When I was in high school I tried to play the major sports. I played football my freshman year, basketball my junior year, and of course baseball. At the school I was attending there was only one sport I hadn’t played and that was soccer. So for my senior year, I played fullback. I had a good time overall, but it was way to much running for me. But one of the things that was always a problem, both in basketball and soccer was our uniforms. I had a baseball coach that thought that uniforms made a team. That if you looked good, you would play good. Of course when your practices hardily involve actual training, it won’t matter how good you look, you’ll never play well. But there is something to say about how uniforms do impact your ability to play the sport properly.
This particular school was very conservative, to the point that for our basketball and soccer uniforms, we had to wear athletic pants. Now, in basketball it was hard, but I found that in soccer it was almost unbearable. It was hotter that fall then unusual in Northern California, and running around the soccer field in black pants, that gave no air circulation was horrible.
And so, a group of us approached the principle and requested a change. We suggested, since we wore knee high socks, that we could wear shorts and still see the conservative standards. The principle sat us down and told us that he agreed that our uniforms were restrictive and that it would help us to wear shorts, but he shared with us something that has stuck with me ever since. He told us that we were under his authority, but he was under the authority of the school board. He told us that it was like an umbrella in the rain. While we stood under the umbrella’s canopy we wouldn’t get wet, but when we stepped outside that canopy the rain could hit us. This was the same with authority. When we stand faithful under the authority God has placed over us, it keeps us from certain attacks. But when we step out from under that authority, we are more vulnerable.
Now I still disagree with the no shorts policy, but I have come to respect the authority. And it’s the necessity of Jesus’ authority in our lives that brings us back into our Matthew series today where we’ll be returning to chapter 12. And as we return to Matthew 12, starting in verse 1, lets recap where we are.
So far, we’ve covered two sections, and have been two weeks into the third. In the introduction of Matthew’s third section, we talked about how this section was going to be focused on the kingdom of God and the disciple’s place in it. This was done through Jesus’ acknowledgement of John the Baptist being the greatest person who ever lived, yet the least in God’s kingdom would be greater that him. This led us to ponder what it means to be a disciple in the kingdom of God. Where, in that first week, we came away with the understanding that God desires his people to have a repentant heart and to walk humbly with him.
From this basis, we started to look at how Matthew structured the rest of his chapter, and I relayed this mirroring that Matthew is doing. This mirroring occurs when Matthew gives us to complementary situations from Jesus’ life at opposite ends of the narrative, that help build on each other. This leads to a better understanding of who Jesus is and who we are in relationship with him. And so last week we saw the mirror of Jesus’ teaching on being yoked with him, with being a part of his family when we do the will of God. To be yoked to Jesus is to be led and support by him, and when we do this we will accomplish the will of God, because it is God who is accomplishing it through his humble servants.
This now leads us into the second two mirror passages where we will be picking it up in Matthew chapter 12, verse 1. As we read today, we’re going to look at each passage individually and see how they complement each other at the end. So let’s begin reading in Matthew 12:1.
1 At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of grain and eat them. 2 When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, “Look! Your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath.”
3 He answered, “Haven’t you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? 4 He entered the house of God, and he and his companions ate the consecrated bread—which was not lawful for them to do, but only for the priests. 5 Or haven’t you read in the Law that the priests on Sabbath duty in the temple desecrate the Sabbath and yet are innocent? 6 I tell you that something greater than the temple is here. 7 If you had known what these words mean, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent. 8 For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”
9 Going on from that place, he went into their synagogue, 10 and a man with a shriveled hand was there. Looking for a reason to bring charges against Jesus, they asked him, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?”
11 He said to them, “If any of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will you not take hold of it and lift it out? 12 How much more valuable is a person than a sheep! Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.”
13 Then he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” So he stretched it out and it was completely restored, just as sound as the other. 14 But the Pharisees went out and plotted how they might kill Jesus.
Here we’re given two situations that follow each other. In the first, Jesus is being confronted by a group of Pharisees that are upset because his disciples are picking grain as they walk through a field on the Sabbath, or the day of rest. These Pharisees are upset because they interpreted God’s probation of working in Exodus 20:9-10, so strictly that they couldn’t allow any nuance from it. As we’ve talked about it before, that the rabbinical tradition added so many other additional rules to God’s command that it would be impossible to follow all of them.
To counter this strenuous reading, Jesus points to both necessity, in the case of David eating the bread (1 Samuel 21:1-6), and God’s command, in the case of the Priests preparing animals for sacrifice, as ways to show how the Pharisees’ interpretation was flawed. These examples show that the Sabbath was not to be so strict as to confine humanity to serving the day. Instead the day was meant to serve humanity as Mark records in 2:27 when Jesus says in this same situation, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.”
But’s its Jesus’ words, “the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath,” that are really the focal point of Matthew’s presentation of this moment. These words point the Pharisees, and us, to the realization that Jesus is the rightful interpreter here, he is greater than the Sabbath because he is the originator of the Sabbath’s institution.
This then leads into following situation where Jesus is asked by the Pharisees the question, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?” This question moves beyond just the Sabbath and gets at the heart of the law. What is more important, man made rules to follow that add to the Word of God, or the purpose of the law?
In this case Sabbath keeping, the purpose of the law, was to be have people restored by God from the week’s work. It was a time to enjoy life. To share life with others. To experience the fruits of one’s labor, instead of endlessly toiling away until death.
