judgment

March 20, 27 A.D.  –  Can You Drink the Cup? — The Year of the Lord’s Favor #77

David Chupp The 70 Weeks with Jesus Blog , ,

Week 57 — Can You Drink the Cup?
Matthew 20:17-23

Jesus is on his final tour of Galilee and will soon be taking the long journey back to Jerusalem with all the other pilgrims headed to the Passover feast.   And our itinerant Rabbi Jesus continues to teach all along the way.

Matthew 20:17-23   And as Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the twelve disciples aside, and on the way he said to them,  “See, we are going up to Jerusalem. And the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified, and he will be raised on the third day.”
  Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came up to him with her sons, and kneeling before him she asked him for something.   And he said to her, “What do you want?” She said to him, “Say that these two sons of mine are to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your kingdom.”   Jesus answered, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am to drink?” They said to him, “We are able.” He said to them, “You will drink my cup, but to sit at my right hand and at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father.”

So James and John come to Jesus with their mother, who has been traveling with Jesus often.  She is specifically mentioned as being with Mary Magdalene and “many women” who were at the crucifixion, “looking on from a distance” (Matthew 27:55-56).   What are they asking Jesus?    They are seeking a prominent place of honor when Jesus comes into his kingdom.  Is that a ridiculous request?  

Jesus had just told the disciples  a few days ago: 

Matthew 19:28.  Jesus said to them, “Truly, I say to you, in the new world, when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.”

Jesus had put them in the position of princes in the kingdom, sitting on thrones, so they were asking to be chief of the princes.  But their timing is horrible.   Look back at what Jesus said just before they made their request:

Matthew 20:18-19   And the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified, and he will be raised on the third day.”
Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came up to him…

This is the first time he explicitly mentions being crucified.  It is the Jewish court that will condemn him and hand him over to the Romans to be crucified.  Following what had to be an emotional revelation by Jesus about his impending torture and agonizing death, Matthew says, “Then James and John and his mother ask to have a place of honor in the kingdom.  This is horribly insensitive.  

Jesus: In just a few days, I am going to be tortured and then die the worst death imaginable: crucifixion.”
Then his disciples say,  “OK… well then, can we be in charge when you are gone?

The disciples are having trouble grasping the words they are hearing.  Perhaps it is because, throughout their lives and for hundreds of years in their culture, they have been told that the Messiah will come into power and restore the throne of David to Israel.   They are still hanging on to that traditional understanding of what the Messiah would do.  They can’t really understand Jesus’ words until they let go of the misconceptions they had held for years.  They need to become as little children and drop what they think they already know.  But they hear what they want to hear (‘Oh great! We get to sit on thrones!’) and don’t consider the hard parts.  Some things they will not understand until they face the reality of the crucifixion.

So when they asked to sit on Jesus’ right and left, Jesus answered them,  “You don’t know what you are asking.”  Jesus knew they didn’t understand, but he tried to help them understand. He said, “Are you able to drink the cup that I must drink?”

Now we have to stop. Maybe you, like me, grew up in a church where no one really taught you the actual context of the Old Testament and how the themes of the first two-thirds of the Bible were so important to understanding Jesus’ words. The metaphor of ‘the cup’ is a very important concept in Scripture, and Jesus expects us to have learned this from our study of the Scripture.  

Maybe, like me, you grew up in church and had Sunday School lessons year after year about how strong Sampson was — but no one ever told you that he is in the Bible to be an example of how not to follow God.  Or you heard stories of Noah and all the cute animals on the ark, but no one ever told you how it was a de-creation event and what we should learn from it.   Or you talked about the parting of the Red Sea in Exodus and how the Israelites walked through it but never considered how passing through waters gives you background for your baptism or how the Biblical feasts are fulfilled in Jesus and in our future.  I am afraid we have failed to teach people the importance of studying scripture.   We dilute it into cute stories for children and then never move past that point as adults. 

