this idea of confidence. Going back to the Priestly Order, the Temple tradition as part of the “Law” reminds us of sin and death every year (10:1-3). Jesus reminds us of life and hope (10:5-7). If all we had was the Law, all we would see is death, which is something God takes no pleasure in. This is why, in Jesus, God remembers sin no more (10:17), and we are called to do the same. Rather than be reminded of death, His death reminds us of life.

Therefore (as the author applies this reasoning to the building argument), draw near in confidence (10:22). Move to maturity by stirring one another up in love and good works (10:24), and fellowship (10:25). For if we go on sinning (sin being the contrasting image of this division), all we will have is the old covenant, a reminder of death and judgment, and a need to enact justice (10:26-27) in futile ways. And yet, as 10:26-31 suggests, if we have fearful expectation rather than rest (in our confidence), how much more will this judgment fall on you who have rejected Jesus? (10:26-31) This is the nature of our way of thinking and seeing this hope within our present circumstance. If all we have is the Law, we are reminded of death, bringing judgment (of Israel’s failure) ultimately back on us. If they have confidence in Christ, they see and find a reminder of the life that is already theirs, what has been given (propitiated). So then, the author says, recall the former days, when you held to the confidence of Christ in your sufferings, and don’t throw away that confidence (10:32-36). Hold onto it so that you can witness to Jesus assurance of liberation (10:39), because “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen (11:1).” Just as Gods creation of the world happened by faith, so is the hoped for liberation of their Covenant promise. And should they question this, just look to their own long history of God working in faith through the Israelites failure (chapter 11). Dont consider their heritage as shame, because God is not ashamed of them. They all (who have died) desired a better country (11:31), and God is in fact making that for them (11:16). God is not ashamed of them, and they are his sons ame daughters. If in all the past earthly pursuits accomplished “in faith” (for the sake of justice and liberation) they feel that they did not recieve what was promised (everyone died rather than finding liberation), rest in the truth that God has provided something even better than they could imagine (11:40). So if they recieved the promise before, how much more will they (and we) receive it in the joy of the cross (12:2), being made perfect in their suffering.

It is for discipline, “maturity”, that they endure (12:7), so make straight paths (for your feet) (12:12), paths built on peace and for holiness. See to it that “no one fails to obtain the grace of God” and that no division happens between you, this rest, and the witness this brings to the world (12:15). If the two covenants and the two sections of the temple can be seen in terms of the kingdom that is being built by God (12:19-24), the author says that “once more” the kingdom will be shaken (12:26-27), only this time all of creation is being shaken for the purpose of  Gods liberating work, to bring hope in the midst of their suffering, their division, and their despair living under the bondage of Sin and Death. Where brotherly love and hospitality reigns, this will bring remembrance of those suffering and oppressed and divided by way of the Cross, the suffering (fire) that is making us new, the consuming fire (of the one who was made perfect in suffering) setting things right in his righteousness (Chapter 12; 13:1-2). So in remembrance, and in their own suffering, enter into the suffering of others bearing witness to the new life they have in Christ. In this way, dont forget Jesus. Remember the witness that brought him to you, and remember the witness of your long heritage. These are working together for your sake and the sake of the world (Chapter 13). Be content and rest in what you have, because this is what Christ propitiated to you. That is the confidence they hold, the good news that pushes them forward on the straight path.

And a young man followed him, with nothing but a linen cloth about his body. And they seized him, but he left the linen cloth and ran away naked.
Mark 14:51-52

I love this small, seemingly insignificant verse. The reason I love it is because of the way it challenges our imagination. It is a verse that is only found in Mark, and it’s curious nature has led to much speculation about whether this was in fact John Mark that it is referencing. We have no way of knowing this for certain of course, but the reason I really like this theory is because of how it helps frames this Gospel tradition, a tradition that has long been associated with Peter. It’s striking that the Gospel (Christ’s work on the Cross) could emerge from such a moment like this, just as astonishing that a work driven by Peter’s own ministry could be willing to depict Peter and the disciples in such a light. It’s such a grand, human expression and it reminds me that in all our messiness, and in all of our questions and fears and doubts, God still works.

