Week 42 ——— The Hope of Christmas- Justice
Matthew 12:14-41

Jesus’ disciples will return from their two-month mission next week, and we will resume our chronological study. As this is the first week of Advent, and the theme is the hope of the coming Messiah and prophecies, let me begin with an Isaiah prophecy.

Isaiah 42:1-4
Behold my servant, whom I uphold,  my chosen, in whom my soul delights;
I have put my Spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations.
He will not cry aloud or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street;
a bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice.
He will not grow faint or be discouraged till he has established justice in the earth; and the coastlands wait for his law.

This is one of Isaiah’s servant poems, predicting the coming Messiah, who will come as a suffering servant. Matthew quotes it in chapter 12 of his gospel. Today, we will examine the setting of this passage in Matthew and then see Jesus give his own prophecy.

In Matthew, this is quoted after Jesus heals the man with the withered hand.  Remember, the Pharisees were upset because Jesus healed this man on the Sabbath.  This poor man had been reduced to being a beggar since he could not work, and Jesus healed him, giving him his life back.  Rather than see the joy of the miracle, the Pharisees could only see fault in Jesus for breaking their laws they added to God’s law.  

Matthew 12:14  But the Pharisees went out and conspired against him, how to destroy him.

They did not care at all for the man who was healed.  These intensely religious men. who saw themselves as keepers of the faith determined that it was their responsibility to murder this Jesus because he was threatening their religious system.  Rather than confront them now, Jesus withdraws and tells people not to talk about him publicly.  It was not the time for this confrontation.  That time will come soon.  Then Matthew quotes Isaiah.

Matthew 12:18-21  
“Behold, my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved with whom my soul is well pleased.
I will put my Spirit upon him, and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles.
He will not quarrel or cry aloud, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets; a bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not quench, until he brings justice to victory; and in his name the Gentiles will hope.”

Look at the first two sentences.  What does this remind you of?   When was Jesus chosen and the words spoken, “my beloved whom my soul is well pleased”?  When did the Spirit descend on Jesus like a dove?  At his baptism.  And what will this servant of the Most High do?    Proclaim Justice to the Gentiles.  Though Jesus made it clear his mission was first to the Jews, he spent a lot of time doing something that no other Rabbi in his day would ever in a million years consider doing – ministering to the Gentiles.  Jesus went to the Decapolis; he went to the region of Tyre and Sidon, and he went to the Samaritans, whom the Jews considered part of the Gentiles.

This was God’s plan from the beginning.  The Jews were to be the nation of priests who would take the message of the love and mercy of God to all the world.  But they kept God all to themselves, and instead of promoting the kingdom of God, they promoted their own little kingdom with their own rules.   Gentiles didn’t fit in their little kingdom.   The Pharisees had told the people Gentiles were unclean, so they should not eat or talk with them.   So God sent Jesus to the world to be the Jew who would finally fulfill the plan to spread the kingdom of God to everyone.  And Jesus came and spent most of his time with the people that the religious leaders of the day considered unclean – both Jew and Gentile.  And how did Isaiah prophesy that the Messiah would do this?   He will proclaim Justice.

Isaiah uses the Hebrew word ‘mishpat’ for ‘justice.’  This Hebrew word can be translated as either ‘justice’ or ‘judgment.’  So it could be said in Isaiah, “He will bring forth judgment to the nations.”    Which is it?  It makes a big difference.  For thousands of years, the Rabbis taught it should be read:  “He will bring forth judgment to the nations.”  Oh, is it about time those other nations got judged.  They need to be judged.  They are not righteous like us.   

But does that reading fit the context of Isaiah’s prophecy?  Look at the last line of Isaiah’s poem quoted in Matthew:  “And in his name, the Gentiles will hope.”   This ‘justice’ that the servant will bring to the nations (the Gentiles) does not inspire fear but hope!  You don’t hope for judgment; you hope for justice.  This is not about God punishing the nations but about God bringing his system of justice to the nation.  This is not bad news but good news for the nations.

