Matthew 11-12
- John the Baptist wasn't sure. Chapter 3... John declares that Jesus is the coming Messiah. Chapter 11... John is in prison and not so sure anymore.
Have you ever noticed this story here? John the Baptist (the coming "Elijah"/prophet) starts to wonder if Jesus truly is the Messiah. This truth is essential to understand to understand any of the Jews in Jesus' time.
John and every other Jew reads the Old Testament and is expecting the Messiah to come and to "free them." They are expecting God to save them through this Messiah. They are expecting a King to come and to rule over the world.
Enter Jesus (the Christ... the Messiah). Jesus is a homeless guy who does miracles. Jesus is not a King. Jesus is not overthrowing Caesar. Jesus is not freeing the Jews and ruling the world. He's just a homeless guy who hangs out with other homeless guys.
Things start to go bad for John. He gets put in prison. I don't think this is the ministry he thought the "Elijah" prophet was going to have. He's probably thinking that he was supposed to be Jesus' right hand man for global domination.
This whole idea doesn't really fit into American church doctrine too well.
- Jesus is more of a figurative guy than literal. Listen to Jesus' words... "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light."
I have heard this verse my whole life and this has never, ever, ever made sense... unless Jesus is speaking about eternity.
Jesus' says that His yoke is easy and His burden is light. Last time I checked, Jesus suffered possibly the most painful and humiliating death in the history of mankind. He was rejected by his family. He was betrayed by one of his best friends. He was denied by his strongest partner in ministry.
Sounds easy to me... or is He talking about eternity. Is that why God calls it "My rest?"
I don't think that life on Earth should ever be easy for Christians. If it is, then we aren't living for Christ "hard enough."
I think Americans miss this one too. We hide behind our freedom of religion and avoid any persecution. In fact, we have no idea what persecution is. We think that having a Democratic President who wants universal health care is persecution (oops... I'm not talking about politics).
- Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath. Have you ever noticed that we have swung the pendulum to the complete opposite side of the Pharisees when it comes to the Sabbath?
In Jesus time (and in the Old Testament), Sabbath meant you do absolutely nothing all day, except go to the temple. That was it. You aren't even allowed to blink. Ok... that may be a stretch (which they weren't allowed to do either), but you get the picture.
And in 2009 America, Sabbath means go to church on Sunday morning... unless I stayed out too late on Saturday night. Sabbath = an hour at church.
I might get called legalistic for this comment, but I think it is Biblical. If not please let me know why it isn't...
Christians need to get back to what Sabbath was intended for. It was intended to be a holy day each week in which you (a) didn't work, (b) focused on God, and (c) sacrificed something to God.
How did 24 hours of meditation on God turn into 20 minutes of singing and 40 minutes of preaching?
- A house divided cannot stand. This is one of the most quoted phrases by Jesus that most people have no idea the context of.
Jesus is being accused of driving out demons, because Jesus is Satan. So, Jesus makes the comment that if Satan was driving out his own demons, he would be hurting his own cause. Then, Jesus says the famous quote "a house divided against itself will not stand."
Somehow this has turned into a sports joke for people from opposite colleges.
The truth here is that Jesus is being called Satan. Jesus makes it very clear that He is not Satan and that if He we Satan, He would be an idiot.
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