Well, after a year and some change, we have come to the final study in the Gospel of Matthew. We will be finishing up chapter 28, reading verses 16-20. This is Matthew’s abbreviated account of Jesus meeting up with his disciples after his resurrection. It’s a brief passage, but there is a lot of stuff to consider in these final words.

For one thing, v16-17 are fascinating and delightful to me. As his followers gather around their previously deceased Rabbi, they respond in a way that is telling about the nature of Christ. They worship him. Jesus allows them to worship him. What does that tell us?

In V17 it says that some doubted. It’s a very brief and unqualified statement which Matt just slips into the narrative. What did they doubt? That it was Jesus? Or did they doubt that he had really died? What doubts would you be wrestling with if you stood in their sandals? 

Jesus goes on to give several instructions in these final verses. Go to all nations, make disciples, baptize, teach, obey and trust. This is what will be going on until, as he puts it, the end of the age. Which of those imperatives are more challenging for you? How has our study of Jesus’ ministry helped to shape our understanding of what this will look like?

I hope you’ve gotten as much out of Matthew’s gospel as I have. I hope we all gain a clearer focus of God’s kingdom and heaven meeting earth to make all things new.

I’ve said many times before how much I love the Gospel accounts of the resurrection of Jesus. Critics will often point out all the discrepancies we find in them and declare the whole story as untrustworthy because of them. But it’s precisely because of those discrepancies that I find them so compelling! The narrative carries the tone of people who were shocked by something unexpected and impossible to believe, who stumble all over themselves trying to piece together the chain of events that led to their world being turned upside down.

We’re just a few studies out from completing our study in Matthew, and we’ll be reading Matthew 28:1-15 which describes the mind-imploding event of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead.

Everything about this event carries the message of God’s intent for this world. Resurrection proclaims new creation. That’s what we’ll be focusing on this Sunday.

There’s an interesting pattern of reversal that we find that bridges ch 27:45-66 and ch 28:1-15. We start with darkness, then an earthquake, then Jesus dies and the religious leaders plot. Then in ch 28 we begin with light, and an earthquake, then Jesus lives, and the religious leaders plot. It’s a reversal of things…well, not all things, the religious leaders seem stuck in their repeated action – but for those outside of that, new life, new light, and new hope has dawned.

We’ll get into in more depth on Sunday. I hope you can join us as we explore the most important event that human history contains.

It’s amazing to me how much the crucifixion of one Middle Eastern man two millennia in the past has persistently and relentlessly invaded the imagination of humans right up until this present day. We just can’t escape the cross. That cross emanates something we vaguely intuit. There is a key there and we can’t shake it.

The New Testament presents the crucifixion of Jesus as a central theme from which the hope of the gospel flows out. While a robust theology of this event was still in it’s primitive stages in the minds of the NT writers – one thing is crystalline clear: Something VERY important happened in relation to the human condition and the future of the world when Jesus died on the cross. That much they unflinchingly declared.

This Sunday we’ll be reading the account of Jesus’ crucifixion in our ongoing study of Matthew – we’ll be reading Matthew 27:32-66.

As you read over the passage – what other consequence of sin, if any, do we see Jesus bearing in our place? Are there connections to the curse from Gen 3 that you can pinpoint that Jesus takes on himself at the cross? We’ll be looking at those specifically in our study.

This, again, is a brutal yet beautiful passage – a window into the heart of God towards you and I. Hope you can be there this Sunday!

This Sunday we’ll be reading Matthew 27:1-31. It describes the preliminary stages of the cross experience of Christ. We’ve stated before that the cross is the central revelation of God’s character. So, we’ll be focusing on the cross in our teaching, discovering what it reveals and provides for us. It’s a very painful section to read and discuss, but it is also beautiful when understood as a picture of God’s heart towards humanity. That’s one of those strange, delicate tensions that the Gospel is full of.

In v1-10, Judas went to the temple and the temple leaders because his heart was burdened by what he’d done. What response did he meet there? What does that tell us about what had happened to the temple system of that time? How does that contrast with Jesus’ ministry and what warnings do we discern when it comes to our own framework for the practice of our faith?

