New Thoughts (12/29/10-12/30/10)
The suddenness of this transition in Matthew’s account, from Jesus in wrathful zeal to Jesus in compassionate healing must lead us to ask why he (and only he) found it noteworthy, and why he records that it was specifically the blind and the lame who were healed on this occasion. What? Were there no mutes left in Jerusalem? No more who were demon-possessed, palsied, crippled in hand or arm? Well, I suppose it would be shocking in the extreme to find lepers cruising the courts of the temple, so that particular category of disease would be more surprising were it noted as having been present and healed on this occasion.
This is curious, isn’t it? Matthew has elsewhere simply noted that Jesus was healing ‘every manner of disease and sickness’ as he wrote in Matthew 4:23. But, here it’s very specific. Blind and lame: These came to Him and these He healed. Why these? I must be careful not to read more into this than is intended. However, if there is significance to be had, it might be found in that passage which comes up in the parallels to this verse – that occasion when the John the Baptist had sent inquiring after the significance of Jesus, seeking comfort and confirmation of what he already knew as he sat in Herod’s prison.
What was the response? “Tell him what you have witnessed for yourselves! Tell him what you have found happening here. Blind men see, lame men walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf can hear! Indeed, the dead are being raised to life and the poorest of the poor are hearing the great good news of the kingdom which is come” (Mt 11:4-6). This was a reminder to John and others who like him wished certainty of this Messiah, as to just what signs were given to identify Messiah. These were laid out by Isaiah in the passage quoted, coming from Isaiah 35:5-6.
Indeed, let me back up a few verses, that we might see the stage being set. “Encourage the exhausted! Strengthen the feeble! Tell those who are anxious to take courage and fear not. Look! Pay attention! See it! Your God will indeed come with vengeance. The recompense of God will surely come. But, He will save you!” (Isa 35:3-4). How, pray tell, shall we know this is coming upon us? Aha! “Then the eyes of the blind will be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then, the lame will leap like a deer, the tongues of the dumb shout for joy. For waters will break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert!” (Isa 35:5-6). This is what Jesus was pointing John to. And, in that message, John must surely have heard that justice would come even for him. The Recompense of God was come and He would save John. That was no less true when they came for his head, and I am quite certain that John faced even that event with the absolute and unshakable confidence of the redeemed.
This, then, provides us with a key by which to understand what Matthew is up to in noting what he notes in this verse. Recall that Lazarus, the walking evidence of the dead raised to life, is right there in the entourage accompanying Jesus. He is, as it were, in their face. He is the witness that cannot be denied, and well do they know it. Yet, they could make one last desperate defense. They had not seen this thing for themselves, and it’s possible, just possible, that the whole thing was a hoax.
But, now! Now, these things are happening on their home turf. Right here, where they cannot really help but see it for themselves, the blind are regaining sight. They must surely be paying attention. The threat to their little profit center here will have stirred them to action like very little else could. So, be assured that they are on the scene to finally stand as firsthand witnesses to what Jesus is doing, what God is doing. Yet, even the restoration of sight leaves room for doubt, doesn’t it? We’ve seen it before. Maybe he was faking that blindness all along, the lazy good for nothing. But, now he’s been caught out. He’ll have to earn an honest wage from now on.
But, the lame? A broken leg would be a mite harder to fake, wouldn’t it? A missing foot would be quite beyond the capacity of the best charlatan to pull off, if you’ll pardon the pun. Likewise, the sudden repair of a broken bone, with the concomitant straightening of the limb would be particularly difficult to miss. As to a missing foot restored? Well, all chance of denial, all opportunity for skepticism is gone for good in the face of that manner of evidence! The sum of it all is that every last excuse for unbelief had just been removed. The chief priests, the scribes, and those who sided with them to maintain the old, now corrupted order had no further defense by which to maintain the righteousness of their views.
This, I think, must be seen as the reason that Matthew is so particularly specific as to what manner of healings were taking place on this most visible, most public occasion. As to why Matthew alone saw fit to mention it; that seems actually to meet his general concerns in this gospel he wrote. Matthew, more than the others, is concerned to make clear that this Christian faith is not some new invention intended as the absolute overthrow of the faith of the fathers, but is indeed very clearly marked out as the culmination of that same faith, the goal towards which God had been moving creation from the outset.
