An Unexpected Resolution

[ The Arrival of God’s Kingdom Through Matthew’s Gospel ]

Series Dates: 09/12/20 - 11/21/20

There is a story that we find ourselves in that is further reaching than our brief breath on this planet.  The story begins with God forming His creation and his creation living under His good and loving rule.  In Genesis 1, we find God placing us in a garden where we experienced His Shalom (Peace).  In sin we chose to rebel, attempting to overthrow God's rule as King. Through this rebellion, sin permeates our identity and we are found to be broken, separated from our loving Creator and citizens of a new disordered world.  But at the end of Genesis 3, we find that God, in love, promises to restore the world to himself. 

In Genesis 8, there is hope that through Noah, dominion would be restored to the world through an ark, but he fails, getting drunk on the earth when the floods subside. In Genesis 12, God calls Abraham, from whom the nation of Israel would come. He promises Abraham that his family would be the agents through whom God’s dominion of the world would be restored.  But they rebel and fail to be the instrument. Years later, a king after God's heart named David emerges to reign and rule the nation of Israel. He is found to be an adulterer and murderer, failing to restore the reign of God on earth again. The prophets foretell of a Messiah who would reorder the world, but Israel as a nation continues to rebel until they are found in exile, captive to Babylon and later Rome. This is where the story of the Old Testament ends — Israel in exile, anticipating a Messiah, but the story unresolved, with a looming question: 

How will God restore the world to Himself? 

Writing about twenty years after the death of Jesus (50-60 AD) and inspired by the Holy Spirit, an unpopular first century tax collector we know as Matthew answers this question by showing us how the story finds resolution in Jesus Christ who restores dominion to the world in the most unexpected way.

Matthew begins his account with a genealogy that traces Jesus' roots back to Abraham, David and the Exile.  From the lineage of very ones who failed will come an unexpected resolution.  In Chapter 1, the name “Jesus” that is given by his parents means Yahweh Saves.  Like Israel under Pharaoh, Jesus, at birth, is found under the rule of an evil king, Herod, who tries to kill him and causes his family to flee to Egypt. In Chapters 2 and 3, Jesus, like Israel, is brought out of Egypt and through the waters of baptism as Israel came through the Red Sea. In Chapter 4, Jesus is then called into the wilderness for 40 days as Israel was for 40 years. When Jesus returns from the wilderness, he announces that the Kingdom of God or the resolution of the story is at hand (He being the anticipated King/Messiah/Rescuer). Jesus calls twelve unlikely disciples, corresponding to the twelve tribes of Israel, to be those who would carry the announcement of this Kingdom to the nations (ch.4, 10,  28). In Matthew 5-7 Jesus traverses a mountain to receive and teach the code of this Kingdom to his new nation. 

The majority of the rest of the account is made up of a range of teachings, interactions and demonstrations where Jesus is showing, through the fulfillment of prophecy that he is indeed the Messiah-King who has come to resolve the story. This includes a number of miraculous healings, displays of power over nature, and teachings about the nature of the Kingdom, the Community of the Kingdom, and when the Kingdom will be fully realized at the end of days. To fulfill prophecy about the Messiah, he often uses parables (ch.13,18-20) to teach what the Kingdom is like and who the citizens of the Kingdom are. The last several chapters of Matthew (21-27) are devoted to explaining how the story comes to its resolution as Jesus rides into Jerusalem as an unexpected king.  With divine authority, he clears the temple, rejecting the defaming of God's dwelling place.  Then, in a twist, he is put to death on a cross, becoming the passover lamb, in love, to deliver humanity from sin. The Messiah-King is then raised from the dead (ch. 28), conquering death and sin and demonstrating that he is the Messiah who offers a new life under his reign and rule for everyone who would turn from the old world order. The book ends with the Messiah-King sending out his new Israel to fulfill what God had promised after our first parents fell in the garden. 

grace + peace,

The Downtown Hope Theology Team

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