Through the rest of the section we’ll cover we read about the trial before Pilate. Pilate had political aspirations and clearly wanted to protect those, but he also had difficulty with the apparent innocence of Jesus. The crowd and their leaders wanted blood and Pilate wanted to avoid a riot which could further tarnish his reputation as a competent leader for Rome. He offers a trade – he’ll let one prisoner go as a gesture of good-will for the Passover – the crowd chooses guilty Barabbas and innocent Jesus takes his place. Matthew is pretty heavy handed with the telling of this – it’s obvious what he wants us to see. What do you see?  What is this a picture of the cross revealing about God’s heart and the Gospel?

When the soldiers mock Jesus, they dress him up like a clown king…a parody of what a ruler should look like. They fashion a crown out of thorny brambles to put on his head. The Creation story comes to mind, and the curse pronounced because of sin:

Gen 3:17…”cursed is the fertile land because of you;
        in pain you will eat from it
        every day of your life.

Considering that curse, what does Jesus being crowned with thorns mean to you? What can it be picturing about what the cross of Christ is providing for us?

As I said – it’s a heavy and painful section of Scripture to read – but beautiful beyond comprehension as well. Hope to see you Sunday.

One thing we realize, right away, when we read Scripture is that God’s people are never immune to experiencing troubles or suffering. The characters in the Biblical narrative are never lionized but shown with all their flaws in clear view. Not just flaws, but the pain they experience is represented as well.

Still, Scriptures also reveal that pain is often on the path to redemption. Not that I believe God wills for us to suffer, but that even our suffering is in the scope of God’s intent to make all things right again.

This Sunday we’ll be reading Matthew 26:31-75. That’s a big chunk of verses, but they are all tied together through one character who shows up in each section. If you’ve read the passage, you know that it’s Peter!

We’ll be looking at Peter’s missteps and his flailing faith and trying to glean lessons on what not to do when our faith begins to fail.

Read the passage all the way through, then go back and consider each thing that Peter says and does, his movements and attitudes, and consider what the opposite of those would be. If you do that, you should be able to track with our thoughts on it this Sunday.

For all the trouble and pain in this section, I really do think there are some good, practical lessons we can take away from Peter’s story. I hope you can join us this Sunday at 10 AM!

This week we’ll be reading a very familiar parable – what is often called “The Parable of the Talents”, in Matthew 25:14-30.

As you read this story, remember that parables aren’t meant to be exact representations of God’s kingdom in all the details. Jesus said it is “like” this sort of thing. The most important element of this story to discern is just what Jesus meant the bags of silver to represent. Older translations call this money “talents”, which is a literal translation. A talent was Roman currency.  We get our English word “talent” from this parable, interestingly enough. Do you think Jesus is talking about money? Probably not, since money is the image he’s employing. Do you think he’s talking about our skills though? What else do we know that God has entrusted to us, his subjects, to manage while our King isn’t presently seen?

The element of investing the talents is intriguing to me. It carries the implication of risk-taking. What would taking risks with what God has entrusted to us look like in our lives? What would it look like in our churches?

The third steward in this story seemed to speak respectfully to his master. But what do you think his actions actually revealed? Contrast the way the first two stewards interacted with the master and the third stewards assessment of what the master is like. What do you make of that contrast, if anything? Here’s a hint – how did the Pharisees understand God’s nature in contrast to Jesus’ revelation of God?

We’ll have a lot to think about as we engage this passage on Sunday. I hope you can join us!

It seems like every culture has a different approach to weddings and the rituals associated with them. This Sunday, as we continue our study in Matthew, we’ll be reading about the unusual wedding rituals of ancient Palestine as we study chapter 25:1-13.

As you read the parable that Jesus tells, what do you believe the main point is?  How comfortable or uncomfortable are you with the topic of the end times? If you knew for sure that Jesus was going to return within the next hour, is there anything you would do differently?

It’s interesting to note that both sets of girls fell asleep while waiting for the bridegroom during a long delay. The only time the differences began to show up between them was when the alarm was sounded. One group was prepared, one was not.

In what ways can we see to it that we are prepared for the reveal of Christ as King?

I think this will be an interesting topic for our study – plus, we’ll be celebrating Communion – hope you can join us this Sunday at 10 AM!