The Earliest Gospel, and a Persistent, Undeniable Word
Mark has long been understood to be the earliest of the Gospel writings. Although the author remains ambiguous, as I mentioned it has generally been placed within the tradition of Peter, with John Mark perhaps the same one we encounter along with Peter and Paul’s travels. One of the wonderful things about the Gospel of Mark is how all the evidence for its dating and authorship consistently pushes back on more modern attempts to try and position the writings of the New Testament neatly into a post-exilic, and often very post-exilic framework (no matter how hard one tries, the Gospel seems to want to position itself as being written in the mid to late 50’s, which has definite impact on so many working theories). The Gospel of Mark just refuses to be wrestled down in such a neat and clear fashion, which has this affect of challenging our perception and our ability to categorize these writings in a particular way. In this sense it brings us closer to Jesus and the Cross in a more faith driven way.

The purpose of Mark is simple and clear. It was written to a gentile audience in order to help them learn about Jesus’ Jewish context (within its universal reach). It occupies a distinctive and unique place among the Gospel writings n this regard, and we see in the words of Matthew and Luke the influences of Mark’s intimate concern.

The Beginning of the Gospel of Jesus- Who is Jesus and Where are We Following Him To
Mark begins in a familiar place in the Gospel tradition, establishing its opening words as
“The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the son of God (1:1)”. Mark keeps it simple and concise, moving to connect it to Isaiah as a way of establishing Jesus straight within the Jewish tradition, before then locating this within the ministry of John the Baptist as “the messenger” who is preparing the way for the long expected Jewish Messiah. In a brief 11 verses we are brought from Israel’s prophetic ministry to the ministry of John to the ministry of Jesus, all anchored by the confirming declaration of his baptism, “You are my beloved son.” (1:10) This, as Mark says, is the beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, ‘the son of God”.

Mark’s explanation of the baptism narrative is also refreshingly uncomplicated. The water is John (man), the Spirit is Jesus (God 1:8), which leads to water and Spirit becoming one in Jesus (both man and God 1:9-11). It is the Spirit then that drives this man Jesus into the wilderness (1:12-13), which contrasts with John’s imprisonment (1:14) as both the “sign” of the Kingdom’s arrival (1:15), an important theme that will push through Mark, and of God’s work being set in the context of man’s bondage to Sin. What emerges in an equally brief Temptation Narrative (1:12-13) is that this bondage is a “spiritual” reality, with Mark establishing the central conflict between the Power of the Spirit and the Power of the Devil (or the Power of Sin and Death, which is the Pauline language). As Jesus enters the temple (which he returns to over and over again in Mark), he is established as different than the “scribes” (1:22), and the kingdom then established as different than the one they expect, with a spiritual battle surfacing between the Powers (Jesus and the Demons, which are a visible mark of the healing narratives in Mark) in the midst of the earthly kingdom.

With all of this established in quick succession, we get this declaration that “The time (the Jewish expectation) is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand (1:15).” Leading to the call of the disciples as participants in this kingdom work (1:16-20). This imagery is going to become hugely important for carrying through to the of Mark. Here Mark finally slows down though and settles in with the call to “follow Jesus” to where he is going.  The idea of “following” is a motif in 1:16-20 that opens up this question that will inform the journey in Mark. Who is Jesus and where is it that we follow Jesus to? Mark has established that Jesus is the Son of God, but where He is going is something that has yet to unfold. All we know at this point is that time has both come and is at hand, and what we get in these opening words is this indication that somehow and in someway where we are following Jesus to is into some picture of the wilderness that informs the Temptation Narrative.

The Temple and the Gospel’s Jewish Roots
Jesus journey begins in the temple (1:21) and reaches out (1:29) from house to house. This reemphasizes Mark’s concern for unfolding the Gospel’s connection to these Jewish roots, with the journey beginning in this place.

