King Over All

Matthew 8:18-9:8

One of my tasks this past week was to give some advice to two friends who are working in a remote part of Central Asia. Some cases of the COVID-19 coronavirus have been showing up in their country, leading to rumors that some borders might be closed and even internal travel restricted. These friends have been wondering if it would be better to just stay where they are or try to get out while they still can. I wasn’t sure what to tell them. It is very difficult to predict what the long-term impact of this virus will be. You probably saw the news recently that our top health officials are now predicting that there will be significant community transmission of the virus in the US and it is likely that more than half of the world’s population will eventually be infected. The human and economic cost could be massive. But it is just so difficult to know which predictions to believe.

In the uncertainty and chaos of the world around us it is good to remember what the title of this week’s message states: Jesus is king over all. This sermon series in Matthew is focusing on the kingdom of Jesus. He came not just to bring salvation and eternal life but also to proclaim this rule of God, to assert his authority over the world and everything in it. His reign means the defeat of Satan and victory over all the evil effects of sin.

In his earthly ministry, Jesus spoke about this kingdom, describing what it was like. He also demonstrated it with miracles – signs of the kingdom. He healed the sick, fed the hungry, cast out demons, calmed storms, and even raised the dead. He reached out to help suffering people – not just because he was compassionate and loving but also because he wanted to demonstrate God’s supremacy over Satan and all kinds of evil and brokenness. That’s why these are referred to as signs of the kingdom. Jesus was indeed king over all.

In the first part of Matthew 8 last Sunday we read how Jesus healed many people. We have the specific examples of the man with leprosy, the centurion’s servant, and Peter’s mother-in-law. Verse 16 says that “many who were demon-possessed were brought to him, and he drove out the spirits with a word and healed all the sick.” In our passage today, we will see more demonstrations of his power that establish the authority of his kingdom, his rule and reign over all.

However, something else that I noticed in studying today’s passage is that these stories illustrate a variety of human responses to Jesus’ words and actions. Jesus was a polarizing figure; his kingdom is a radical, confrontative idea. Some people were impressed, some were offended, some were confused, and some were transformed. I have identified six different responses in today’s passage. Those can provide some structure as we look at these interactions that Jesus had with a variety of people. Let’s start at verse 18 of Matthew chapter 8.

When Jesus saw the crowd around him, he gave orders to cross to the other side of the lake. Then a teacher of the law came to him and said, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.”

Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”– Matthew 8:18-20

We noted that Jesus has just been healing many sick and demon-possessed people. Is he getting worn out? He saw the crowd and wanted to escape. Were the people becoming too demanding? Is the crowd pressing in on him too much? I’m not sure, but in any case, he says that he wants to go to the other side of the Sea of Galilee. As he heads to the boat, this “teacher of the law” comes up to him and wants to follow him wherever he should go. A teacher of the law would have been a person of some education and status, an influential member of the community. Some were Pharisees.

Jesus gives him an unusual response, pointing out what he would have to give up: his comfortable life. Jesus somehow recognized that this man was not thinking through the implications of what he was saying. Was this a genuine commitment to truly follow Jesus? It doesn’t appear so.

So I’m going to call this response “impulsive enthusiasm.” Many people make this kind of shallow commitment. “I’ll do whatever you want, just give me X.” You have probably heard people promise things that you know they could never fulfill. Which of the disciples had a reputation for making impulsive statements like these? Peter. He always seemed to be putting his foot in his mouth. Most famously he protested when Jesus predicted his denial on the way to the cross. Jesus said that all the disciples would fall away. Peter said he never would, even if everyone else did. So Jesus said that that very night Peter would deny him three times. To this, Peter replied, “Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you.” Impulsive enthusiasm – followed by his three-fold denial, just as Jesus predicted.

In Matthew 21, Jesus tells a story about two sons:

“What do you think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work today in the vineyard.’

“‘I will not,’ he answered, but later he changed his mind and went.

“Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, ‘I will, sir,’ but he did not go.

“Which of the two did what his father wanted?”

“The first,” they answered. – Matthew 21:28-31

Actions speak louder than words, don’t they? Why were some tax collectors and prostitutes entering the kingdom of God ahead of the chief priests and elders? They were serious about their commitment to Jesus. They recognized their own need and inability to do anything on their own to be right with God. They may have been saying no to God initially, when they were following the way of the world, but the gospel was truly good news to them, and they joyfully received the grace that would transform their lives.

Did Jesus recognize that this teacher of the law was like the second son? Was he saying, “I will,” but would he quickly turn back? Would he give up when the going got tough? All Jesus pointed out was his way of hardship and deprivation, not even mentioning the need to take up a cross. That would come later. There is a cost to following Jesus, and we need to be willing to count that cost. Jesus makes this clear in a related passage in Luke 14:

Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple. And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.

“Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it? For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you, saying, ‘This person began to build and wasn’t able to finish.’

“Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Won’t he first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples. – Luke 14:25-33

Jesus sets a very high standard for discipleship: being willing to give up everything we have, including our families and our own lives. Too often we ignore this or at least try to minimize it. In a moment of impulsive enthusiasm we might sing, “I surrender all,” and think we mean it, but then we go back to living just the way we were. If we are not willing to count the cost, we will be like the person building the tower and not able to finish it or like the king going out to battle with no hope of winning.

Jesus was giving this same warning to the teacher of the law who said that he would follow him anywhere. Continuing on then in Matthew 8:

Another disciple said to him, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.”

But Jesus told him, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.” – Matthew 8:21-22

What’s wrong with burying your father? Jesus seems a little harsh here, as he did in that Luke passage we just read, commanding his followers to hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters. What is going on here? First of all, we should understand that this disciple’s father had not just died, meaning that he needed to arrange the funeral. If that had been the case he would already have been busy doing that. What this man was actually suggesting was that he would follow Jesus after his father was gone, delaying his commitment, probably out of a sense of obligation to his father or to avoid displeasing him.

I actually had a friend in Nepal make almost this exact statement. He very faithfully attended church and was more enthusiastically involved than many others, but he had never been baptized. When I asked him about it he said that his making a public commitment to Jesus would be very difficult for his Hindu parents. He would consider doing it after they were gone. I did mention the verses in Luke that we just read. I suppose that was quite a confrontation, but he didn’t seem to be annoyed – or convinced. He has since moved away to a new job, apparently without many Christians around, and I see no indication on Facebook that he is following the Lord. I don’t know what is going on in his heart, but I pray that someday he would return and be willing to put Jesus before everything else in his life.

But aren’t we supposed to honor our parents? Was Jesus just abandoning the fifth commandment? Hating our father and mother is clearly hyperbole. The parallel verse in Matthew is 10:37, where Jesus puts it this way: “Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.” Jesus still wants us to love our families. He just wants us to love him best. Sometimes following Jesus comes at a cost to our families. Some of you can relate to that. So we may be tempted to deflect the call of God by using the needs or desires of our families as an excuse. It might sound good, but God will know where our loyalties lie. So we can call the response of this disciple “polite deferral.” He could claim that he was honoring his father, in obedience to God’s commandment, but in doing so he was putting off the call of Jesus on his life. Jesus spoke of the dangers of polite deferral many times, including the parable of the guests being invited to a wedding banquet but finding all kinds of excuses not to come. Others would take their place.

Let’s move on to the third response we find in our passage in Matthew 8:

Then he got into the boat and his disciples followed him. Suddenly a furious storm came up on the lake, so that the waves swept over the boat. But Jesus was sleeping. The disciples went and woke him, saying, “Lord, save us! We’re going to drown!”

He replied, “You of little faith, why are you so afraid?” Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm.

The men were amazed and asked, “What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him!” – Matthew 8:23-27

The disciples were thinking, “Wow, this is incredible! What just happened?” There was a huge sense of relief after the intense fear that came first. The disciples were terrified by the storm and wondered if Jesus really cared. What was he doing, sleeping while they were all about to die? When they desperately asked him for help, Jesus simply spoke a word and stilled the wind and waves. What a dramatic result – complete calm. This was a clear demonstration of Jesus’s power, as king over all creation. The disciples were awestruck, despite having seen his other miracles earlier. This was on a different scale.

I think of this response as “impressed appreciation.” Here was something that the disciples had not seen before. They were saved physically from drowning and were grateful, but did this go beyond an emotional response? Did this incident actually increase their faith in Jesus? They seem to express more of a sense of disbelief rather than acceptance of who Jesus really was. From early in his ministry Jesus had plenty of followers who were simply caught up in the excitement of what was going on. John 6, for example, tells the story of how Jesus fed the five thousand. Incidentally, this is only miracle that Jesus did that is recorded in all four gospels (not including his resurrection). What kind of response did this elicit?

Then some boats from Tiberias landed near the place where the people had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks. Once the crowd realized that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they got into the boats and went to Capernaum in search of Jesus. When they found him on the other side of the lake, they asked him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?”

Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs I performed but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.”

Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?”

Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.” – John 6:23-29

Jesus was looking for real faith, while most people around were apparently just looking to get something out of him. Faith is the sustaining food that endures to eternal life. The people should have recognized the food as a sign of something much bigger and more important. The kingdom of God was at hand. Impressed appreciation needs to be followed by submission and dedication of one’s entire life to the lordship of Jesus. God does not want to be treated like a cosmic vending machine, where the press of a prayer button gets us what we want.

Let’s carry on in Matthew 8:

When he arrived at the other side in the region of the Gadarenes, two demon-possessed men coming from the tombs met him. They were so violent that no one could pass that way. “What do you want with us, Son of God?” they shouted. “Have you come here to torture us before the appointed time?”

Some distance from them a large herd of pigs was feeding. The demons begged Jesus, “If you drive us out, send us into the herd of pigs.”

