Four Portraits

Matthew – all creation finds its fulfilment in Jesus Christ

·         I took my daughter to see Legally Blonde the musical on Thursday night.  Claire loved it.  All the way home in the car she raved about it.  She’s still singing the songs and tells all her friends about how good it is.  For me, not so good.

·         My son Matt went camping last weekend with his friends.  It rained on Sunday night, bucketed down would be a more appropriate phrase.  Matt sat in the tent, played cards and waited for it to pass, and enjoyed his time with his friends.  He tells us that one of his friends was miserable to the point of wanting to go home, right there in the middle of the storm.  Just get in the car and drive.  This was the worst experience of his life.

·         As humans we can all look at the same experience in life, watch the same musical, go to the same place, meet the same person, witness the same event, yet the story that we tell about that event can be markedly different. 

·         We have a lens through which we filter our experience.  A lens based on personality, previous experience, outlook in life, expectations and desires.  And this lens affects the way that we report on the event.

·         Today we start a series called Four Portraits.  Over the coming weeks we’re going to look at the four gospels we find in the New Testament.  Four gospels, where there is some similarity, especially between Matthew, Mark and Luke which are known as the synoptics. 

·         There is a unity between the four gospels, they all bear witness to the one Jesus, tell of his mission to bring salvation to this world.

·         But there is also diversity.  Each author looks at Jesus from a different perspective.  They write from a different background, they write with a different audience in mind, they write to address different situations in life.  And these factors influence the portrait of Jesus that is presented through words.

·         Because a gospel is not a biography.  A gospel is the euangelion, the good news that is presented to the people.  In Jesus’ day, the Roman emperor would send a gospel message to the towns in the empire.  It was the good news of a great victory he’d won in war.  It was a message to improve his standing and make himself appear to be a greater leader. 

·         The gospels stand in their own literary genre.  They are historical record, they are a narrative that tells a story and they are theology speaking of God’s involvement with humanity.

·         Our gospels are the announcement of the good news of Jesus Christ.  It is therefore technically incorrect to say the gospel of Matthew.  It is the gospel, the good news, according to Matthew.

·         So over the coming weeks we’re going to look at each of the gospels. And we start today with the gospel according to Matthew.

·         We start by asking what may appear an obvious answer, who wrote this gospel?  We’re all likely to say Matthew, but why?  Nowhere in the text does it say that he wrote it.  The introductions and headings in our bibles are only additions by the publishers.

·         Amongst biblical scholars there is most debate over the author of this gospel.  The most likely candidate is Matthew the tax collector.  In Matthew 9:9-13 we read of Jesus saying to Matthew “Follow me” and then having a meal in Matthew’s house. 

·         Papais was a bishop and Christian author in the 2^nd century.  He wrote, “Matthew compiled the gospel in the Hebrew language and everyone interpreted them as best they could.”  It’s not a conclusive statement.  But the early church fathers leant on statements such as this to make their claim.

·         The same thing applies to the date of writing.  Experts think that the gospel could have been written anytime from the 60s to the 90s. 

·         So we’re not sure who wrote it, or when.  However, there is a huge consensus on where it was written.  Syria.  The earliest quotation from Matthew comes from Ignatius, bishop of Antioch around AD115.  The gospel also seems to have been used as a source for the Didache, a church manual probably produced in Syria around AD 100.

·         It is most likely that the gospel was written in Greek to a Jewish Christian audience, so this also fits with Antioch.  And the life setting is appropriate.

·         The gospel of Matthew was written for Jews who had become Christians.  They were people who were steeped in the traditions and the ways of the scriptures and were looking for the coming of the Messiah.

·         One of Matthew’s distinctive styles is the fulfilment formulas.  “this was to fulfil what was spoken by the prophet….”  Ten times this phrase occurs. 

·         And there is a reason for this.  Matthew wants to make it very clear that what God does in Jesus Christ is the fulfilment of all God’s involvement with humanity up until that time.

·         For the coronation of George II in 1742 Handel composed an anthem called Zadok the Priest.  It’s a stirring and emotive piece of music.  Yet it starts in a very different place from where it finishes.

·         The beginning of Zadok is very different.  People more gifted in music tell me that it starts with some broken chords, some variations and it seems to be going nowhere.  At one point the music begins to swell and do something grand, but it turns away and goes on with it’s broken chords in a minor key.  But little by little it grows and grows.  It swells with bigger and broader harmony and the surge becomes unbearable as the whole choir crashes.

·         For Matthew this is what God has done in and through human history.

·         The gospel opens with a genealogy.  Last week I set this as one of our daily readings.  I wonder how many of you read it and how many of you that I wasn’t in my right mind for pointing you to something as boring and irrelevant as that. 

·         But look at the genealogy.  We go right back to Abraham.  Abraham to whom the promise was made that whilst he was childless that he would be the father of many nations.  A promise that is fulfilled in Jesus Christ. 

·         David is mentioned.  David who is promised that he will have a kingdom that will last forever.  Again a promise that is fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

·         Names of people who have sinned, women, people who have been taken in exile and people who have been faithful to the commands of God.

·         It is a discordant beginning, but the music rises and swells.  Until the birth of Jesus is foretold.  “She will give birth to a son, and you will call him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins."  Now all of this took place so that what the Lord had spoken through the prophet would be fulfilled:  Look! A virgin will become pregnant and give birth to a son, And they will call him, Emmanuel. (Emmanuel means "God with us.") (Matt 1:21 – 23).