Over and over, we find Matthew noting that this event or that event was the fulfillment of one well known prophecy or another. Over and over, he stresses the linkage between what has gone before and what is now come. He is making the best case he possibly can for his fellow Jews to recognize and acknowledge the Messiah they have so long awaited. It will be clear from the account that even though they might feel themselves responsible, directly or indirectly, for the death of this same Messiah, the mercy and forgiveness of God is greater than their guilt. They may have rejected Him, but they need not be rejected by Him. While there remained breath in them, there remained the opportunity to repent and come to Him for the forgiveness He so longed to impart. The whole Gospel message is the explanation in long form of this very point.
There’s the old, clichéd scene of a smallish classified ad which has been placed in some newspaper in the Big City. It will read something like, “Joe: All is forgiven. Please come home.” We all know how the scene plays out, and we all have a sense of how it has come into the story. There was a row of some sort. At the time, whatever it was that had started the fight had seemed so all-important, so insurmountable. How could it ever be forgiven? How could you ever suppose you could make it up to me. Get out! Just get out, and don’t come back! But, over time that one had come to realize that the issue wasn’t so huge as had been thought at the time. There wasn’t even really a need for Joe to do anything to make up for what he had said or done, because the reality of forgiveness had already come about. Now, there was just the ache. There was just the hole that remained because of a lost comradery, the realization that what should have been a fine and ripening relationship had been cut off prematurely.
So, the ad is posted. It’s not even certain that Joe is still in the Big City, or even, necessarily whether he’s still alive. It’s a desperate act. It’s a last ditch effort to rebuild what was supposed to be. We can sense the anguish of heart behind that posting, and the long days of anxious waiting which will follow upon it. Is he still alive? Will he buy that particular paper? Will he even be bothering to read the classifieds? None of this is certain. And, even if all the pieces fall out just right and he reads it, will he want to be bothered with trying? Oh! So many things could go wrong here, and it would be no small miracle if everything actually worked right. That one who posted the ad knows this, and so do we who are looking on as the scene unfolds.
But, then, this is a Hollywood tale, and we already know that the pieces, having been carefully scripted and directed, will indeed fall just right. We already know that Joe, reading that briefest of notes, will be moved to indeed come home. Oh, if it’s an older period movie, there will be a delay. Joe will be the standard 40’s tough guy, not to be swayed so easily by some sentimental emotion. But, the hook will have been planted and we know full well that he’ll bite eventually. There must be a happy ending, after all.
Well, listen! Every time that scene plays out, we’re witnessing exactly what God is doing in the Gospels. The whole message of the Gospel in brief is exactly like that classified ad. “All is forgiven, please come home.” This is what Matthew is writing to his fellow Jews. This is what Luke is explaining to his fellow Greeks. This is what God is writing to His favorite creation. This is the message that went forth in the life, the death and the resurrection of Jesus the Christ, Son of Man and Son of God. That message has ever been present in Creation. From the moment when Adam and Eve suffered expulsion from Eden up until today and right onward until that moment when God decrees the end, the same message has been built into the very warp and weave of existence. There is forgiveness in Him. Whether it lay ahead, as it had for the forefathers and the prophets, or it lays behind and around us as accomplished, incipient reality, there is forgiveness.
Whatever your yesterday, tomorrow need not be the same. However far you have roamed, thinking there was never going to be any way to return, the truth is you can come home. Dad’s waiting for you. His love is by far and away greater than the pain. There is nothing you could have done, or could yet do that would change His love. There is only that one thing that stands between you and home, and that is to turn around and rush there. It will take nothing more than the earnest, “I’m sorry,” that’s already in your heart to unleash the fullness of that forgiveness, to heal over all the wounds such that they are no longer even to be seen, no longer to be felt. All can be restored. That is, after all, what the shalom of God, the peace of God is all about: restoring everything to the way it was always intended to be.
