Reading: Matthew 3-4, Psalm 82

We begin Matthew’s account of Jesus’ active ministry today, and while the passages are pretty brief, there is a huge amount going on. The New Testament writers were writing in a time and place when wordiness couldn’t be a primary value for authors- writing was too expensive. So they said a great deal in a small number of words. Matthew certainly fits that description.

While we are now moving from the “origin story” to the active ministry of Jesus, one thing does not change in Matthew. He continues to heavily rely on the authority of the Hebrew Scriptures for everything he is saying. John comes as the fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah. Jesus combats Satan in the wilderness by quoting from Deuteronomy and Isaiah. His travels around Capernaum are called a fulfillment of another of Isaiah’s prophecies, and his calling of the apostles as “fishers of men” is a direct link to Jeremiah. Despite words being precious, Matthew is making absolutely sure that his readers understand that Jesus is pulling together the story of the Hebrew Scriptures in what he is doing.

Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. Matthew has both John and Jesus using this statement as the beginning of their ministry. Without going too far down the rabbit hole of Biblical Greek, let’s just say that is at hand is a pretty weak translation of the very urgent message in the language Matthew uses. He has John and Jesus telling the crowds that the Kingdom of Heaven is immediately upon us. The decision time is past due. The Kingdom is walking up to you Right Now. In the case of John, Jesus then walks up. In the case of Jesus, he then goes out and calls disciples. Matthew places the declaration of the Kingdom of Heaven right before its present fulfillment in the person of Jesus and the beginnings of the Church. It is another way for his say that This Is The Guy we have been waiting for!

Then there is the phrase Kingdom of Heaven. Couple of things going on here. By this time, Jewish writers were already beginning to leave out the word “God” from their writing, replacing it with the word “Heaven”. It had already replaced the word we translate as “Lord,” God’s self identity from Exodus as the “I am who I am.” Now they begin to see even writing “God” as disrespectful of his holiness. So there start to appear references to the “Kingdom of Heaven” in Jewish writing to talk about God’s kingdom. This creates confusion for those of us raised with a certain conception of Heaven, Earth, and Hell. Jesus and John talk about the Kingdom of Heaven coming to earth, but then it seems to attach to the person of Jesus and his disciples. Almost as if the Kingdom of Heaven were less a location, and more a person. I’m skipping a bunch of possibilities and reasoning here, but I think Matthew is pretty deliberately equating the presence of Jesus with the arrival of God’s Kingdom, which he called the Kingdom of Heaven. This is less odd when we think about the history of Monarchies. Up until pretty recent times, what we now think of a country was defined not so much by territory or ethnicity or language or culture as it was by a person, the King or Queen. The Monarch literally was the presence of the nation. Matthew sees Jesus this way. Where he is, the Kingdom of God has arrived. Where he is not, it is not.

This plays out a little bit in John’s warning that he who comes after me is mightier than I…He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. Matthew has John representing the Hebrew Prophets, in his quote from Isaiah, and his association with Elijah with his leather belt and camel hair robe. The imagery is pretty thick, and students of the Hebrew Scriptures would recognize what John was right away. But then he gives this warning about the Kingdom of Heaven and about One Mightier than I. As the prophets pointed forward to the Day of the Lord and the coming of the Messiah, those same Jewish students of Scripture would look at that expectantly, only to be met in the next scene with Jesus of Nazareth.

Okay, lots to say about that, but have to move on. We have John baptizing Jesus in the Jordan river. Recall the various crossings of the Jordan back in the grand history of Israel? Jesus did that. We have a really interesting scene in which the Spirit descends on Jesus while a voice from Heaven declares his authority. There is a ton I could say about the doctrine of the Trinity here, but I’ll save that for another day. Suffice it to say that Matthew is again making it clear the Jesus is the Messiah the Jews have been waiting for. Then we have Jesus driving by the Spirit to the wilderness and being tempted by the devil, who attempts to manipulate him into disobedience through clever words. He tries to get Jesus to look at all the glories of the world and reach out to take them for himself. Sort of like a delicious looking fruit that promises godlike knowledge of good and bad. Jesus responds, not out of his own words, but out of the words of the Scriptures. He not only refuses to reach out and take, he refuses even to directly argue with the tempter. More even than that, he was only there by the leading of the Spirit in the first place! If the Hebrew Scriptures tell us that the beginning of the human problem was placing our own will above God’s (and I believe it does), then Jesus passes the test that Adam failed in overwhelming fashion. Nothing about that scene has Jesus using his own will at all, instead acting entirely within the will of God.

Okay, there is still so much more to say, but I’ll save it for later. The book of Matthew is setting us up for Jesus to deliver a speech which will last for several chapters. Probably the most read speech of all time, and certainly the most famous sermon, the Sermon on the Mount is the unpacking of the theology of the Hebrew Scriptures, and will blow the minds of the people listening to him.