We see ‘justice’ as part of a legal system, but in the Bible, justice (mishpat) is the way of righteousness.  It is the way we live, the way we treat each other, the way we respect and love each other.  It is the way God designed us to live.  It is a life of righteousness.  It is the abundant life Jesus came to give us.  This scripture is about God restoring the world to how he created it.  No one is mean or offensive; all are treated fairly, and there is no discrimination.  Justice is the way of love.  This is heaven on earth.  This is God’s justice, not a legal system, but life in the garden.  And this is the story of the Bible, God restoring the world to living as he intended.   When everyone follows the rules of the king, then life in the Kingdom is good.  

This is what Jesus came to bring.   This is our hope.  Hope that this broken world can be made whole again.  Heaven on earth.

However, the Pharisees had already classified Jesus as a threat to their power structure and way of life.   They have already decided to kill him.   If he is the Messiah, then he is the Messiah they don’t want.  You see, they are doing just fine right now.  They have great jobs, are the most respected people in the country, and are wealthy.  They don’t need some Messiah coming in and messing up their world.  But that is precisely what the Messiah came to do.  It’s good news to the poor, to the oppressed, to the captives, and the blind.  But not good news to the Pharisees.  What do you do when Jesus is not the Messiah you expected him to be?    You can reject him, or you can change your expectations.

Back to Matthew 12.  Jesus healed the man with the withered hand, and then Matthew quotes this passage in Isaiah.  Then Jesus heals a man who was blind and mute, and the Pharisees claim he is casting out demons using the power of demons.  Everyone knows the Pharisees are out to get him and are speaking evil against him.  But the Pharisees come to Jesus and say  

“Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.” 

Oh, you say you’re the Messiah.  We are not so sure.  We need you to prove it.  All this healing and preaching you have done — that is not enough.  Just do one more thing.  Give us a sign.

And Jesus answers: “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign.”  If calling them evil adulterers seems harsh, then perhaps you have forgotten that these are the guys everyone knows want to kill him.

Let’s put ourselves in Jesus’ sandals.  How many of you woke up in the morning knowing someone was trying to kill you?  Well, imagine there are some powerful, influential people in your state, and they are hatching plans to kill you, and everyone knows it, and then you run into them at church, and they smile and say, “Hi, how are you today?”

These are people that Jesus knows want him dead, and they have the power to do it, and they come to him in public and say, ‘Hey teacher….we’ve heard you preach, can you show us a sign?’  So Jesus responds: An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign,

You could read this verse out of context, and you might get the idea that it is evil to ask for a sign (context matters).  It is the people who are plotting to kill an innocent man who happens to be the Messiah who are evil.

Why does Jesus call them Adulterers?  The Old Testament pictures those who worship idols as committing adultery.  Those who forsook their promise to Yehovah and went off to worship idols were called adulterers.  Jesus says they are worshipping idols.   Now, this is important.  Have you ever read this passage and asked yourself, “What idol are the Pharisees worshipping?”  They aren’t bowing down to some golden calf or wooden statue they made with their own hands.  But Jesus says the Pharisees are rejecting Him and following an idol of their own making.  

Jesus wasn’t behaving the way they thought the Messiah should act.  Over hundreds of years, they had developed this concept of the Messiah that would come and pat them on the back for being so good.   ”Hey, Pharisees, good job!  Wow, I am impressed.  Now excuse me while I go bring some much-deserved judgment on all these other people.”  This was the way they read the Scriptures.  This was their tradition. Over hundreds of years, their tradition had remade God in their own image, and that was their idol.  

The Pharisees thought they were worshipping the god of the Bible, but they had remade the god of the Bible into the god they wanted Him to be.  The god they worshipped cared more about laws than people.  The god they worshipped wanted good rituals more than goodness of heart.  The god they worshipped cared more about tithing spices than caring for the poor.  They used the right scripture but worshipped the wrong god!  If you worship the wrong god, a god that doesn’t exist — that is idolatry.  How could this have happened?  

Jesus tells them in Matthew 22:29.  They didn’t understand the scriptures.  They read them from the lens of their tradition.  They made them say what they wanted them to say and ignored the parts that didn’t fit their agenda.  