Just to emphasize Mark’s concern for establishing these Jewish roots, Jesus will return time and time again to the temple, later connecting His ministry to its cleansing, and finally the Temple’s destruction (and rebuilding). When the Authority of Jesus (which contrasts with the declaration that He is God’s beloved Son) is challenged in 11:27-33, Jesus tells a parable in response (12:1-12). The parable is a powerful picture of Israel’s story, a people who rejected the prophets (John in 11:27-33), and who are now rejecting the beloved son because, in some way, they believe that Jesus is the heir to their vineyard and has arrived to take it from them rather than establishing their Kingdom, a Kingdom for their liberation. What, then, will the “owner of the vineyard” do with these people is a question that fits firmly with Mark’s desire to explain the Jewish roots of the Gospel. Will he come and destroy the tenants and give the Vineyard to others? No. This is not how God’s Kingdom is being built. As it was declared in the life of Israel, the stone rejected (Christ) has become the cornerstone. In this way, all is God’s (12:13-17). God is the God not of the dead, but of the living (12:27). Israel’s failure did not leave God devoid of His witness. Rather it opens up the world to his redemptive work. Who’s son is the Christ? He is the son of David, the son of God, which means that He is God’s witness to the world.

Therefore, it says, beware the Scribes who ignore the poor and devour widows (12:38-40), the same Scribes that Jesus describes as leaven working against this Kingdom vision. For the temple (the Kingdom, not the people) will be destroyed (13:1-12) so that this God can be established in Christ for the sake of the world.

Jesus Ministry: From the Desolate Place to the People
Mirroring this movement from the temple to the houses, what we also find in Mark’s gospel is the movement from the “desolate” place to the people (or from the people to the desolate place). In 1:35-39 we see Jesus get up early in the morning and move to this desolate place where he can pray. He then moves from the desolate place to the people where he preaches and heals. It is in going to the people where he encounters a man (a Leper) whom he heals and then instructs to “tell no one”, but rather show proof of his healing by way of the letter of the Law for the sake of the religious leaders (the Jewish roots). Only it says that the man doesn’t do this. Perhaps too hyped up and excited by what he has experienced, he disregards the Law and tells everyone he comes across.

The result of this is that the people now invaded the “desolated” place (1:40-45), and Jesus loses his place to rest and pray. Now we see Jesus praying and resting in the midst of the storms and the people (Jesus asleep in the storm (4:35-41), Jesus retreating to the desolate place to pray when in 6:46 he walks on the water to meet the disciples in their struggle against the wind, Jesus retreating to pray in the Garden of Gethsemane 14:32-42 ). Later, when Jesus extends the invitation for the disciples to come to a desolate place with him to find rest (6:31), the disciples are faced with the same influx of people looking for healing and to be fed and bombarding their place of rest. Here there is this rising tension in Mark’s narrative that exists between the work of Christ and the rest that Jesus looks for in the desolate place.  Jesus’ call to the disciples here is to feed the people rather than protect their place of rest (6:35-44). This is something that informs the scene in the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus returns to the Disciples twice and finds them sleeping as he retreated to pray. The inference that Mark holds in both hands here is the work of Christ now and the work of the disciples in his coming absence. The call is for the disciples to stay awake, for soon they won’t have a physical Jesus, but they will have the poor (in which we find a poor woman anointing Jesus 14:3-9). So  continue to proclaim the Gospel (work) in memory of her, because the Gospel is for the sake of the world. The Jewish roots are meant for the Gentile world. 