Jesus assumes we have been obedient and studied the book.  If we haven’t, we can’t possibly understand what he is saying.  If the God of the Universe says, ”Hey David if you want to know more about me, how I suggest you live, and how I can help you, I wrote this book for you.”  And God puts it on my table, and I say, “Well, maybe I’ll find some time to read it later.  I’m in the middle of a Netflix series right now.” or “Sorry, God, I don’t like to read.” God has put a great treasure in our field, and we won’t even go to the trouble to dig it up.

So, there are no cute Bible stories for you today because we need to understand how Jesus used the common Bible metaphor of the cup.  The cup Jesus refers to is the cup of wrath, the cup of judgment.  If we don’t understand that, we can never understand Jesus.

We talked before about how God described himself as being slow to anger.   And we see in the scriptures that God gets most angry with those he has entered into covenant with.  Israel’s covenant with God, and our covenant with God, is described as a marriage, and when we choose to disobey God and follow idols of our own making, it is seen as adultery.  (You get the most angry with the ones you love or are closest to.)  And how is God’s anger revealed in the Old Testament? How does God’s judgment come?  Moses was the first to talk about this in Deuteronomy 31.

Deuteronomy 31:16-18   And Yehovah said to Moses, “Behold, you are about to lie down with your fathers. Then this people will rise and whore after the foreign gods among them in the land that they are entering, and they will forsake me and break my covenant that I have made with them. Then my anger will be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them and hide my face from them, and they will be devoured. And many evils and troubles will come upon them, so that they will say in that day, ‘Have not these evils come upon us because our God is not among us?’  And I will surely hide my face in that day because of all the evil that they have done, because they have turned to other gods.

They broke the covenant by worshipping other gods.  They left God.  So God leaves them, and God hides his face.  Hiding his face means that God removes his protection from them.  Without God’s continual protection, they are forced to reap what they have sown.  An enemy, some foreign nation, comes and conquers them.  That’s how Israel ended up in slavery in Egypt, how they were defeated by armies in the conquest of the promised land, how Assyria defeated the Northern Kingdom, how Babylon defeated the Southern Kingdom, and how Israel was defeated by Rome just 40 years after Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection.  God hides his face, and an enemy conquers Israel.

Psalm 75 adds another common Biblical metaphor for God’s anger — the cup of wrath.

Psalms 75:8  For in the hand of Yehovah, there is a cup with foaming wine, well mixed, and he pours out from it, and all the wicked of the earth shall drain it down to the dregs.

Imagine a large cup in God’s hand.   Over the years, it slowly fills up with God’s judgment for the sins of his people, Israel. It may take a century of sins, but when it is full, God will pour it out on Israel, and they will have to drink it all, all of the building judgment against them.  They will stagger and fall as they suffer his judgment, which comes in the form of defeat by foreign nations.

The prophets rise in Israel to reveal the four parts of God’s judgment on Israel for their refusal to repent.  First, they let them know judgment is coming unless they repent – their sins are filling up the cup with judgment and will be poured out on Israel unless they repent.   

Then, they are told God hides his face, and a surrounding nation, an enemy, becomes the instrument of his judgment.  And they often reveal which nation God has chosen to be his instrument of punishment.  Whether Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, or Rome, God hides his face, removes his protection, and the evil conquering nation will come in to devastate Israel. Third, After the cup has been emptied and all judgment poured out, God will restore a remnant of Israel. 

Finally, justice must be dealt to the nations that served as God’s instruments, for they are not without sin.  They arrogantly believed they were so great that they could conquer God’s people, not understanding that they were only serving as a rod in God’s hand and were only victorious because God allowed them to be.  We see this cycle repeat many times in the Scriptures.

We see this in Isaiah.  The first part of Isaiah, chapters 1-39, reveals his prophecy that Israel will suffer God’s judgment through attacks by Assyria and Babylon.  The second part of Isaiah discusses what happens when the cup has been emptied, and the nation that conquered Israel has to receive the cup.  So, in Isaiah 51, we see that the cup has been emptied on Israel.