Do you see how dangerous this is?   They think they are worshipping the true God; they read the Bible.  But Jesus says they are idolaters.  The Pharisees’ image of the Messiah was built on hundreds of years of tradition by the best religious minds. And they studied the sayings of their fathers of religion, discussed them, and rigorously practiced them. But they were so wrong.  As church leaders, they led all the people down the wrong road.  Jesus tells them they are in error because they haven’t studied the scriptures.   And these are the experts on the scripture!   If our picture of God is built on tradition and the hundreds of years of theological teaching and not on our personal study of the scriptures, then we may be the blind guides, those who are evil and adulterous.  This is why Paul said reading the Bible for yourself is so important.  

Does this same thing happen today?  Is there anyone out there who follows a tradition of religion just because it works well for them or because it fits their agenda?  Of course, there is.  There are thousands of people promoting religious systems that they think are worshipping Yehovah, the God of the Bible, but they are just worshipping an idol of their own making.  And like the Pharisees, they are leading people astray.  People flock to a religious system that works well for them, makes economic sense for them, and gives them their god’s approval.  “Hey, you are doing great; now let me go judge those other guys.”

How can this happen?  How can it continue to happen?  Because people don’t really understand the scriptures.  They just listen to someone tickle their ears with a message that fits what they want to hear, and they never go home and study the Scriptures for themselves.  

What if Jesus is not who you think he is?

You are trying to follow Jesus, but the way that Jesus works in your life is not how you want him to.  You don’t like how Jesus is behaving in your life.  You have a friend with cancer, and you pray earnestly for God to heal them – and he doesn’t.  And you don’t get that job, or your health fails you.  And we think God’s #1 priority is to heal all our family and friends and work things out. (Doesn’t he work it all out for our good?  Isn’t that what it says in Romans 8.28?) 

If you worship a God who is more interested in your bank account balance than the beggar on the street, then you aren’t worshiping the God of the Bible.  If you worship a god who is more interested in your happiness than your holiness, then you are worshipping an idol.  If you worship a god who will make sure you never suffer or have hard times, then you aren’t worshipping the god Jesus worshipped in the garden before he was tortured and crucified.

Back to our passage:
Matthew 12:39-40  But he answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.   For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”

Jesus says, “You want a sign… You really don’t want one.  And you don’t get a sign, no, wait a minute, I’ll give you a sign all right.  Here is your sign:  As Jonah was 3 days and 3 nights in a great fish, so will the Son of Man be 3 days and 3 nights in the ground.”

So Jesus gives them a sign, a prophecy. He uses the familiar story of the prophet Jonah, which is a very interesting choice. Let’s review that story and how it relates to what is happening in Matthew.

God calls Jonah to go preach destruction (judgment) on Nineveh (Assyria).  So what does Jonah do?  He goes in the other direction.  He hops on a boat headed as far away from Nineveh as possible.  Why was Jonah so determined not to go preach to the Assyrians?  We skip ahead to the end of the story and read:

Jonah 4:2   And he prayed to Yehovah and said, “Yehovah, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster.”

He didn’t want the Assyrians to have God’s grace. Jonah, God’s representative on earth, the religious leader and prophet, refused to think the Assyrians deserved God’s mercy and grace.  He wanted to see them suffer.  He wanted God to rain down judgment on them.

Look back at the context in Matthew.  The Pharisees got upset at Jesus because he was healing people—the man with the withered hand, the man who was blind and couldn’t speak.  The bottom line is they are like Jonah.  They were more interested in maintaining their power structure and didn’t think the man with the withered hand nor the blind, mute man deserved God’s grace and mercy.  They were lowlifes, the dregs of society.  They didn’t even keep the purity laws; they didn’t contribute money to their coffers.  They were not worthy of God’s grace; they deserved his judgment (not his justice.)

So, back to the story of Jonah.  You know it.  The boat Jonah boards ends up in a vicious storm, and Jonah is finally thrown overboard.   So Jonah is going to die in the ocean.  He sinks down, but God provides a great fish.  Jonah prays in the belly of the fish, quoting a psalm of grace   — see the irony.  This Jonah, who didn’t want grace and forgiveness for the people of Nineveh, is all about grace for himself.

