Matthew 17: Glory and the Grind (5)

Pray Psalm 119.15, 16.
I will meditate on Your precepts,
And contemplate Your ways.
I will delight myself in Your statutes;
I will not forget Your word.

Sing Psalm 119.15, 16.
(Passion Chorale: (O Sacred Head, Now Wounded)
Tune: Passion Chorale – “ O Sacred Head, Now Wounded”
We contemplate Your precepts and cherish all Your ways,
delighting in Your statutes, rememb’ring all our days.
With wondrous bounty bless us, Your humble servants, Lord,
that we may live with Jesus and keep His holy Word.

Read Matthew 17.1-23; meditate on verses 22, 23.

Prepare.
1. What was Jesus focusing on at this time?

2. How did the disciples respond to what He told them?

Meditate.
In his commentary on verse 17, Calvin wrote, “The nearer that the time of his death approached, the more frequently did Christ warn his disciples, lest that melancholy spectacle might give a violent shock to their faith.” Three of the disciples had just seen Him in His glory. All of them had witnessed the mighty work of healing an epileptic boy. They had inquired of Jesus how they might be able to have such power. Were they beginning to lose sight of what He had told them in Matthew 16.21-28? Were they losing focus?

Jesus had come, as He insisted, to “bring near” the Kingdom of God (Matt. 4.17). He brought the disciples and the people to the very edge of the Kingdom sea, and pointed them to the fast-approaching horizon. The Kingdom would come when the Spirit fell, and when the Gospel began to make all things new. As John the Baptist prepared the world for Jesus, so Jesus was preparing the world for the coming of the Kingdom.

But that would never happen without the cross and the resurrection. These were the linchpins to the great work of reconciling the world to God which Jesus had come to do. Everything depended on this, and from those events forward, the coming of the Kingdom depended on understanding, embracing, and living in those realities. “Stay focused!” Jesus seems to be saying to His disciples.

And even at that, they could only hear a portion of what He said. They “were exceedingly sorrowful.” Why? Because He was going to rise from the dead? No, because He was going to die. That much they could understand, and so they could believe it might happen. They had not paid attention when Jesus raised the dead girl, to know that death is not the end for Jesus, but merely the portal to resurrection and the Kingdom.

And we are so much like them! We only hear what we can understand of the Word of Jesus. What is too hard or unfamiliar, or perhaps even uncomfortable or inconvenient, we don’t hear, and so we don’t follow, and we don’t gain the blessings of faith and power the Word brings to those who hear and obey it.

Reflect.
1. What is the Gospel? What does the Gospel promise those who believe?

2. What did Jesus accomplish in His death on the cross? What did He accomplish in His resurrection?

3. How can believers help one another to be more faithful and obedient in all the Word of Jesus?

They knew that he would die, having heard it continually. But as yet they did not know clearly what kind of death this was to be, or that there would be a speedy release from it, or that it would work innumerable blessings, or what this resurrection might be. They did not know it, and so they were distressed, for they greatly adored their Master. John Chrysostom (344-407), The Gospel of Matthew, Homily 58.1

Help me to believe all Your Word, Lord Jesus, so that today I will…

Pray Psalm 119.12-14.
Plead with the Lord to teach you His Word, and give you His Spirit to understand and obey it, that you may know His Word to be more valuable than all the riches of this world.

Sing Psalm 119.12-14.
Psalm 119.12-14 (Passion Chorale: O Sacred Head, Now Wounded)
Be blessed, O God our Savior! Teach us Your holy Word!
Our lips proclaim with favor the statutes of the Lord.
How great our joy, dear Jesus, to follow in Your ways.
What more than this could please us, or brighten all our days?

T. M. Moore

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Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. All psalms for singing adapted from The Ailbe Psalter. All quotations from Church Fathers from Ancient Christian Commentary Series, General Editor Thomas C. Oden (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2006). All psalms for singing are from The Ailbe Psalter (available by clicking here).