Jesus and the New Exodus

1/22/2023 – Matthew 4 - Jesus and the New Exodus

Good morning One River,

We’re now in our second Sunday of Ordinary time, and we’re looking at the life of Jesus. So far we’ve celebrated his birth, the Epiphany (which was when the Zoroastrian priest brought him gifts.) Last week we looked at his baptism and the impact that had on the world.

This week were going to look at the Passage where Jesus moved and began his preaching ministry, but first we’re going to look back at his fulfilment of prophecy.

Matthew 4:12-23-

Jesus Begins to Preach

12 When Jesus heard that John had been put in prison, he withdrew to Galilee. 13 Leaving Nazareth, he went and lived in Capernaum, which was by the lake in the area of Zebulun and Naphtali—14 to fulfill what was said through the prophet Isaiah:

15 “Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali,

the Way of the Sea, beyond the Jordan,

Galilee of the Gentiles—

16 the people living in darkness

have seen a great light;

on those living in the land of the shadow of death

a light has dawned.”

17 From that time on Jesus began to preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

Jesus Calls His First Disciples

18 As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. 19 “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.” 20 At once they left their nets and followed him.

21 Going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John. They were in a boat with their father Zebedee, preparing their nets. Jesus called them, 22 and immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.

The passage from Isaiah that the narrator is telling us about is from Isaiah 9:1-2. He makes specific reference to the land of Zebulun and Naphtali.

To most of us, this may not ring any bells. But if we have time and read the expanded Isaac text and maybe 1 Kings as well, we’ll see the Assyrian conquer of the Northern Tribes. I know we’ve spent a great deal of time going over the Babylonian exile, but do we remember the Assyrian exile?

This is arguably a much more tragic event. If we read through Kings we’ll see that King Jeroboam made the decision that traveling to Jerusalem to worship the LORD was to far and two costly. So in his infinite wisdom he recreated the Golden Calves from Aaron’s Exodus debacle. We all remember how that didn’t end well?

Jeroboam roped the northern ten tribes of Israel into worshiping them, instead of God. So, God sent the prophets to warn them to repent. And Israel unfortunately chose not to. God upped his game from prophets to the big four JUDGMENTS: the SWORD, FAMINE, PESTILENCE, and the BEAST. Which is understood to be, being conquered by a foreign military. In this case the Assyrians. The Assyrians spent around 2 years working over the Israelites and in the end, they conquered killed or enslaved 10 of the 12 tribes of Israel.

Here comes the really crazy part. Those ten tribes were never recovered. We often think that when King Cyrus made his royal decree that ALL the Israelite tribes went home. But that’s simply not true. Much speculation has been had as to the fate of the northern 10 tribes, but they are referred to as the “Lost Tribes” because the truth is, we have no idea what happened to them. But we know they never came home.

So, by the time Jesus came on the scene, he’s walking around with two and maybe a third of the original twelve tribes. On top of this the Assyrians back filled the land with Gentiles, which is how we get Samaritans in Jesus day.

So back to the text, Jesus has moved to the land of Zebulon and Naphtali. This is the northern section just above Galilee. The text tells us that he’s done this to fulfill the prophecy of Isaiah. Here’s where it gets interesting.

The Jews use this section of Isaiah to say that this proves Jesus could not be the messiah. Let’s read it really quickly.

Isaiah 9 (NIV)

9 Nevertheless, there will be no more gloom for those who were in distress. In the past he humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the future he will honor Galilee of the nations, by the Way of the Sea, beyond the Jordan—

2 The people walking in darkness

have seen a great light;

on those living in the land of deep darkness

a light has dawned.

3 You have enlarged the nation

and increased their joy;

they rejoice before you

as people rejoice at the harvest,

as warriors rejoice

when dividing the plunder.

4 For as in the day of Midian’s defeat,

you have shattered

the yoke that burdens them,

the bar across their shoulders,

the rod of their oppressor.

5 Every warrior’s boot used in battle

and every garment rolled in blood

will be destined for burning,

will be fuel for the fire.

6 For to us a child is born,

to us a son is given,

and the government will be on his shoulders.

And he will be called

Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,

Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

7 Of the greatness of his government and peace

there will be no end.

He will reign on David’s throne

and over his kingdom,

establishing and upholding it

with justice and righteousness

from that time on and forever.

The zeal of the LORD Almighty

will accomplish this.

So, let’s think about this. It definitely has some comments in here about the warriors rejoicing, and what not. We can see how the Jews would have been looking for a warrior king. Someone to Rule the nation and take the government on his shoulders.

But we just looked at the fact that these tribes never saw home again. We don’t know fully what happened to them in Assyria after there capture, but we know they never returned. We know eventually the Assyrian Empire fell, and there’s no mention of what happened to their slaves, which is not unusual.

These people, these lost ten tribes, were truly walking in darkness. What great light might they have seen? We know that they were in fact, never returned or rescued, and we could not return them now if we tried. So, if the Savior wasn’t Jesus…who would it have been? It would effectively be a prophecy with no fulfillment. No one ever saved the people of Zebulun and Naphtali. So that would make Isaiah wrong. Everyone, including the Jews, get hung up on the “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty King, a child is born stuff. But they miss the great light for the lost.

“You enlarged the nation and increased their joy.” He’s talking about Jesus and the disciples reaching out to the gentile nations. Interestingly, extra biblical texts tell us that it would be Judas Thaddeus (Jude) after the Judas Iscariot debacle, and doubting (Thomas) that would be the one to evangelize Edessa (which was Assyria during the Roman occupation).

It is the Jewish people that don’t see Jesus as the Christ, and it would be the Jewish man that didn’t believe in his resurrection that would ultimately bring the Messiah to the lost ten tribes. You can’t tell me God doesn’t have a sense of humor about this stuff.