 Isaiah 51:22-23  Thus says your Lord, Yehovah, your God who pleads the cause of his people: “Behold, I have taken from your hand the cup of staggering; the bowl of my wrath you shall drink no more; and I will put it into the hand of your tormentors, who have said to you, ‘Bow down, that we may pass over’; and you have made your back like the ground and like the street for them to pass over.”

One hundred years later, we see this happen, just as Isaiah had said. The cup was poured out during the time of the prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel.

Jeremiah 25:15-18   Thus Yehovah, the God of Israel, said to me: “Take from my hand this cup of the wine of wrath, and make all the nations to whom I send you drink it.  They shall drink and stagger and be crazed because of the sword that I am sending among them.” So I took the cup from the LORD’S hand, and made all the nations to whom the LORD sent me drink it: Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, its kings and officials, to make them a desolation and a waste, a hissing and a curse…

Then follows a list of nations that will soon drink the cup.  

Jeremiah 25:19-26  Pharaoh king of Egypt….all the kings of the land of Uz and all the kings of the land of the Philistines,…Edom, Moab, and the sons of Ammon; Tyre, Sidon, and the kings of the coastland across the sea;….and all the kingdoms of the world that are on the face of the earth.

And that is what happened in the 6th century BC.   The nation of Babylon conquered every nation described in the Bible.  Then, after the cup has been emptied on all the kingdoms, after God has allowed Babylon to be the rod in his hand, the nation that executes his judgment, then, because Babylon is also a nation of evil, 

Jeremiah 25:26. “…And after them the king of Babylon shall drink.

So we see that Israel fell to Babylon initially around 600 BC, Babylon fell to Persia in 539 BC, and then a remnant of Israel returned home. It happened over and over again. The people abandoned God and worshipped idols. The cup of judgment filled until God turned his face, removing his protection. And the cup was poured out in the form of another nation conquering Israel.

This is why we find Jesus bitterly weeping over the city of Jerusalem.  John the Baptist was a prophet who came with the warning to repent, but they did not.   Jesus came as a prophet with a similar message.  But as with many prophets before them, they were killed by the very people they came to warn.

Matthew 23:37-38     “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it!  How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!  See, your house is left to you desolate.”

God’s protection will be lifted, and the Romans will decide to destroy the city and the Temple completely, killing over 600,000 and enslaving many more.  But something different is happening this time.   Jesus has come. We, like Israel in Jesus’ day, live in a world of sin.  We are all sinners.  So, our sins are slowly filling up a cup of judgment for us.  And that cup must be poured out.  But in the first century, God came to earth, took the cup of judgment in our place, and came with a cup of salvation.

John 3:17-18 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

 God has sent his son into the world to take the judgment for us, to drink the cup of judgment for us.  And I believe if all of Israel had accepted Jesus as God’s son, as their Messiah, then they would not have had the cup of Judgment on them and not been destroyed by Rome.  But they did not believe and thus were condemned.

But Jesus, who knew no sin, took our place on the cross and accepted the cup of judgment for all the world’s sins.  Jesus knows how horrible the cup of suffering will be.  In the garden of Gethsemane, just before he is betrayed and arrested, he prays: 

Matthew 26:39  “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.” 

Jesus is in deep distress, knowing he will have the cup of judgment and suffering poured on him.  He is sweating drops of blood.  Twice, he asks God if there is any other way to accomplish the task.  But he is willing to take the cup of suffering if there is no other way.   

Then, when the guards who were meant to arrest him approached him, Simon rose and struck them with his sword.

John 18:10-11  Then Simon Peter, having a sword, drew it and struck the high priest’s servant and cut off his right ear. (The servant’s name was Malchus.)   So Jesus said to Peter, “Put your sword into its sheath; shall I not drink the cup that the Father has given me?”

