Here's Jesus,

but the controversy about who he is continues.

Matthew 13:53-58

Let’s take a look at this chart. It shows where we’ve been and where Matthew’s taking us. No. 1 Jesus: Being a descendent of David, his birth announced by angels, born of a virgin, visited by kings, affirmed by both God and the Holy Spirit, withstanding the temptations of Satan and fulfilling one scripture after another, Jesus was without a doubt the promised Messiah.

No. 2. What he did: His authoritative preaching announcing the coming of the kingdom and describing its citizens and his healing all sorts of diseases and raising people from the dead showed that he was the promised Light to the Gentiles.

No. 3. His Passion: Finally, his passion for the harvest showed why he came: to call and train disciples to be reproductions of himself who would all reproduce their lives in the live others reaping many lives for God’s eternal kingdom.

Look at the questions Matthew has answered for us.  They are similar to this Google search.

Matthew has painted a vivid picture of the Messiah, his message, his miracles and his motivation. He has set the stage for what will come next: A mushrooming of disciples. A groundswell of support. An abundant harvest.

Matthew 13:53-58. Page 1152.

  53 When Jesus finished telling these parables, he left that place 54 and went back to his hometown. He taught in the synagogue, and those who heard him were amazed. “Where did he get such wisdom?” they asked. “And what about his miracles?

 The enthusiasm is mounting . . .

55 Isn’t he the carpenter’s son? Isn’t Mary his mother, and aren’t James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas his brothers? 56 Aren’t all his sisters living here? Where did he get all this?” 57 And so they rejected him. Wow! Not what we were expecting.

Jesus said to them, “A prophet is respected everywhere except in his hometown and by his own family.”  58 Because they did not have faith, he did not perform many miracles there.

 This reads like an O. Henry short story - all the evidence about Jesus followed by such a shocking verdict by the hometown crowd. They rejected him. What is O. Matthew doing?

 For one thing, Matthew is working with at least several different audiences:

1. There were the people who were Jesus’ audience during his lifetime like these in home town. They were on the scene before Matthew started writing. They didn’t have the whole picture.

2. There were the Jewish believers who read his gospel shortly after it was written.

3. There were the Gentile believers, same time.

4. There were nonbelievers of all stripes.

5. There were the readers yet to be born.

The first people to read Matthew’s gospel were probably already Christians. Even so they would have had a lot of questions about their newfound faith and its Founder. Reading this gospel would have put the pieces together, deepened their understanding and clarified the vision for their own purpose and mission.

Chapters one through thirteen would have been a great Adult Ed class for new Christians in AD 65.

Who was Jesus? What did he teach? What did he do? What was his passion? What was Jesus calling his followers to do?

But this was only the first half of Matthew’s gospel. There was much more that they need to grapple with. 1. They needed to understand that not everyone responded to Jesus in the same way. 2. They needed to know there was more to Jesus than his teaching and miracles. 3. They needed to know that there was more to the harvest than good deeds.

Some people like the early Christians encounter Jesus’ wisdom or miracles or both. And through them they come face to face with him. His word is planted in their hearts and they acknowledge that Jesus is their Lord and that they are sinners in needs of his forgiveness. They don’t separate Jesus from his wisdom or miracles. They are his fruits. There’s an eternal connection with him.

Other people are like the Pharisees who encounter Jesus’ wisdom and miracles. But they also discover that he doesn’t agree with their worldview. Because they’re stubborn and their beliefs are set, they oppose Jesus. They claim there’s something improper going on. They have a more enlightened approach.

Other people are like the people in Jesus hometown. They are amazed by the wisdom and the miracles but they can’t get past the fact that Jesus was the brother of the flawed people they knew personally. Today people are turned off to Jesus for the same reason. They see the flawed people who Jesus says are his brothers and sister (his followers) and they can’t get past that connection. They see too much hypocrisy and they can’t see Jesus for who he really is.
  Let’s take a closer look. The people in Jesus hometown had seen him grow up. They knew Mary and they knew his brothers and sisters. Jesus was one of them, their equal, their peer. He was just another Joe Six-Pack from Nazareth.

Still they couldn’t help but be amazed by his wisdom and miracles. They wanted to know where they came from. They were sure they didn’t come from him. They knew he was as ordinary as his family, as ordinary has they were. That was a fact. There was no way he was the Messiah. Uh-uh!

They acknowledged the wisdom and the miracles, but they didn’t belong to Jesus. They were some kind of an add on. Something he’d picked up somewhere. It was like he was an impersonator.

People have fallen for a version of this mistake ever since.  They recognize that there is divine wisdom and power in the world, but others beside Jesus have access to them. Jesus is just one of many. However, they put it together, Jesus is just another human being. And in coming to that conclusion they reject him.

The only way to receive Jesus is to receive him as he is, the Messiah, the Savior of the world, the Son of God, the Creator of the universe, the Lord of lords and King of kings.
 If we look at his chart again, we see that the people in Nazareth accepted the miracles and teaching. They rejected the Messiah part and as a result they also ignored the harvest. They didn’t know God. [Image.]

That’s why Matthew zeroed in on their mistake. If Matthew had stopped writing here, if this is all the information we had on Jesus, we would have another fine religion. We would have a religion based on the best ethical teaching and good works.

That means we could take the teaching and divorce it from the person who taught it and it wouldn’t make any difference. We could do good deeds and mission and unhook them from Jesus and not suffer any loss. But obviously we need the whole Messiah package. We lose everything without it.

This passage in Matthew is a transition that signals that something very important has not been addressed yet – at least not in full.

Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers? and Where then did this man get all these things?” are questions that need more attention. People continue to supply the wrong answers so we’ll keep reading this gospel to see what Matthew does to counter them.

Prayer

Colossians 1:9-14

    Lord God, Creator of all, our Father in heaven, fill us with the knowledge of your will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. Help us to live a life worthy of you so we may please you in every way.  Cause us to bear fruit in every good work and to grow in the knowledge of who you are. Strengthen us with all power according to your glorious might so that we may have great endurance and patience. Enable us to joyfully give thanks because you have qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. Thank you for rescuing us from the dominion of darkness and bringing us into the kingdom of the Son you love. We praise you for in Jesus we have redemption and the forgiveness of sins.

 Lord God, we pray that you would do great and mighty things in the world that would show the nations that you are the one true God. Pour down your healing power, your wisdom and your strength on those in need and on those who suffer. We pray for those who grieve the loss of loved ones, for those who are hospitalized, for those who have lost physical, mental and emotional health and for those who are spiritually blind and lost.

Youth Message

How did Jesus do the miracles?

Jesus did amazing things. He healed blind people so they could see. He healed lame people so they could walk. He spoke to the winds and seas and told them to be quiet and they obeyed. He spoke to dead people and they came to life. We couldn’t do any of these things. They’re called miracles. How did Jesus do them?

1. Some people say Jesus didn’t do them. They say people just made these stories up to fool us.

2. Some people said that Jesus got power from the devil to do these things.

3. There are powerful forces in Star Wars: The dark side and The Force but that is just make believe.

It’s the same with Super Heroes like Bat Man and Super Woman. They don’t really exist.

4. Another possibility would be that Jesus used magic. But after healing thousands of people, you would think someone would have caught on.

 So how did Jesus do it? That’s right he had his own power because he was God. He spoke and the world came into being. He spoke and the blind could see. He spoke and people were raised from the dead. That’s who Jesus is. He is very powerful and he’s real.