Matthew 9 9-13 notes 2005
Beckah Fink from Texas wrote to Dear Abby about a father's forgiveness and a son's need to forgive himself. A young man from a wealthy family was about to graduate from high school. It was the custom in that affluent neighborhood for the parents to give the graduate an automobile. 'Bill' and his father had spent months looking at cars, and the week before graduation they found the perfect car. Bill was certain that the car would be his on graduation night.
Imagine his disappointment when, on the eve of his graduation, Bill's father handed him a gift-wrapped Bible! Bill was so angry, he threw the Bible down and stormed out of the house. He and his father never saw each other again. It was the news of his father's death that brought Bill home again.
As he sat one night, going through his father's possessions that he was to inherit, he came across the Bible his father had given him. He brushed away the dust and opened it to find a cashier's check, dated the day of his graduation - in the exact amount of the car they had chosen together. --Dear Abby, Rocky Mountain News, 2 September 1992, 55. That son didn’t get what he expected. He got more.
“Follow Me”, Jesus told Matthew. When Jesus called him, when He calls us, it is because He knows that following Him, believing in Him, being one of his people means we have eternal life. When Jesus leads, He leads with kindness and gentleness. He leads with love. Jesus leads us to His cross, where He shed His blood for you, where He gave His life for you, where He forgives you all your sins. When Jesus says “follow me,” we have the joy of knowing and loving God and loving other people. We get to go through life knowing that Jesus is always with us, and one day He will lead us to our home with Him. There we will be given more than we could have ever asked for.
Following Jesus may have seemed easy at first. How wonderful it would have been to be in the inner circle with a charismatic, dynamic miracle worker. Sure there were rough spots along the way, but can you imagine the things Matthew heard and saw? Then came trouble, things unexpected and unimaginable. There is opposition from the religious people, people that Matthew had been taught to respect. Then came the final week, Jesus is arrested, beaten, tried and crucified. Then Matthew and the disciples were on the run for their very lives. Matthew may have thought, is this what it means to “Follow Me” as Jesus said? Then there would come a time when Matthew, like Jesus, would die for teaching other people to follow Jesus.