Have you ever had high expectations about something that didn’t quite get met? That can be really disappointing. We face a lot of disappointments in life, all of which extend from our own expectations. Have you ever been disappointed in God or his plan for your life? If we’re honest about it, there are a lot of times when God doesn’t seem to be responding or doing what we think he should be doing, right?
We’re going to be reading a section in Matthew’s gospel (chapter 11:1-19) where Jesus addresses some questions that John the Baptist throws at him from jail.
Why do you think John is asking Jesus if he’s really the One they’re waiting for? Consider where John is when asking this, compared to where Jesus is and has been (such as in Matthew 9:10). Also, consider what John declared Messiah’s mission to be. Can you understand his confusion?
Jesus doesn’t answer John by saying “Yes, I’m the Messiah, stop questioning me!”. Instead, what does he point to? Jesus quotes a lot of passages from Isaiah in his answer (Isa 26, 29, 61). John was waiting for Messiah to execute judgement on unfaithful Israel and Rome. What does Jesus point to as the focus and evidence that God’s kingdom is indeed present and at work? How can that help us to understand the unexpected ways in which God works in our world? Where do you think our focus should be as the church?
Things get a little cryptic after that. Jesus reminds the crowd that they didn’t go out to the Jordan to look at a reed in the wind (possibly a disguised way of identifying Herod) or a kingly presence. They went to hear a prophet speaking for God. The greatest prophet, because he was standing at the threshold of God’s invading kingdom. Then Jesus says this strange thing about the kingdom suffering violence and the violent taking it by force. There are a multitude of ideas about what this means – I’m inclined to think it’s connected to the contrast between Herod and John. The representation of God’s kingdom (in the temple religion and in Herod’s assertion that he is king of the Jews) suffers because violent men try and use violent means to advance God’s purposes. What was the general expectation of the Messiah’s mission at that time? What did they think he was going to do? What did he end up doing, and how was it unconventional in terms of expectations?
Jesus then compares his critics to spoiled children who refuse to get on the same page and play the same game. They criticized John because he was too austere, they rejected Jesus because it looked like he was having too much fun. There was no pleasing them. So what does Jesus point to in answering his critics in v19? As Christians, we will always have people criticising or questioning our faith. Following Jesus’ lead, what should we be pointing to as evidence for consideration that God is indeed at work in our midst?
I’m really looking forward to digging into this text on Sunday! Hope to see you there!
I’m currently reading a history book about William Marshall, considered by the author to be one of England’s greatest knights. He served under five different kings in his lifetime and fought in a multitude of battles and tournaments. During the reign of Richard the Lionheart, Richard was being held for ransom in Germany, being captured on his way home from the Crusades. Richard’s brother, Count John, had taken bold steps to usurp the kingdom for himself in Richard’s absence.
What are your first thoughts when you read the letters IRS together? Do you have negative or positive feelings about this agency? That’s sort of a rhetorical question, I don’t know many people who get the warm and fuzzies when it comes to our government tax agency. As John Oliver says, “It’s no wonder people hate the IRS. They’re unavoidable, they often function poorly and they combine things we hate the most: losing money and math.”
How easy is it for you to trust someone? We may consider ourselves to be “trusting souls”, but the reality is we often find it difficult to place our trust in someone else. A lot of factors go into that – past experiences, our own sense of frailty when it comes to trustworthiness, and a host of other reasons go into our tentative approach to giving away our trust. It’s hard to trust others…and those are people we can SEE and examine and evaluate on a regular basis. What about a God who hides himself (
“I didn’t go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of Port would do that. If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity.” ~ C.S. Lewis
Do you remember playing “opposite day” when you were a kid? It could be sort of fun at first, but it always devolved into an annoying game of contradictions. There would usually be one kid who would take it too far and drive everyone around him to the brink of violence. I really should apologize for that.
I remember once when my wife and I were going to turn an enclosed porch area on the back of our house into an extra bedroom for our boys. We planned and considered how this could be accomplished and what it would take. We drew a lot of diagrams on napkins and contemplated this task – and then realized it was too big for us and had to be hired out. A friend from church did construction jobs like this agreed to take on our project. What I still remember was the great sense of satisfaction and even surprise when he set out to tear sections out and rebuild others, because there was a big difference between this project in theory and seeing it in action. It turned out much better than we had imagined.
If you’ve ever dieted, either to shed a few pounds or because of health reasons, what is the main thing you think about whilst denying yourself of some type of food? I can’t speak for you, but I know that most of the time all I see are visions of corn-dogs dancing in a chorus line singing “We taste great with MUSTARD!”. That’s a fascinating thing about the human experience: we have strong urges and desires for whatever it is that is that is generally not good for us.
