Matthew preceded the Sermon on the Mount with a description of Jesus' followers, both the inner and outer circles.
He began with the inner circle of 12 disciples who give up everything to follow Jesus. These were the ones who were called by Jesus to follow him. The rest in the chapter followed him without being called.
The larger group of those who came to Jesus were described as needy people. They came to be healed from a wide range of diseases, torments and possessions.
Before the Sermon on the Plain, Luke likewise described 2 types of people, the inner circle and the outer circle. But whereas Matthew was very brief in describing the outer circle, Luke spent a great amount of detail in painting a picture, not so much in describing the people, but rather, of people who are used as props to describe Jesus' authority.
Matthew used the same stories about the same people to tell us about Jesus' authority, but Matthew waited until immediately after the Sermon rather than immediately before (which Luke did).
Both Matthew and Luke place Jesus' sermon in the context of Jesus' authority over sin, the unclean, the demonic and over the Sabbath.
POWER OVER SIN
In Jesus' day sickness was usually related to sin. In John 9 Jesus' disciples asked Jesus, "Who sinned?" when they saw a man born blind. The assumption was...this blindness was a direct result of somebody's sin, either this man's or his parents'. James also concludes that sickness was the result of sin..."If anyone is sick...confess your faults to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed."
When people brought a man who had palsy (various forms of paralysis), Jesus' first words were, "Your sins are forgiven you." What Jesus said offended the scribes because theologically only God can forgive sins. The fact that Jesus then healed the man showed to everybody that Jesus had power to forgive sins, thus implying that Jesus was God, because only God can forgive sins, and this man could only have been healed if his sins were forgiven, and as everybody witnessing that event believed, his palsy was the result of sin.
POWER OVER THE DEMONIC
Jesus' authority was emphasized not only over sin, but over the demonic as well. Once again, the emphasis was not on the people in these stories, but the emphasis is the power of Jesus' word. After casting out a demon in Luke 4 the people were amazed, saying, "What authority and power this man's words possess! Even evil spirits obey him and flee at his command!"
POWER OVER THE UNCLEAN
The whole concept of clean vs. unclean is foreign to most of us, but to the people of Jesus' day, everybody thought in terms of things clean and things unclean. There were certain things in life that people avoided touching and there were certain things one did not do for fear of becoming unclean... and once one was unclean there were certain ritual baths and offerings that needed to be made after a designated amount of days.
Jesus' power over the unclean was demonstrated not only in casting out unclean demons, but also by touching those who were unclean. Haggai 2 established that something clean (according to the Law) cannot transfer the state of clean into the unclean. However, unclean does affect the clean so that anything clean by the Law would be unclean if it touched that which was unclean.
When a leper came to Jesus, he told Jesus he wanted to be cleansed of his leprosy. Contrary to all common practice and wisdom Jesus touched him, which according to Haggai and according to Moses' Law should have made Jesus unclean, but instead the impossible happened...when Jesus touched the leper, the leper was cleansed and Jesus remained clean. People who saw Jesus knew the transfer had taken place because the leper was healed in front of them.
By touching and healing a leper, Jesus did more than a simple healing, he demonstrated before all that he had power on earth over the unclean...he had power greater than the Law of Moses.
POWER OVER THE SABBATH
Two events dealing with Sabbath stand out. Jesus plucked corn from the fields on the Sabbath and when he was questioned about breaking the Sabbath, he reminded those who were offended that David himself broke certain Laws of Moses for the sake of meeting human needs for hunger. But anybody can argue a good case. In another episode Scribes and Pharisees questioned Jesus' healing on the Sabbath. Jesus pointed out that they took care of animals on the Sabbath and we are more imortant than animals...then he healed a man with a withered hand, thus proving that he had power over the Sabbath to do good.
In these four ways (power over sin, the demonic, the unclean, and over the Sabbath) Jesus demonstrated to his audience through healings and miracles that he was more than a normal human being and that he had authority. This builds the context for his two sermons - one on a mount and one on a plain.
Missing in this sermon context is Jesus' power over Rome - politically, socially or economically. Could it be that Jesus did not come to change secular politics? Or is he saving that for later? Or perhaps the early church kept Roman politicians and politics out in order to win Romans or to avoid persecution or for any other reason?
No comments:
Post a Comment