Listen! The call is there, if perhaps you are reading this and have not yet replied to that ad. The evidence really is more than sufficient. There is nobody asking you to have blind faith. Rather, the request is for you to have faith with eyes wide open. That ad is no accident. Your name is on it. It’s for you and you know it just as surely as Joe did. Come home. It’s not too late. While you still live and breathe, it’s not too late. But, the time will come, friend. The time will come when all chance of return is over, and we are not given to know when that time will be. So, come. His arms are wide open to receive you back into His love, to restore you back into His family.
Looking once more at this Jesus Who has stopped what He is doing to help the helpless, I see a wonderful thing. Though He is indeed consumed by zeal for God’s house, He has not become so consumed as to lose compassion for the children of God’s house. I have noted this elsewhere in preparing my notes, but it bears consideration here: These healings did not happen in some alternate pocket of time. Jesus hadn’t spent an hour or two clearing all the junk out of the court of the Gentiles and then sat down to receive those who needed healing. No, these folks are stopping Him, stepping into His path, doing whatever they can to catch His attention as He storms about in His passion to clean house.
I know how I would be likely to react were I the one in action. I would not take kindly to the distraction. I tend to be a man of focus. If I am on a particular task, then that is the task I am on, and your benighted efforts to get me thinking about some other task are most unwelcome. So, if I were on mission to clean house and these folks kept stopping me from my self-appointed course, the response would be likely to be most un-Christian if I were not careful. True, given such a mission, I might possibly find self-control, but whatever the outer countenance, it’s the inner turmoil that would really tell the Truth.
But, praise be to God! In Him there is no shadow. In Him, the Righteous Lamb of God, outward expression and inner reality are one. In Jesus, what you see truly is what you get. And what they were getting on this occasion was healed. They were getting compassion and mercy from Him Who Is Compassion and Mercy. They were getting, for the moments it took to accomplish their healing, His undivided attention.
To me this is particularly amazing. They were getting His undivided attention in spite of the significance and necessity of what He was doing before they interrupted Him. Now, just as soon as they were healed and on their way again, He no doubt turned back to that original effort with utmost alacrity. But, however great His zeal for the house, however important His mission, it was never given such importance as to preclude compassion. Mission never eclipsed Love.
This is the point that I must dwell on as regards personal application. But, before I do, I would just note something here. As we read through this section of Matthew’s text, the note of healing strikes the senses as being in great contrast. Jesus is wreaking havoc. No. He’s stopped to heal some helpless folk. It feels like such an abrupt shift. Really. Go back to the start of the chapter and read through to verse 22 or so. It’s a roller-coaster ride the way Matthew lays this out. He’s coming as the conquering king! The crowds are shouting His praises! No, wait. Half of them don’t even know who He is. Now He’s in the temple, causing no little disturbance as He clears out the distractions. No, wait. He’s stopped to heal folks. Now, those crowds – at least the youngest of them – seem to have come into that same court and started up their cheers again, and the officials are not amused. Then there’s that poor fig tree, and a lesson to follow. Phew! It’s exhausting just following the course He’s taken.
This is the thing, though: These particular actions, the clearing of the court of the Gentiles and the healing of the sick, are actually of a piece. Arguably, the healings are in fact a clearing of the court in microcosm, if you will. I come back to the fact that we are, each one of us, the temple of the Holy Spirit according to God’s Word. That being the case, our bodies, or portions thereof, might be construed as the courts of the temple, and those illnesses and injuries that beset the body might be seen as akin to the market that had been set up in the court of the Gentiles. They are things that distract from our proper use of the court. The house of God is to be a house of prayer. There is room in that, assuredly, for pleas for healing such as these wounded souls had no doubt prayed. But, if their afflictions had brought them to a place where this was pretty much the whole of their praying, then afflictions had become distractions.
Even if they had not, I think it could be argued that the need for healing often becomes a distraction. This becomes more the case the more unlikely the healing is. I’m not talking about head-cold and achy muscle types of healing. Those are things we know will pass. We might pray that they would pass more speedily, but there’s really no doubt to the issue. Blindness, though? A foot that has perhaps been severed in some accident? Chronic illness, or – God forbid – cancer? What of those things that medical science has not so much as come with a treatment for, let alone a cure? There is one answer left, and that lies in receiving from God as these folks who encountered Jesus received from God. Desperation such as these kinds of maladies will engender has a terribly powerful focusing effect on the mind. There’s really not much room for thoughts about anything but, God heal me.