Let’s not forget that in Matthew, this all comes at the very beginning of Jesus ministry. Matthew, a Jewish man writing this text to the Jews to persuade them Jesus is the Christ. So far his case laid out is familial genealogy, persecution by a corrupt king, worship by foreign priests. This is all just setting the stage. Jesus is still a baby, right.

Then we jump thirty years into the future and Jesus’ cousin John becomes His very own prophet telling of his immediate and eminent coming. So much so, that in one message he looks up an goes ah, yup there he is. That guy, he’s the Christ.

Jesus shows up and follows John’s message of repentance – meaning change your ways and pay attention. In this change, he’s Baptized embodying all the royal traditions of the Roman aristocracy and proving to the people that he was the Son of God. Both in Deed and when a voice from Heaven opens up with “That’s my kid, I love him and You better pay attention.”

Jesus then gets whisked away to the desert where he squares off with “the Satan” God’s adversary. He’s the guy brought in to test all the things in God’s world and see if he can break them. Most of us don’t fair well against him. But Jesus, he aces that test. How good did he do one the test, well angels showed up and fed him and rubbed his feet.

Now lets remember this is all the prelude, we haven’t seen Jesus preach a single message or even choose a disciple. This is just him solo. So what does Matthew say he does next?

In a true hold my Beer moment Jesus says, hey guys, you know those ten tribes you lost 735 years ago? You know 5/6th of the entire Jewish population. Ya, I’m going to save them. I’m the” great light”, I’m the “light of dawn”. Matthew only uses the first few lines of Isaiah 9. At this point he doesn’t get into to the “child is born” He’s Just speaking about the light in the darkness. A phrase repeated throughout scripture on reference to Jesus.

That’s when he begins his message. All I ask is that you repent, change your wicked worldly ways, because the Kingdom of God is here. I’m here.

I don’t know if you guys remember, but last year I was going through the beatitudes and I think I said we needed to start in Chapter 4 to kinda lay the ground work for the proper understanding of the beatitudes. Here’s where I’m going to tie those two messages together.

I think I did an entire message on the phrase “The kingdom of God (or Heaven) has come near.” If you remember, It’s the phrase that means God, through Jesus is actively rebooting the order of the earth. Everything harkens back to the first three chapters of Genesis, and this is no different.

I think I showed you how God assigned humans to co-rule the earth in the garden. We of course, were not faithful to that instruction. So, we’re cast out of the garden and so begins the adventure of Israel. Abraham is led to the promised land, which eventually leads to enslavement at the hands of the Egyptians. God and Pharoh duke it out in true biblical fashion and, of course God is victorious. The first place we see God described with this Kingly language is here when the Israelites sing a song of the victory of the lord in the book of Exodus.

Jesus is rebooting that origin story. He’s setting up a new kingdom, with himself as king and the whole of humanity as his people. This is no longer just for the Jewish people.

How’s he going to do this?

Matthew is painting us a picture here. First he fulfills a seven hundred year old prophecy and he frees the lost tribes of Israel. He becomes this promised great light, freeing them from the shadow of death.

This is where, to the reader, it becomes apparent that Jesus is preaching of a spiritual kingdom. Because no one, short of God, could even begin to find the lost ten tribes at this point. They’re gone. This is several Empires and Many Dynasties later. They’re gone, absorbed, traded, sold off. 5/6th of Israel is gone.

But Matthew tells us, again, God/Jesus has freed them. Then he walks into presumably a synagogue, because Matthew tells us “he began to preach”, “Repent (pay attention, you have a choice to make.) For the kingdom of God/heaven is here. I am the new king. God and I are rebooting this thing and this time I’m bringing God’s holy kingdom to the whole world. I want you to be apart of it. Join me.

Now there’s no expressed scriptural response for how that message was received. We don’t hear there of any new disciples coming to Jesus. By the way, this is THE MESSAGE of Matthew. This phrase “repent for the kingdom of God/heaven is near” is spoken over 50 times in the 30 pages of Matthew’s Gospel.

So, the very next thing Jesus does is, he goes for a walk and begins to collect the 12. “Come, follow me,” he says. Why 12, well tradition tells us that Rabbi’s have 12 disciples for the 12 tribes. Which is interesting, because at this point in history there’s only 2 and a little bit of a third tribe left. But I digress.

Jesus is rebooting the Exodus narrative leading all humanity into his kingdom and freedom. And he’s doing it in such a way that it would be easily noticeable to the Jewish reader. They would have ample understanding of the Garden narrative and the Exodus story. They would quickly see these parallels that Matthew provides between Jesus and God. Historically, we see that often the ruling class argued nuances, that Jesus wasn’t the Messiah. But We also know many did in fact follow him. Including many from the Assyrian area where the lost tribes were.

The symmetry of the Jesus story is unmistakable. The Gospels record his exploits in such a manner that they would have easily spoke to the common person of the early Church.

What draws my heart near, is when we begin to notice these connections in the modern church, that would have been so completely clear to the early church. I tend not to be the guy that thinks God specifically designed every single movement in each of our lives. I believe that scripture tells us we have a certain degree of freedom. Freedom to choose our path, and our ultimate salvation in Him.

But to say there is no organization at all, defies both scripture and history. This story is a great example, God pulls the same string over and over, in the course of human history. Sometimes thousands of years apart.

What I find interesting is that the more He works in human history, the gentler He becomes. Frustrated parents rarely get softer when the child doesn’t learn the lesson. But God in his benevolence sends us Jesus. To work on us individually and corporately through our hearts and minds, not just our actions.

Let’s finish with the LORD’s prayer.