Healings, Forgiveness of Sins, and a Jewish Rooted Gospel for Sinners
The call to proclaim the Gospel in memory of the poor woman in the anointing story is anchored by the connection between the healing stories in Mark and the idea of “the forgiveness of sins”. While these healing stories bring to the surface the spiritual battle (God and Devil, Powers of Christ and the Powers of Sin and Death), in 2:1-12 these healings bear witness to the forgiveness of sins in an earthly fashion “in Christ”. As the script is flipped on the idea of the desolate place, and the people in need start crowding into Jesus home and the places of rest, this is where the Gospel of the forgiveness of sins bears witness within its Jewish context to the saving work of Christ for the world. It is this idea of the forgiveness of sins that leads to the conflict between the Jewish leaders and Jesus that emerges in 2:16-17. Jesus is with sinners, and this begins a righteous-sinner paradigm which Jesus applies in Mark’s Gospel to the contrasting imagery of the old and new wine-skins (2:18-22), the picture of the earthly Kingdom of God’s Kingdom. What Jesus is doing here is taking the Spiritual battle and giving it an earthly expression, something he does as this notion of forgiveness establishes tension between Christ and the Law (2:23-28), once again the two competing images of the Kingdom. This is why we return to the same progression of home-people, people-home immediately following in Chapter 3:1-6, where we find Jesus beginning in the synagogue, and then moving out to the people (3:7-12), a movement that is once again set back into that picture of the spiritual battle between the Powers (Jesus and the Demons 3:1-12), the calling of the disciples like we find in the first chapter (3:13-21), and then back home where we see a confusing of the Powers between Jesus and the Devil (3:22-30), which Jesus later describes as a bit of irony.

All of this movement is meant to portray the Jewish roots of Christ in a Gospel for the world. Home (mother and brothers) is now established as the world (whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother 3:35), which leads to a Parable (of the Sower) that is all about this Gospel for the world (4:1-9).

The Parable of the Sower and Christ for the world 
Parables, Mark’s Gospel indicates, are so that “they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear by not understand, lest they should turn and be forgiven.” (4:12) While forgiveness creates tension between the two ideas of “the kingdom”, the Jewish failure to believe throughout their history is so that Gentiles can receive this forgiveness, “for nothing is hidden except to be made manifest (4:2).” The emphasis here is that the Kingdom that they (the Jewish people) are looking for is God’s work (4:26-29; 4:30-34), and God’s work is a saving work in the world, not simply within their history. This is why when Jesus returns home again he says (that bit of irony I mentioned), “A prophet is not without honor, except in his hometown and among his relatives and in his own house (6:4).” This is ironic because of his rejection, but it is also hopeful because his audience is the Gentiles, and by seeing Christ at work within the Jewish people, they can then know that Christ is at work in them. In 7:1-13, Jesus points out the Jews long resistance to God in the prophets (7:1-13). He brings them up to reposition the tension between Jesus and Law within the promise for the Gentiles. What defiles in the eating of food (the Jewish accusation of the disciples according to the Law in 7:2) is compared to the washing of ones hands to eat. Jesus’ intent is to use this a metaphor to say, is it the food that is dirty, or what comes out the other end after we eat that makes hands dirty? This is a raw analogy that is intended to bridge the Jew-Gentile divide, allowing the Gentile faith to find a unifying presence in its Jewish history apart from the Law. The point of Israel is not for them to save themselves by following the Law (eating clean food), it was so that they can be a witness (what comes out) to the world. It is the witness of the Spirit that is their saving work, not the Law. This is the point of that metaphor. This brings positive expression to the following story of the Gentile woman’s faith (7:24-30) and the deaf man, whom coincidentally are told to tell no one of Christ’s saving work in their life (which of course means they tell everyone, because they just couldn’t help themselves 7:36).

From Called To Sent- A Growing Movement and An Unfolding Journey
To emphasize this growing movement, this idea of a journey to somewhere, Mark now goes from the call of the 12 to the “sending of the Disciples” (6:7-13). This coincides with the death of John the Baptist (6:14-29), anchoring this idea of Christ for the world. The spiritual battle is once again positioned back into their earthly reality, with John’s death echoing the Way of Jesus into the wilderness, an earthly expression that is about to find its practical unfolding in the great feeding of the crowds narrative.

