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I have been taking my time through the book of Matthew as of late, and the Spirit of God is simply peeling away the scales from my eyes so that I can see the power of the Word, the continuity of the Story of God and the unbelievable person and work of Jesus that is ever-present throughout the Bible.
What on earth am I talking about?
Glad you asked...
This morning, as I am tracking through Matthew, I came to the Sermon on the mount. I have heard it said that it only takes 12 minutes to read through the entire thing, and I thought that it would be good to listen to all that we have recorded of what Jesus said that day - so I simply read through the whole sermon account, and than read it again looking for key words (kingdom of heaven, fulfill, etc) and for Old Testament references (Matthew is writing to a Jewish audience, so the Old Testament passages are extremely significant in this particular Gospel).
After my second reading of the sermon account, I decided to just go verse by verse through it as far as I could get and pray and contemplate through it...
I made it ALMOST through verse 1 :)
Here is Matthew 5:1
"When Jesus saw the crowds, He went up on the mountain; and after He sat down, His disciples came to Him."
What do you read in that verse? If you are like me, you probably saw basic geographic and situational information and nothing more; right. Matthew is just filling in some basic info - so we know kinda the scene for the sermon, right. The good stuff is coming up.
Or, is 2 Timothy 2 3:16 maybe in effect ("All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness.")
Think with me a minute, as I am processing through this still as I type...
Matthew is writing to a Jewish audience.
The Old Testament passages and references abound throughout this literary work always for a purpose - to point to Jesus as the fulfillment of and supreme agent throughout the Old Testament. Matthew is writing to point his Jewish readers to the Old Testament and basically say "see, here, this is what we were told, and HERE HE IS!! Messiah Jesus, is here; He's God, and been telling this story for a long time, believe it!!
So, what if, this is more than setting.
What if, Matthew is calling his readers to think back on Exodus 19 and 20 - where God comes DOWN to the mountain and calls Moses up to receive the law and commands for the people.
ONLY as we read through the New Testament (especially Hebrews) we learn that Jesus is the GREATER Moses, and so this time, instead of Jesus coming DOWN to the mountain to reveal to Moses the law --> He goes UP the mountain as fully man, fully God, sits down and waits for the people to draw close, and begins to clarify and fulfill and instruct the Old Testament law that He laid out for Moses.
Did your mind just explode with the majesty and awesomeness (thank you Kung Fu Panda) of our God!!!!IF not, hold on, because here is where it really gets good....
In Exodus, the priests and the people are instructed by God to NOT come close to the mountain because they are unclean and cannot approach the holiness of God - they will die!
In Matthew, God has come to us, and eagerly awaits his people to draw close to him so he can teach and instruct them in how to love and obey the will of God.
BAM! that just happened.
I love that with the incarnation of Jesus (God became man) we see the line that kept us from God disappears. Not because WE did anything, but because God DID IT ALL. He came to us. Got cozy, walked up a mountain (that he created) and taught the people what He had revealed to Moses!
Like I said, I am still fleshing this out - but I do know this, as I read Matthew 5:1, I was exhilarated by the majesty of God, blown away by the singularity of the message of the Bible (it truly is all about Jesus!) and captivated by the personal relationship that has been made available to me because Jesus came down to earth, to make the unattainable attainable.
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