The Father has spoken.  Jesus is to drink the cup of judgment in our place.  So when Jesus is tortured and crucified, it is the cup of wrath and judgment being poured out on Jesus.  The cup that had filled over the centuries by the sins of man, by our sins.  The accumulated wrath that should have been poured out on all humanity, for all have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God.  All of that judgment poured out on Jesus.  

So let me ask you, was God angry at Jesus on the cross?  Did God forsake Jesus?  Did God turn his face from Jesus as he took the cup of wrath for our sins?  The Bible says he did not.  Let me show you. 

Psalm 22 tells the story of the crucifixion, which we can easily see now that we know the details in the gospels.  Jesus calls this Psalm out from the cross.  Remember that there were no chapter numbers until over a thousand years after Jesus.  The way to identify a particular passage in the Bible was by quoting the first line.

Matthew 27:46   My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Psalms 22:1   My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

So, for those at the crucifixion who knew scripture, Jesus turned their minds to Psalm 22 by quoting the first line of the psalm.  Most Jews there had that Psalm memorized, and now they can see the Psalm being acted out before their eyes.  Psalm 22 mentions one who is tortured, scorned, and despised by people.  It says that people mock this man and tell him that if he trusts God, let God deliver him—just as happened to Jesus on the cross. The psalm mentions that people divide his clothes and cast lots for his garment, just as the soldiers did for Jesus’ clothing.

Psalm 22 ends with these words:

Psalm 22:30-31  “…it shall be told of the Lord to the coming generation; they shall come and proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn, that he has done it.”

In Hebrew, the final word is ‘עָשָֽׂה’ ‘Asah.’  It can be translated as “it is done.” or, as our English New Testaments say, “It is finished.”

John records Jesus’ last words : 

John 19:30   When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,” and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

Jesus quotes the beginning and end of Psalm 22, and we see in that Psalm a story of the crucifixion—a story of one who was not forsaken but redeemed by the Father. We see it clearly in verse 24:

Psalm 22:24,  “For God has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, and he had not hidden his face from him but has heard when he cried to him.

God did not turn his face from the afflicted one, Jesus.  Jesus hung on the cross in our place and received the cup of judgment, the cup of suffering for the sins of the world.  But God had no anger for Jesus, only love. 

The man pictured above on the left is Franciszek Gajowniczek -He was a Polish soldier captured by Nazi troops and imprisoned in Auschwitz concentration camp.  After one prisoner managed to escape, the commander of the prison ordered that in reprisal, ten prisoners would be chosen at random to die.    Gajowniczek was one of the ten randomly chosen to die. But the man pictured on the right above, Raymund Kolbe, a Polish priest who was also a prisoner, volunteered to die in Gajowniczek’s place.   He was killed by lethal injection on August 14, 1941.   Gajowniczek survived the prison and the war and became a lay missionary. Kolbe took another’s punishment voluntarily. This is an act of love.

Jesus was the innocent one who stepped in our place to receive the cup of Judgment.  He was not guilty of the sins that filled the cup.   So, God was not angry with Jesus. In fact, God looked at Jesus on the cross with great love, that Jesus would lay down his life for the world.  

Remember when we talked about Jesus getting angry at Lazarus’ tomb?  What was Jesus angry about?  He was angry about death, and Jesus came to do battle with death and raise Lazarus from the dead.    And at the cross, Yehovah God has come to do battle with death and remove the sting of death and the victory of sin.  So while God, with one hand, pours out the cup of wrath on Jesus and Jesus suffers the judgment that should be on us, God lovingly holds Jesus close with his other hand.  The true message of the cross is not that of an angry God but that of a loving God willing to suffer in our place.

So Jesus asks James and John:

“Are you able to drink the cup that I must drink?”

They said to him, “We are able.” He said to them, “You will drink my cup, but to sit at my right hand and at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father.”

Who will be on Jesus’ right and left?

“And with him, they crucified two insurrectionists, one on his right and one on his left.”