I watch this in most intimate display as I watch my wife deal with her condition. Oh! My heart breaks to see what she goes through pretty much daily. Yet, the things that desperation leads her into break my heart the more. As if the disease itself were not bad enough, the distracting power of that disease, the way it has turned spiritual attention off of its proper course and made it a wholly earthbound thing: That’s the true tragedy. Oh, don’t get me wrong. That woman has such a great heart for the kingdom. But, when the pain comes, when the symptoms are active, there’s only one great thought of pain and having release from it. It’s all about fix this body now, God! I can understand it. I can empathize with it. But, I cannot condone it.
To be so constantly focused on somehow working oneself up to the point of having earned God’s attention, or to suppose that by repeating the appropriate snippets of Scripture enough times, somehow that will serve to prod Him into action; it’s just so wrong. It so misconstrues Who God Is, and it utterly fails to lay hold of our relationship to Him. Indeed, a large part of this stuff that purports to be the path to getting God to heal you is little different from the idolatrous practices of appeasement practiced by the heathens. It all winds up back at, “If I do this, then You must do that.” That’s not honoring God. That’s supposing you can manipulate Him. That’s the best light you could cast such behavior in. In reality, it’s right back at Baal worship. If I appease the gods, perhaps they will stop afflicting me. If I sacrifice the right thing in the right quantity, maybe He’ll finally be satisfied and at least leave me alone. But, that’s not God. That’s not Who has saved us. Indeed, that’s not even recognizing that He has saved us!
Oh, listen! I know these are not words of comfort to those who are in the midst. I’m sorry. But, it’s a pretty lousy comfort that is built on lies and false expectations. Can He heal? Of course He can. Does He still heal in miraculous fashion today? Yes, I’m sure He does. I’m equally sure that the greater part of what is advertised as miraculous healing by those ministries that are so solely focused on miraculous healing are no such thing. I’m sorry, but that remains my conviction. Yes, I know all about the risk of blaspheming the Holy Spirit, and I know, as well, that many of those who most loudly point out that risk are doing so as a smoke-screen. If I fear to offend the Holy Spirit by checking them out, then I won’t check them out, will I? It’s the same game played by the purported prophets who will forever point you to the verse warning against ignoring the prophet. Funny how they never take you to the passages pointing out the proper judgment upon a false prophet!
I have absolutely no desire, nor any intention of denying that God moves in both of these ways, in the miraculous and in the prophetic. I have yet to encounter a solid argument for supposing that these things are such as were true once upon a time, but are no longer in God’s playbook today. Indeed, He is the same yesterday, today and forever. That said, I am also keenly aware that the enemy of our soul is a master counterfeiter. We are warned severely about that in the very Word of God. He poses his minions as angels of light, seeking to deceive the elect. That’s not going to happen unless the deception is particularly subtle. It takes careful attention to avoid the pitfalls, along with much prayer. We are told, folks, that the antichrist will come with signs and wonders of his own. Yes, it’s true that the planters of the Church went out with signs and wonders at their backs. Yes, it’s reasonable to say that this ought to be true of His ministers today.
But, signs and wonders aren’t the point. If they no longer serve to advertise faith, then I would fully expect that God might cease to employ them as tools. I’m not saying He has. I am saying that if the nature of man today is such that these sorts of things would be more likely to turn him away from God than to draw him to God, it would make perfect sense to me that God would adjust His delivery to what works. I’m not suggesting God is in the seeker friendly game, but I don’t think He’s seeker averse.