He said to them, “Go!” So they came out and went into the pigs, and the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and died in the water. Those tending the pigs ran off, went into the town and reported all this, including what had happened to the demon-possessed men. Then the whole town went out to meet Jesus. And when they saw him, they pleaded with him to leave their region. – Matthew 8:28-34

Here is another amazing miracle by Jesus. These two demon-possessed men were so far gone that they were completely excluded from the local community. They had to live among the tombs, and it’s no wonder that they would attack anyone who came near them. But the demons in them immediately recognized who Jesus was and their own ultimate destiny. Not many ordinary people were ready to accept that Jesus was the Son of God, ruler of all spiritual as well as physical realms.

It’s not clear why Jesus agreed that the demons could enter the herd of pigs. He could have sent them directly to hell. But it was a way of for him to show that the two men were not really responsible for their own state. It was demonic influence that was forcing them toward self-destruction. The demons probably laughed that they could destroy the pigs as well.

The townspeople were obviously not Jews, so perhaps they had not heard much about Jesus before this incident. All that they saw here was the destruction of their livelihood. They did not care that the two men had been delivered. They did not want to understand who Jesus was. This was just too upsetting. We can think of this response as “fearful rejection.” Jesus might have done some good things elsewhere, but he was too unpredictable. What kind of risks might be involved in following him? The cost seemed way too high. These were valuable pigs that he had just destroyed. Many people, it seems, value their pigs more than the freedom and salvation that Jesus offers.

Let’s move on into chapter 9 of Matthew:

Jesus stepped into a boat, crossed over and came to his own town. Some men brought to him a paralyzed man, lying on a mat. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the man, “Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven.”

At this, some of the teachers of the law said to themselves, “This fellow is blaspheming!” – Matthew 9:1-3

Jesus respects the desires of the people of the Gadarenes and goes back to the other side of the lake. Here he is back among Jews, some of whom were skeptical of his authority. They would reject him not because of fear but because he did not fit with their religious preconceptions. But these men bringing their paralyzed friend had faith. They saw something in Jesus that offered them hope and confidence that their friend could be healed. When Jesus forgave the man’s sins, he showed that he was king over all the brokenness and failure in the world. We don’t know why the man was paralyzed. But Jesus knew that the first thing he needed was to be forgiven. Had he made a mistake and injured himself? Was he worried about not being “good enough” to receive healing? We don’t know. But he was no doubt living with the guilt of his own failure of some kind. Everyone is, until we receive the mercy and grace of God.

However, some the teachers of the law listening in were scandalized. Was this man claiming to be God? Who could say with such confidence, “Your sins are forgiven”? Forgiveness didn’t just happen that way. The law had certain requirements. They were the experts on that. Who did Jesus think he was, anyway? They didn’t say anything, but their response was clearly one of “self-righteous condemnation.” They thought they knew better. They had God figured out, and Jesus clearly did not fit with what they were so sure of. There was no humility or openness in their attitude. Jesus was blaspheming by saying something that only God should say. He was either being very disrespectful or he was claiming to be God himself – both of which were completely unacceptable. They thought they were completely within their rights to condemn him.

Knowing their thoughts, Jesus said, “Why do you entertain evil thoughts in your hearts? Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’? But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.” So he said to the paralyzed man, “Get up, take your mat and go home.” Then the man got up and went home. When the crowd saw this, they were filled with awe; and they praised God, who had given such authority to man. – Matthew 9:4-8

Jesus not only forgives the man’s sins, he heals his paralysis. He demonstrated his authority and his power as king over all. The healing was another visible sign of his new kingdom, confronting the narrow mindedness of the teachers of the law, who actually had no such authority. What was the response of the crowd? They were filled with awe. But this was not merely impressed appreciation for what Jesus did. It says that they praised God, who had given him the authority to forgive and heal. They did not quite recognize him as being equal with God yet, but they were beginning to make the right connections. Their response was one of “joyful worship.” They glorified God for what they heard and saw.

So here again are the six different responses in this passage to Jesus opening the door to his new kingdom:

Impulsive enthusiasm

Polite deferral

Impressed appreciation

Fearful rejection

Self-righteous condemnation

Joyful worship

We continue to see all of these responses today, in other others and in ourselves. We can get caught up in the fervor of the moment and make promises to God that we end up not keeping. Sometimes we put him off for the sake of other people or things competing for our attention, effectively deferring his call. Sometimes we get impressed by what we see him doing in the world, but it doesn’t have a long-term impact on the way we live our own lives. Sometimes his way seems too hard and we want to give up. In the midst of a crisis, we can’t imagine how anything good could come out of what he has allowed in our lives. We may not intend to reject him, but we allow our hearts to be ruled by fear. Sometimes we may even doubt him and his claim on us, thinking that we can figure out how to run our lives better than he can. If we ever think we know better than God we become self-righteous like the Pharisees. But I pray that more and more our response to him would be one of joyful worship. He not only has all authority over us as king but he loves us more than we can fully comprehend.