With Jesus on his right and left are two guilty of rebellion against Rome.  That is the crime that will eventually cause Rome to destroy Jerusalem.  And they represent us all, for we are all guilty and deserve the cup of suffering and death.   And they represent mankind, for one will accept Jesus as his redeemer.  One will allow Jesus to take the cup of wrath for him.  And the other will not and will have to take the cup of wrath, the punishment for his sins himself.

But those who accept Jesus and his standing in their place do not have to take the cup of judgment.  

Romans 8:1   There is, therefore, now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

But as Jesus told James and John, “You will drink my cup.”    You will drink this cup of suffering.  All of the disciples will drink a cup of suffering.  All of them but John will die a martyr’s death.  We learn of James’ death in Acts 12.

Acts 12:1-2   About that time, Herod the King laid violent hands on some who belonged to the church.   He killed James, the brother of John, with the sword.

His brother, John, history tells us, is thrown into a cauldron of boiling oil by Emperor Domitian.  John miraculously escapes, and the emperor exiles him to the island of Patmos.  And thousands of Christians in the first century drank the cup of suffering, tortured and killed by men.

However, the cup of suffering they drink is unlike the one Jesus consumes.  It is not the cup of God’s judgment against man’s sins, but they will take the cup of man’s wrath against God and his followers.   The suffering they receive will be from man alone.

The Greek word ‘martus,’ from which we get our word ‘martyr,’ is not one who dies but is one who is a witness.  The word is most commonly used in Greek for a witness in a trial.  Hundreds of years later, it came to mean those who died for the faith.  But the root of the word is ‘witness.’

God is not calling many of us now to be martyrs in the modern sense of dying for our faith, but he is calling every one of us to be martyrs in the New Testament sense of being a witness to the faith.  You might indeed be asked to die for your faith one day.  Or, if not you, perhaps your child. And if and when that time comes, I pray we will accept that fate joyfully.  But the bigger question today is not “What will you do if God calls you to die for your faith, but it is “What will you do if God calls you to live every day of your life in faithful service for him, never losing your hope, never lagging in your zeal, being a faithful witness to the end,” would you drink from that cup?

Living for Jesus every day means dying to oneself every day.  Jesus said, 

Luke 9:23, “If anyone wants to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” 

Jesus felt the words when he said take up your cross daily.  Jesus and his disciples had seen men crucified.  This is not an easy thing to hear.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer said: 

“Jesus says that every Christian has his cross waiting for him, a cross destined and appointed by God. Each must endure his allotted share of suffering and rejection. But each has a different share: some God deems worthy of the highest form of suffering, and gives them the grace of martyrdom, while others he does not allow to be tempted above that they are able to bear. But it is the one and the same cross in every case. … ”1

“When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”2

And Jesus asks:  Are you willing to drink from that cup?

Paul, because of his ministry, faced death often.  But he said the only point in his living was

Philippians 3:10   — that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

The King James Version poetically calls this “sharing in the fellowship of his sufferings.”

Are you willing to drink from that cup?

The communion table will soon be before us.  And we do not take it lightly.   Paul says this in 1 Corinthians:

1 Corinthians 11:27   Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord.  Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup.  For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. 

When we take the bread and the cup in the Lord’s Supper, we acknowledge the depth of the sacrifice Jesus made for us, standing in our place to take on himself the cup of judgment for our sins.  And we acknowledge our willingness to join in the fellowship of his suffering, to take ourselves the cup of suffering, to come and die.

Jesus asks the question, “Can you drink the cup that I must drink?”  If we take that seriously, it will radically change our lives.  Jesus asks us if we are willing to suffer for him as he suffered for us.  We can not accept the joy of the resurrection in our lives without accepting the sorrow of his suffering and death in our lives also.  Can you say ‘yes’ to Jesus today when he asks if you are willing to take his cup, the cup of suffering, the cup of blessing, the cup of salvation?

  1. Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. The Cost of Discipleship.
  2. Ibid.

December 1, 27 A.D.  –  The Hope of Christmas- Justice —   The Year of the Lord’s Favor #61

David Chupp The 70 Weeks with Jesus Blog , , ,

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.