The Feeding, the Sign and the Faithlessness 
There are two “feeding the crowds” narratives in Mark, the 5,000 in 6:30-44 and the 4,000 in 8:1-10. While this becomes a practical and earthly expression of the Gospel in full movement (them feeding the hungry that have invaded their personal space), Jesus uses it to make a point about their spiritual reality. In anticipation of the coming Kingdom, they have been looking for a sign, a definitive and earthly example of their liberation. To which Jesus says, “why does this generation seek a sign (8:12)?” Turning the event into a parable, Jesus explains that the loaves were actually the sign they are looking for (8:14-21). The disciples see the loaves as literal food feeding a literal crowd that has invaded their space, but Jesus defines the loaves as Himself. He is the sign, the one who feeds the spiritual and earthly hunger. This is what they were meant for. If we return to that parable mentioned earlier, while they were afraid that Jesus was taking away their Kingdom and giving it to others by feeding the Gentiles (with spiritual food), God is in fact building the Kingdom. When he then says to beware the leaven of the Pharisees and Herod, what he is doing is taking their unbelief in their work and setting it back into the framework of God’s work. As we hear the man looking for healing declare, “I believe, help my unbelief (9:24)”, this connects to the disciples being unable to cast out the demons as an expression of their own unbelief, a people (a faithless generation 9:19) still looking for a sign even though it is standing right in front them.

This unbelief is now merged into an expression of belief as God’s revealing, God’s work, with Peter confessing Jesus as Christ (8:27-30). But this confession comes with the declaration of the way in which they are being called to follow, the first of three foretellings of his death and resurrection. The question at the heart of Mark (where aer we following Jesus to) is now becoming clear. This is the Way into the wilderness (8:34).

And yet as we travel on the Way, we do so in the Power of the Spirit. Jesus, after all, controls the wind and the sea and the Demons (4:35-40; 5:1-20). And yet the Power that Jesus proclaims is a different kind of sign than they were expecting. As we find in the Transfiguration, the continued unfolding of this question (where are we following Jesus to) becomes more clear (9:1-13). As Peter proclaims Jesus, the Spirit of Heaven now joins in the chorus. So, as the son of God comes in the expression of the Prophets (the sign in Jewish history), how is it written that the sign would arrive like this, Jesus asks? But Elijah did in fact come, and he was rejected (indicating John the Baptist) just as the prophets were. And just as he was rejected, so must the Son of Man suffer (9:12-13). We then come to the second foretelling (9:30-32), with the following accompanying proclamation, “the one who is not against us is for us.” This gives a positive force to this Jewish-Gentile movement (9:40), a movement that is shaped around the idea that the first shall be last a servant to the world, establishing those who Jesus came to reach as “children of God (9:37)”. Therefore, let the children come to me (10:13-16), for “it would be better” for “whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin” to have a “great millstone” “hung around his neck” and be “thrown into the sea.”

The Apocalyptic Tradition, Children, Fire and Salt
These words are startling, especially for modern ears, but it it is important to recognize both the language and the context. This passage is framed between two passages which foretell Jesus’ death (9:30-32; 10:32-34), which reveals the way in which they are are to follow Jesus, the way into the wilderness (which coincides with the shared theme of “temptation” which we find in the Jesus’ temptation narrative). It belongs with a passage which finds the disciples arguing about who will be the greatest in the Kingdom of God. Jesus  then raises up a child to explain how it is that God’s Kingdom is going to work, suggesting that the Kingdom of God is for least and the last. They (Israel, we) are to be a servant to all. Whoever receives the Kingdom of God will be a child of God (9:37), therefore receive the Kingdom like a child (10:15), because that is the only way one can enter it. This is reemphasized in the accompanying story of the Rich Young Man, in which the point is that “many who are first will be last, and the last first”, using the money as an example of how difficult it is to enter the Kingdom like a child.

All of this is written in the context of the Jewish-Gentile relationship, and all of it is set within the developing tension of Jesus and the Law, and the Spirit of Power and the Power of the Devil (both of which inform Mark’s entire Gospel). Those who were arguing about who will be greatest are those under the Law. They are trying to argue about who has done more to earn that right in the new Kingdom. In reality, God’s Kingdom is for the world, for the Gentiles, for the oppressed, for the poor, the sick, the marginalized, and the invitation is to come into this Kingdom and receive full embrace. That is what God’s Kingdom is coming to do, to bring justice to the injustice that we find in this world. And the way it does so is by bringing the world into the Kingdom, or building the Kingdom in the world, and thus establishing the Kingdom not by works, but according to the restorative work of Jesus, the work that calls us all sons and daughters of God.