God again says to go to Nineveh, and Jonah decides it is probably best.  He then preaches what we would call not the best sermon.  Imagine if your preacher stood up on Sunday morning, walked up to the pulpit, and said,  “40 days and this city will be destroyed.”  Then he just walked off.  No explanation.  No Invitation Hymn.  There is no call for repentance. ‘Wow, Jonah, how much time did you spend in sermon preparation last week?   This message is five whole words in Hebrew.  But then, to everyone’s amazement, Nineveh repents.  Proof that you don’t need a good preacher, even the jerk of a prophet, Jonah can be a conduit for God’s Word.  God works despite us sometimes.

Ninevah repents, and how does Jonah respond?  He is angry. “I knew it.”  God didn’t behave the way Jonah wanted him to act. He wanted God to come and give them judgment, but God gave them grace (justice).  If you want to read about two characters who are miserable failures at following God, read about Jonah and Sampson and then try to wrap your head around the idea that despite their horrible disobedience and selfishness, God keeps forgiving them and giving them another chance. And God uses these losers in a mighty way.   

But Jesus isn’t comparing himself to Jonah; he is just keying in on one section: the odd ‘death’ Jonah experiences and God’s grace in delivering him from death. This is the Bible school story of the fish—three days and three nights immortalized in crayon pictures forever.

It is easy to see that Jesus is not comparing himself to Jonah.  Who in his day are the religious leaders who can’t find mercy for the people?  Who thinks they are so much better than others and that the others do not deserve God’s grace?  It is the Pharisees.   But the key is the sign.  

They want Jesus to give them a sign.  These people, who everyone knows, want to kill him.  So Jesus gives them a sign, alright.

Matthew 12:40   For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

For people who see what is going on, Jesus says, “Look, let’s not play games. We all know you are plotting to kill me.  So here is your sign, but it is not the one you want.  Congratulations, I’m going to let you kill me.  But you will do the absolute worst job of killing someone in the history of killing people.  You want to do away with me permanently, but you do the most temporary killing ever.  You will only kill me for three days, and then I will be unkilled.   I will be alive again.  I will defeat the death you deal me and, in doing so, defeat death for everyone.  So there.

(3 days and 3 nights… that is pretty specific.  We’ll come back to that in April.)

And then Jesus tells them:

Matthew 12:41  The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.  

I don’t have to condemn you, Pharisees.  Everyone else will condemn you. The people of Nineveh who repented will rise at judgment and condemn you.  They better understood God’s mercy and grace from a selfish jerk of a prophet Jonah’s five-word sermon than you do, and you had the scriptures, the prophets, and God himself walking among you.  You had God among you, but you were so wrapped up in your vision of how you think God should behave that you hated God when he was right in your face, and you killed him.  I came to you, but you wanted a different god.

What will the people of Nineveh say about us?  We have more than the Pharisees had.  We all have multiple personal copies of the scriptures and the Holy Spirit within us.  If we ignore our study of the Scriptures and the Holy Spirit, the people of Nineveh will rise at judgment and condemn us.

Let’s be honest with ourselves.  There has been a time in our lives when Jesus didn’t do what we wanted him to do.  The problem he didn’t fix, the friend or family member he didn’t heal, the trouble that comes.  And it ticks us off when he doesn’t behave like we want him to.  And we want him to do that one thing, just to let my friend live or heal my family member— do this one sign for me, Jesus— but in our frustration over this, we neglect the sign Jesus has already given.  So Jesus says, hey, the sign of Jonah.  Remember, I let these guys torture and kill me- and I did it because I love you.  And I want you to have forgiveness and have a right relationship with God.  And I died, and after 3 days and 3 nights, I came back to life.  And I did that for you.  And yet you want more.  So what we are saying when we want Jesus to do that one other thing, to prove his love for us, is that what he did on the cross just wasn’t enough.  

You may have signed up for a version of Christianity where Jesus solves all your problems, where Jesus fixes your bank account, where you never suffer, and where you are never sick.  That is not the religion of Jesus.  That is a different god of your own making.

That is not the hope that the prophets predicted. 

The hope that we celebrate on this first Sunday of Advent is the hope of justice.  Of a righteous way of living. Of an abundant life ruled by the prince of peace.  A hope for justice for the poor and the forgotten, a hope for mercy and grace for everyone. A hope of life lived as God intended it from the beginning in the Garden.   This is the hope of the world — that Jesus is bringing justice to victory.  This is the hope of Christmas.