The Pharisees seem to think by adding rules they are promoting more rest, when in actuality they are increasing the work load. Instead of taking a break to enjoy God and what he has blessed a person with, we have to start worrying, did I do it right? Did I walk under the required steps, did I do everything in the right order?
By adding rules to the rest, there is no room for mercy or healing of wounds. The purpose of the Sabbath is lost, because it’s for the healing of wounds that the Sabbath was established. This is the thrust of Jesus’ answer. Jesus again gives an example of how a Pharisee would do something good that would help themselves out, i.e. saving the sheep, but would they do good to help another person out?
Here Jesus calls us to follow the purpose of the Sabbath which is rest and restoration, and so doing good is in keeping with that purpose. Jesus’ teaching here and his direct affirmation of being Lord of the Sabbath, shows us that we are to recognize Jesus’ word on the subject as overriding all others.
He is the Lord, and therefore we must follow his lead. That means not being beholden to man’s addition to God’s word, but to Jesus’ word itself.
This Lord motif is then mirrored in verses 38-45 of chapter 12. So let’s jump down to verse 38 and read.
38 Then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law said to him, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from you.”
39 He answered, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. 40 For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. 41 The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now something greater than Jonah is here. 42 The Queen of the South will rise at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for she came from the ends of the earth to listen to Solomon’s wisdom, and now something greater than Solomon is here.
43 “When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. 44 Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. 45 Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first. That is how it will be with this wicked generation.”
In this situation this group that comes to Jesus is most likely a different set of Pharisees who are seeking a sign so that they might believe. Remember, this follows many, many signs, the most recent of which is the man with the crippled hand being healed. But maybe these people hadn’t seen Jesus’ miracles, they have just heard about them, and so they asked for a sign.
Jesus’ response speaks to a greater problem that permeates a lot of people. Who wouldn’t want a sign from Jesus? Who hasn’t asked for a sign? Children and adults alike say a prayer like, “if you do this Jesus then I’ll do this.” Pop atheists cry out for evidence from Jesus, saying, that they don’t know what they want, but God should show them something anyways. These requests of God for signs all have their roots in a misunderstanding of who Jesus is.
Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath, he decides what will and will not be shown. We try to control God, to place ourselves as his lord, by demanding signs and wonders from him. Yet, what did that do for the Pharaoh who saw the miraculous plagues yet would not let God’s people go? What good did the signs at Mt. Sinai do for the Israelites who traded God for a golden calf? What good did the fire at Mt. Carmel do for Elijah who ran away at the fear of his own death?
Though signs are wonderful to experience, they cannot be the bases for our relationship with God. When we think that without signs, we cannot follow, what we are actually doing to is placing ourselves as master over God. We are carrying our own burden, our own yoke, because we are not interested in the will of God, but our own.
And so Jesus says to the Pharisees, and the Holy Spirit relays to us, that the sign that we need is the the sign of Jonah, the sign of Jesus’ death and resurrection.
It’s the death and resurrection of Jesus that Paul states in 1 Corinthians 15:13-14, “If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.”
The death and resurrection of Jesus is the linch pin in the disciple’s faith; do we believe it or not?
These two understandings of who Jesus is, he is the Lord crucified and resurrected, that make all the difference. It is Jesus’ Lordship and sacrifice that makes the light yoke we as his disciples are to take, possible, and the reason why we should follow his will. The often quoted passage from Romans 10:9 is, “If you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”
Do we realize that this is everything that we just read, summed up? Matthew is showing us that Jesus is Lord, because his interpretation of the Sabbath is correct, because he instituted the day. Then Matthew shows us that the greatest sign God could give is the death and resurrection of Jesus himself. If we believe these things, Jesus is Lord and he has been raised from the dead, then we are his disciples, who have taken on his yoke, walking humbly in the will of God, with a repentant heart.
We need to stop seeking signs for our own self gratification, but rather seeking God to reveal himself as Lord of our life, and Savior of our souls. Does that mean we cannot ask for God’s miraculous work? No, but we cannot hold it as a prerequisite to our following him. We must be yoked to the Lord, allowing him to accomplish his will in our life, being satisfied with only his Lordship and resurrection.
When we’re satisfied with this one sign, then no place which he will lead us becomes unbearable, no calling on our life seems out of line, and no sacrifice he requires of us seems unneeded. For he is the Lord, the resurrected Savior, and he can take me where he wills.
This week I want to challenge you to memorize and wrestle with Romans 10:9. Every day read through the verse and spend sometime reciting it, so that you may memorize it. And as you do begin to ask yourselves two questions:
First, is Jesus Lord of of my life. That means he has dominion and control over ever aspect. There’s nothing in your life that he doesn’t have access to. His word on the subject is greater than yours or any other persons. Is that true? If not, seek God to be Lord of your life. To lead you in his will, to change your thoughts and actions to what he wants, so that you are yoked to him.
The second question is, are you satisfied with the sign of the resurrection, or do you require more from God before you’ll follow him? That means that you might want a miraculous healing, but if it does’t come will you be satisfied because Jesus is resurrected? That means that you might want God to intervene in a certain situation, maybe justifying you in front of others, but if he does’t will you be content in his resurrection?
It’s hard to have Jesus as Lord based on nothing but his resurrection for two reasons: First, it’s hard to give up control, and second, we weren’t there for the actual event. But if God’s Word is true, and I know that it is, then the better path is Jesus’. The lighter way is Jesus’. The more fulfilling way is Jesus’.
So let us be a people that seek the Lordship of Jesus in our lives, and are satisfied with the resurrection as our confirmation of Jesus’ truth. Amen.
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