Trinity 7: 6^th July

Preacher: Richard Dingley

Readings:

Zechariah 9, 9-12

Romans 7, 15-25a

Matthew 11, 16-19

Father, Open your word to each of us and us to your word so that hearing we may understand and understanding we may believe and follow you. Amen.

How amazingly up-to-date are the words of Jesus recorded in the passage of St Matthew’s Gospel we have just heard. Let’s briefly look at the first four verses: it is as though he is talking directly to our own generation. People are like spoiled children whining to their parents. We played fun games and you wouldn’t join in; we played solemn games and you were too busy. God sent John in the latter guise and he was considered crazy while when God sent Jesus he was called a drunkard and the friend of the dregs of society. When coming up against the sinful human race it would appear that God just could not win!! Isn’t that exactly like it is today? But the public opinions expressed in polls simply do not count with God. The proof of Jesus is in the way he fulfils Old Testament prophecy and in the power, not only revealed in the miracles he performed but supremely in the victory of the resurrection and ascension after his humiliating death at Calvary – a death voluntarily undertaken for our own personal benefit as well as for that of the whole human race!

But then Jesus, in the second section of our reading, makes a comparison of contemporary towns in Israel with those who suffered the wrath of God in earlier years, and He goes on to make the most astounding claims. These claims must either false, which would make him an upstart liar and impersonator of God, or true. His words can brook no middle way. What he says is absolutely breathtaking. In essence he is quietly stating that He, and He alone is the locus of all revelation! He is the only source of God’s self-disclosure to men! As such we need to take heed to what he is saying and try to absorb the meaning and the implication of his words.

According to Michael Green there are five elements to this astounding claim of Jesus.

1 In verse 25 He maintains that God reveals or conceals His truth from people according to His will. No one can grasp the essential essence of the Christian Message by his or her own intellect and effort of will. And those to whom truth is revealed are not the educated, and often the self-opinionated, elite who trust in their own wisdom and understanding but rather to the simple ordinary people who are both teachable and believing.

2 Then in verse 27 Jesus claims to be the representative of God to mankind. He comes from God. He is equipped with all God’s power and resources. He is the plenipotentiary of God the Father. Jesus fully represents God on earth and as such He comes claiming God’s rightful place in the human heart.

3 Jesus then makes the claim that only God himself fully knows and understands the Son. The mystery of Jesus will never be fully understood on earth. The limited discernment of the human heart makes such knowledge impossible this side of heaven. Jesus is on a totally different plane. It takes God to know God. And by these words Jesus is again claiming to be God and not just another prophet.

4 Then in the same verse He makes the claim that He, and only He, understands and knows the Father. Great theologians and philosophers, however wise, are simply not able of themselves to understand God. Only Jesus knows God the Father as daddy! Jesus here claims to be the only one who has the right and the competence to reveal God to us. That is an astounding claim, not present in any other religious system! It is counter-cultural and it is certainly not politically correct talk, either then or now! Only Jesus has the intimacy of a Daddy/Son relationship that gives him the right and the knowledge to reveal the Father to any human being.

5 But the claims of Jesus in this passage don’t end here. In the next few verses Jesus invites us to come to Him, and He will give us rest. But it means giving up our trust in ourselves and leaning fully on His promises. He wants the weary and struggling to come; those who are unable to cope with life as it presents itself; those who look for a way out. Jesus tells us his yoke is easy – and yet he promised persecution and hardship. But the term easy relates to our comfort. For a yoke to be comfortable, to be easy, it must fit the particular man or beast it is made for correctly. Jesus fits our individual needs, whatever our circumstances. This is what makes the burden light, this personal adaptation to our own needs means He understands our personal needs and speaks to us individually.

This discourse reminds us of the claim made by Jesus in St. John’s Gospel when he said “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life; no one comes to the Father but by me.” He is the door; He is the Way. And he reveals himself to those who are humble enough to put their trust in his word.

It is this claim of unique authority that makes the Christian faith so loved and so hated in the world. It results in Jesus not joining with all other religious teachers in saying, “Go to God” but instead “Come to Me!” Charles Wesley sums it up in his wonderful “And can it be that I should gain an interest in the Saviour’s blood! Amazing Love – how can it be that thou my God shouldst die for me! Then comes the climax in the last verse “No condemnation now I dread, Jesus, and all in Him is mine; alive in Him, my living head, and clothed with righteousness divine. Bold I approach the eternal tone and claim the crown, through Christ, my own!”

Amen