I will come back to this very simple point. It holds as valid today as it did when Jesus walked the dusty roads of Jerusalem: every last one of those whom He has healed, right up to Lazarus whom He raised from the very grave – every last one of them died, without exception. When God heals today, that remains true. The final outcome is unchanged. And let me tell you this, as well: Nobody ever went to the grave one moment earlier or one moment later than He planned. You know, I’ve read comments to this effect in the literature of the God wants to heal you now crowd. Oh! Why should you go to the grave early? God’s not going to be pleased if you show up at the house before your time. Listen! He knows the number of your days, and all your days are in His hands. How do you suppose, then, that you could arrive home any earlier than He wants you to? What do you suppose you could do that would thwart His decision as to the schedule? Do you really think that, whether by medicine or by miracle or by whatever means, you can shift His decrees? I tell you, if that’s your thinking, you still don’t comprehend Whose you are! You still don’t know your Daddy God!
OK. That’s enough for that diversion. Let me get back to that point I had come to before I went off on that trail: Mission never eclipsed Love. In fact, it should be said that without Love there is no Mission. The same Love that prompted Jesus to have compassion on the blind and the lame is the Love that prompted Him to chase out the moneylenders and the sacrifice hawkers and every other abuse of God’s house. Love: Love for those whose hearts were in love with God, love for those whose hearts were filled to overflowing with God’s love for them. They are, after all, one and the same group. It was that compassionate love of God that moved Him to heal and it was that same compassionate love of God that moved Him to restore the proper function to God’s house. Indeed, both acts were a restoring of proper function to God’s house.
One quick paragraph on that thought, no more! Returning to the significance of healing the blind and the lame specifically, is this indeed what was being done in the physical courts of the temple? By so corrupting the court of the Gentiles, was it not rather like cutting off the feet of the Gospel, making it impossible for the message to be spread to those most in need of hearing? By turning the provisions of the sacrificial system into a profit-generating business opportunity, were they not blinding the eyes of the people to the Just and Merciful nature of their God? Healing indeed, then, in this clearing of the court!
The thing I keep creeping up on, though, is the model that Jesus has set for my own activities. It’s easy, after all, to get so caught up in the work of ministry that one forgets to actually minister. That ought to sound nonsensical, but to those who serve, I suspect it does not. It sounds like the battle of serving. Let me explain, and in so doing, I’ll try to draw on those particular areas where I either have served or currently serve.
So, consider those who are called upon to provide the music for worship. The attitudes and particulars change from team to team and even from week to week, but the challenges really don’t. See, I can come at the music as a thing of pride, a chance to display my talent. I can come at it with an attitude of the worship team certainly knows better how to do worship than the pastors. They ought to leave us alone and let us do our job! Alternatively, I can come at it with a desire to pray through my instrument. I can come in a very real humility, knowing myself very much unworthy and even incapable of giving to God what He deserves from my hands. I can come with a perspective of sacrifice, of laying an offering before Him. In that attitude, I must surely be seeking His direction for the sacrifice or it will be rendered less than worthless.
But, here’s the best option! I can come with a desire to minister His grace to His people. I can come with the humbling realization that as much as my worship is directed to Him, I am His servant and I am here to serve His people as He sees fit. I can, then, come to worship with the purpose of healing the wounded heart with the balm of His truth. I can come with the purpose of lifting the downtrodden in spirit, that they might be restored to joy as they recall themselves to God. I can worship with a heart of compassion for those in the congregation, with a guiding principle of ministering to them and thereby with far less thought for myself. Isn’t that marvelous? How much better than feeding pride on worship.
Then, let me turn to this business of teaching, which has more of my attention of late. If I am teaching with an eye to demonstrating my knowledge of things, I am of no use. If I am teaching with more concern for maintaining schedule than for seeing and addressing the needs of those being taught, I am of no value. I assure you that both of those pressures exist, ego and schedule. And, I assure you that to the degree they are given any ground, the worth of ministering is reduced exponentially. Oh, God can work in spite of this most imperfect of tools, but how much more effective if I am more concerned for the spiritual needs set before me in whoever may be there than in displays of intellectual prowess or the pressures of time.