When we bring 9:42-50 in to this picture, we can see in the light of these accompanying sections concerned for these little ones, the Gentile world, the oppressed, the poor, the sick, the marginalized, the least of these. Mark now incorporates hyperbolic language. He doesn’t mean to literally cut off a hand, a foot, or to tear out an eye. He doesn’t literally mean to tie a stone around your neck and throw yourself into the sea. Some people have used this passage in an overly literal way to reinforce a picture of hell as the greatest judgement (9:48) for ignoring the least of these and causing them to sin. But doing that removes this from the force of it’s hyperbolic language and misses (completely) the restorative nature of its final two verses (9:49-50). Here it says “for everyone will be salted with fire”, and this salt is “good” (9:50), not bad. This holds in view the imagery of Jesus’ baptism that we find formulated in other Gospels, in which fire is applied to Jesus as a “refining” work. As people tried to make sense of Jesus’ words and works, especially in His absence, this idea of fire as a refining and restorative Power was part of what had been passed down by Jesus’ teachings and part of what the writers were wrestling with as these letters were composed. Here Mark recalls the tradition of Jesus’ words within the apocalyptic tradition that informed their world, one which would have brought in the language of their time, language that also echoed the Greco-Roman world that surrounded them. Here fire is understood as an image of “judgment” and “destruction”.

Jesus’ words locate fire in a different sense, using it as a metaphor to uncover the work of Jesus, the Power of the Spirit and the growing Kingdom. Everyone, it says, is being salted with fire, a fire which is making salt for the world. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how will you make it salty again? All they will be left with is the fire, a fire which they will then use to keep the Gospel from moving out into the world, a fire which will ultimately consume them as well. Therefore, it says, “have salt in yourself” (9:50). Be “at peace” with one another (9:50). Don’t let the fire become destructive. Instead, let the fire refine you for the sake of the world.

This also forms the interest for 10:1-12, in which he uses the example of a broken marriage and a healthy marriage to emphasize this peace with one another in a practical way, informing their tendency to let the fire divide rather than join together. If we incorporate the whole of the New Testament emphasis here, the Law (Divorce, or the Broken Marriage) reveals Sin (the divide, the destructive fire), and the Sin (the fire) reveals the Light (the Healed Marriage, the healthy Marriage, the salt). That is how the salt and the fire are “good” images. As Paul understood, in Israel’s rejection of the prophets and Jesus, Jesus is being revealed to the world.

Anchoring this even further, as the Rich Young Man calls Jesus “Good” teacher in 10:17-31, Jesus responds with “why do you call me good? No one is good (the question of the Law that informs their need to know who will be “the greatest in the Kingdom) except God alone (10:19).” If he is calling Jesus good, then he is calling Jesus God, which is where Jesus steers his question away from the Law to the Kingdom of Jesus, where the first shall be last and the last shall by first. This is the true riches, the same riches Jesus sets into the reality of Cross which awaits. Just as he tells James and John in their wondering about who will occupy the most respected seat in the Kingdom with Jesus, Jesus’ Cross is built on becoming a servant to all, becoming the least so that the least shall be first. All of this Law that they are trying to raise as the their earned right to the be first and the greatest in the Kingdom is now framed around the greatest commandment as “love God” and “love others” (12:28-34), for the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many.” (10:45) This is what Jesus is doing on the Cross, the image of the servant entering Jerusalem (11:1-11 the image of the new Kingdom, the temple which is being cleansed 11:17), destroyed and raised up again in Jesus (for the world) in triumph, finding victory in his coming death. In this new temple, Jesus’ “house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations” 11:17 That is why the salt and the fire are refining them.