·         And God’s great plan for creation is fulfilled.  This Jesus, the last name in a long line of names is the Messiah, the one who will save God’s people.  And he is God, God with us.

·         In this opening chapter Matthew has drawn together the two threads of Jewish messianic expectation.  That God will save his people from their sin and that he will dwell among his people.  The Israelites longed and waited for this.  And now we’re told that God has acted.  As it says in Zadak the Priest, “and all the people Rejoice, Rejoice”.

·         If we then flip to the end of the gospel go past the death and resurrection of Jesus and come to the last paragraph.  “Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus told them to go.  When they saw him, they worshipped him, but some doubted.  Jesus came near and spoke to them, "I’ve received all authority in heaven and on earth.  Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything that I’ve commanded you. Look, I myself will be with you every day until the end of this present age."” (Matt 28:16 – 20).

·         These words can only be said after the resurrection.  The cross and the resurrection establish the kingdom of God.  That is they achieve the purpose for which God called Abraham in the first place, the purpose for which God anointed David to be the head of a line of kings forever, the purpose which seemed to be thwarted by the Babylonian exile.  God has been leading his people, indeed all of creation to this very point in time.

·         The portrait that Matthew gives us is that the resurrected, Messiah who is with us, who is the fulfilment of God’s plan for creation, is the one whom we worship is the one whom we follow. 

·         Matthew paints the portrait of Jesus as the one in whom we find the fulfilment of all things.  Everything that God has been doing up until the time of Jesus was just preparing the way.  John the Baptist, who echoes the prophecy of the Isaiah, “The voice of one shouting in the wilderness, "Prepare the way for the Lord; make his paths straight." (Matt 3:3).

·         Mr Holland’s Opus.

·         So to with God’s plan for the world.  As the world evolves and progresses, it’s all pointing toward the time of Christ.  There is the law and the prophets that are important and necessary, but they are only for a time.  And they point forward to a time that is yet to come.

·         And then in Christ, his death, life and resurrection, comes the final fulfilment of all things.  Now in this life there is no life apart from life in Christ.  There is no purpose apart from the purpose of Christ. 

·         He has all authority, he has claimed all things to himself.  He is God’s final answer to our life in this world and the next.

·         But so far I’ve missed out on something very important to the gospel according to Matthew.  Chapters 2 to 27.  Throughout his life Jesus teaches his followers how to live.  Some of those greatest teachings are found in the sermon on the mount.

·         Teachings about the way we respond to God, with humility, deep reverence and a complete devotion.  The trust that we are to place in him, above all other possessions and our own abilities.  The way we are to love others, to honour them, to see the value in the individual.  The way we are to end the cycle of violence and refuse to participate in the power systems that abuse people in this world.

·         The teachings of Jesus are hard and tough.   Jesus says in Matthew 5:21, “You have heard that it was said to those who lived long ago, Don’t commit murder, and all who commit murder will be in danger of judgment.  But I say to you that everyone who is angry with their brother or sister will be in danger of judgment. If they say to their brother or sister, ‘You idiot,’ they will be in danger of being condemned by the governing council. And if they say, ‘You fool,’ they will be in danger of fiery hell.”

·         We’re comfortable with the command not to murder.  But not to get angry with another person, not to ridicule them, not to say words that demean, embarrass, or rob them of dignity and honour.  How many of us seek to apply that in our lives?

·         Later in 5:43 – 44 Jesus says, “You have heard that it was said, You must love your neighbour and hate your enemy.  But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who harass you.”  Again, hard words.  How many of us have not thought how good it would be to get revenge on our enemies.  How many of us have gloated when something bad has come to someone that we don’t get on with.  How many of us spend time praying for the best for our enemies, praying for ourselves that we will be more loving and accepting of those who are different from us.

·         Yet this and much more is what it means to follow and believe in the saviour God who is with us.  Matthew paints the picture that the world finds it’s fulfilment in Jesus Christ.  He is not someone we go to only when we need something, or when it is comfortable and suitable for us.

·         Before I became a minister there was an elder in a church that I was a member of.  He was respected and held influence in that church.  Each Sunday he’d turn up with his family, they’d be suitably dressed for church, he’d always wear a tie and in winter a suit.  I had reason to come across him for a while in business.  I wouldn’t have recognised him as a Christ-follower.  He was vindictive and unethical, to the point of acting illegally.  But it was business.

·         The resurrected messiah who is with us doesn’t make the distinction.  In Christ there is the fulfilment of all things, work, church, home, community, business, leisure, local, national and international affairs.  All are subject to his authority, all are the realm in which we display our discipleship. 

·         Matthew records Jesus finishing the Sermon on the Mount with "Everybody who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise builder who built a house on bedrock.  The rain fell, the floods came, and the wind blew and beat against that house. It didn’t fall because it was firmly set on bedrock.   But everybody who hears these words of mine and doesn’t put them into practice will be like a fool who built a house on sand.   The rain fell, the floods came, and the wind blew and beat against that house. It fell and was completely destroyed."   

·         Matthew stresses that the only way to life in this world is to be found in the kingdom of God that is found in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, the Messiah who is with us.  amen.

Material for this sermon has been drawn from

Mark L Strauss, Four Portraits: One Jesus (Zondervan, 2007)

NT Wright, Following Jesus: Biblical Reflections on discipleship (WB Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1994).