How often have I been brought up short by the simple question, “What’s the point?” If you’ve read enough of the stuff I write in these studies, you’ve probably stopped to ask that question a number of times, too. It’s a question I have to keep asking myself, but I have a strong tendency to wander off on less meaningful pursuits, don’t I? But, the question of, “what’s the point?” really ought to infuse both study and teaching. If all I’m doing is reciting facts of historical interest, then there is no point. If all I’m doing is giving you my opinions, and in doing so, I’m giving no thought whatsoever to what’s going on in your life just now, there is no point. It’s all vanity and wind.
Oh, it’s a fine thing to promote the habits of study amongst God’s people. It’s a marvelous good thing to incite them to be in the Word of God on a daily basis, to take it seriously, to invest their spiritual wellbeing in more than just the preaching received of a Sunday. Indeed, it’s worthy of every effort to instill such habits in the children of God. And, we being the rather lazy children we are, it requires every effort to keep us in the habits that lead to life. However!
However, if that’s the whole of it, if we are so consumed with this one task that we fail to perceive the needs in those we are given to teach, then we are failing as teachers. Pure and simple. Again, I turn my attention upon the Jesus I see in this verse. However valid and important the mission He was on, He stopped to meet the need. There was no sense of, “Can’t you see I’m busy?” There was nothing of, “Don’t you see that what I’m doing right now is of far greater import than your foot? We can get to that tomorrow.” No. Nothing He was doing struck Him as more important than addressing the needs of one individual.
It is well and good to have our schedules. Schedules serve a purpose, and they allow us to coordinate our activities one with another. But, if our schedules are such that we give God no room to move, that we give no room for ourselves to respond to God, then our schedules need to change. I’m not willing to go so far as to say our schedules need to be thrown out, for we do serve an orderly God. He, after all, laid out the grandest of schedules. It’s there in the course of the planet about the sun, setting an orderly schedule to our days. It’s there in the flow of history as we watch the things spoken at the gates of Eden playing out according to His perfect schedule here within the gates of Jerusalem. Of course, there is a place for schedules amongst His people. But, it’s His schedule which matters. The question has to be asked, is there room in our schedule for His? If there isn’t, then something is clearly wrong.
His schedule has a place for compassion. His schedule has time for each individual that needs time. His schedule can set aside the teaching for awhile if the need of the moment requires something different. His schedule can allow worship to continue past its allotted minutes if that’s what will best address the hearts of His children. His schedule can set everything aside and just pray, or, though that might shock our sensibilities, set the prayer aside for a time to just listen to the preaching of the Word. We have our order of worship (and don’t kid yourselves, you non-denominational sorts, you have an order of worship, too, whatever you may choose to call it). We have our order, but we need to constantly seek out His order, lest we fall into that same rigidity of tradition that sent the Pharisees into the spiritual weeds.
His order will always be a compassionate order. His order will always have our eyes open to the need around us and amidst us. His order will always have a place for stopping what we’re doing because what we’re doing isn’t doing it. His order, just now, says I need to pray.
Lord God, You well know that much of the time I wonder if I even have that heart of compassion in me. You well know just how terribly true are those misguided motivations I have been commenting on, and You know that I have been subject to every one of them. The season of my service in worship is past, whether or not it is to be resumed in future. Now the season of teaching is upon me, and I see these pitfalls. I pray, Holy Spirit, that You will not allow me to become a teacher of no value, a heartless professor too full of self to be of service to Your children. Fill me, my Lord, with a due humility, with a recognition that I am but a poor servant and ill equipped to do much of anything without Your hand to guide me.
More than that, my God, I pray that You will keep my eyes open to the spiritual condition of those whom I may be granted to teach. Yes, there is much hurt in the house, as You well know, but I am new to this place and may not be aware (thankfully) of the dynamics going on. I don’t, really, ask that You make me aware of those dynamics, except as may be needful to minister the healing of those dynamics. I pray, mostly, that You make of me a teacher mindful of the needs of his students. If I am to be an under-shepherd for You even in this limited capacity, then, Lord, make me an under-shepherd such as You would be pleased to have in Your employ.
Let me never take lightly the privilege You have entrusted to me in this! It is no small thing to teach Your Word, but a thing to be handled with utmost reverence, with fear and trembling even. Keep me mindful, therefore, of my finitude. Keep me, Lord, in the place of humility from which I am best able to see Your glory.