The Fig Tree, A Sign of Faith and The Present-Future Time
The fig tree is a symbol that reemerges in Mark’s Gospel and elsewhere in the Gospel. Here it fits with the question that emerges earlier in Mark about the “signs”. They are all looking for signs that the Kingdom is being established in their midst, but they were missing the fact that Jesus is the sign. As Jesus enters Jerusalem looking to establish God’s Kingdom by way of the servant, we see him retreating to this fig tree on a hill, only to find no fruit. “It was not the season for figs” he says (11:13). When Mark revisits the fig tree in 11:20-25, we discover that the lesson of the fig tree is actually about faith in God, faith in what God is doing in bringing about the Kingdom of God (12:20-25). Instead of looking for sign of God’s judgment on their oppressors, forgive so that they can be forgiven, having the same faith in which Jesus controlled the wind, the seas and the Demons, not the faithlessness which we saw earlier when they couldn’t throw out the Demons. Have the kind of faith that can move a mountain and throw it into the sea, because in Christ all things are possible. In their present circumstance, a Kingdom can be built for the sake of the world. In death there can be life.

The third mention of the fig tree (matching up with the three foretellings of the cross and the 3 denials of Peter) comes in 13:28-31, which pulls this faith into the “signs” of the “closing age”. Here once again we come to this apocalyptic language. The fig tree in the second passage had leaves but no fruit. Here the leaves are said to indicate that the season is upon us. It is coming soon. The destruction of the temple that Jesus foretells in 13:1-2 is a part of this season, with the signs that we encounter in chapter 13 carrying this present-future focus. Just as it says to “stay awake” for the time is upon us in 13:32-37, the disciples who fall asleep as Jesus goes to pray in Gethsemane (14:32-42) are called to stay awake because the time is upon us. This is the thing people often forget when encountering this kind of apocalyptic language. The imagery here for its readers would have been applied directly to their reality at the time. This is how they would have interpreted the hope of Jesus’ liberation. And later, when the destruction of the temple does come, all of this language would have been eventually regathered and applied to the present generation. Chapter 13 has a present-future focus (13:3-27), with all of the language ultimately pointing to the Cross as Jesus’ definite “word” of victory (13:31). The Kingdom will come, but the Kingdom is in fact already here. So stop looking, and get to work. Stay awake. Because the Gospel must first be proclaimed to all nations (13:10).

This is how the ministry works in our waiting, in our present reality. While we apply the language of the Kingdom come, the New Heavens and the New earth, we always apply it to the present with Jesus’ death and resurrection pointing us to the promise of the future restoration. These words of a coming restoration (what is wrong being made right) linger in the air, with the Resurrection shaping them as our hoped for reality and the Cross shaping how we respond to this hope in the present. This is why, as Peter breaks down and weeps in his own failure (denials, which expresses itself as doubt, a lack of faith in what Jesus is doing), the failure is set within the seeming loss of this Kingdom promise (14:72). This becomes the grand movement of Jesus on the Cross in Mark’s Gospel. If the reigning question in Mark is, who is Jesus and where are we following Jesus to, the questions now merge together. As Pilate asks, “are you the King of Jews”, Jesus responds with “you have said so (15:2).” This is reminiscent of the rich young man calling him “good teacher”, and is set alongside the Spirits declaration that says this is the Son of God. We then see this progression in response. They say “Hail the King of the Jews” in mockery as Jesus is marched to the Cross. The “sign” (evoking Jesus as the sign they were looking for) is put over his head saying “The King of the Jews”, and then they once again mock him saying “let the King of the Jews come down” from the Cross (15:21-32). All of this then leads to this sudden declaration that “truly this was the Son of God (15:39), a statement that comes when the Cross is revealed as Power, not weakness. Jesus is the sign they were looking for, and His Kingdom has now come, establishing the Cross as the measure of their faith, the way in which they were and are follow. The shared wilderness in this present reality.

As Mark’s Gospel comes to an end (excluding the added piece in 16:9-10), we find this revealed reality leaving them trembling and in astonishment, followed by the admonition, why are you standing there looking for Jesus (as if they were still looking for the sign). He (Jesus, the sign) has risen and has gone “before you” to Galilee (16:1-8). This is your sign that the Kingdom of God has been established. Therefore, don’t sleep, stay awake. Take up your own cross now and follow Jesus into the suffering of the world, for the time is near. In fact, the time has now come to build this Kingdom for the sake of all.