Chapters 8 and 9 of Matthew belong with the Sermon on the Mount; without them it is not balanced. Whilst in the basic structure of the Gospel the Sermon (chs. 5-7) is the Discourse component of Book I and the Miracles (chs. 8-9) are the Narrative Component of Book II, they are nonetheless stitched together with an editorial repetition (an inclusio):
4:23 before the Sermon, "He went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every infirmity among the people" and
9:35 after the Miracles, "Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every disease and every infirmity."
Matthew is saying, "I want you to read everything between these two verses as one whole. I have shown you how the King intends us to live; now let me show you how He supplies the inspiration and the strength to do so. Not only does Jesus supply an ethic, He also supplies a dynamic."
Another editorial device of Matthew's (in narrative segments) is to group thematically related material in little journeys. In these two chapters 8 and 9 there are three little journeys Jesus makes:
1. 8:1-17 He
- comes down from the mountain and heals a
leper
- enters the town and heals a slave
- enters the house and heals a woman
2. 8:23-9.8 He
- takes a boat across the lake and stills
the storm
- goes ashore and heals a demoniac
- comes back in the boat and heals a paralytic
3. 9:18-34 He
- starts from a house to heal a woman and a
child
- moving on he heals two blind men
- as He moves away he heals a dumb demoniac
There is a theme to each of these three groups of miracles:
In the first we see His power to heal - He is Saviour.
In the second, His authority in three areas - He is Lord.
In the third, restoring lost powers - He is Redeemer.
JESUS IS SAVIOUR
We shall not be able to live by the Sermon on the Mount if:
1. We are 'lepers'
2. We are 'paralytics'
3. We are 'fevered'
Can Jesus cleanse, quicken and calm us?
Sin affects us like leprosy does; it defiles
and deforms us.
Sin affects us like paralysis does; it disables and wastes us.
Sin affects like a fever does; it frets and confuses us.
To see Jesus able to deal with these conditions will inspire us to say, "I will follow you." That is exactly the response which Matthew immediately supplies so that we may identify with it - v. 19: a scribe says, "Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go." Each of the three sections, indeed, is followed by a paragraph about Discipleship -
(1) 9:18-22
(2) 9:9-17
(3) ch. 10 entire.
Even more interesting, Book II models the final word at the end of the Gospel, Matt. 28:18-19:
"All authority is given unto me ..." that is chs. 8-9
"Going, make disciples therefore ..." that is ch. 10
Matthew's Gospel is constructed like a fugue. His themes interweave throughout the gospel by means of recapitulations, restatements, 'inclusios' etc.
i. Jesus moves alone
1. In His competence - "I will heal him ..."
2. In His responsiveness - to human appeal: the leper's, the centurion's - to need which is its own appeal:Peter's mother-in-law
3. In His freedom - no programme. He goes where need takes Him
ii . He starts where life is at its most hopeless
... with a leper, typical of ravaged, wasted lives. He says, "We shall start here!" None are 'too far gone' for Him to reach and heal
... nor too paralysed for Him to 'touch' and give life with His touch. (In the paralysis of depression we feel Him to be infinitely remote from us, but He is not.)
... nor too fevered that His touch and His Word cannot calm.
iii. He goes to the unfit
The leper was an outcast - 'unclean.' No-one
would touch him.
The centurion was an alien - an outsider, representing those who
cannot communicate.
The woman was a nobody - women tended to be regarded as chattels. She
represents those who have no status, in their own or other's
eyes.
iv - His touch is universal. Jesus healed
... in the open country (the leper)
... in the city (the centurion)
... in the home (Peter's mother-in-law)
He is able to bring His touch to every sphere of life
... to the crowd (at the end of the day,
8:16)
... to the lonely individual
v - Know what you want
We must know what we want to ask of Him, as
the leper did, as the centurion did. We will hardly take hold of God
till we know where we need His touch. He is able. Is He willing? Cry
... and see. "All the prayers that storm Heaven are brief."
We must be ready for Him to do His thing with us, though. He will say
"I will"! We may cry, of course, not just for ourselves (as the leper
did), but for others whom we love (as the Centurion did).
Notice, it is a reasonable faith. As the centurion's authority in the military realm carried effect, so Christ's authority in the spiritual realm carries effect.
Who is He? God ... in our skin! He understands us: He is to be trusted.
vi. His Saviourhood
His Saviourhood is suggested both at the beginning and at the end of the section.
At the beginning: When Jesus touched the leper He 'took the curse' (laid on him by the Law. Shades of the epistle to the Galatians 3:10, 13). He defiled Himself with the leper's defilement.
At the end: "He Himself took our infirmities and bore our diseases."
All His miracles were wrought in the power and the right of the victory He was to consummate at the Cross. Verse 17 is quoted from Isa. 53:4. That chapter shows how the Servant of Yahweh got to grips with the underlying cause of all suffering and evil in the world, in the material and the moral realms. To do this, He got to grips with sin. He knew that all suffering is the outcome of mankind's sin. At the back of leprosy lay sin: not necessarily the leper's, but the whole mass of sin that infects our race, the leper's included. When Jesus dealt with leprosy, He did so by right of the coming Cross, where He would gather to His heart that sin that lies behind all these things. His power is rooted in His passion. In that passion "He took the curse" for us, and exhausted it in His own pain and suffering. Having exhausted it, He triumphed over it and rose. When He gathers a sinner to His heart, He gathers to His heart the sin that is in him, and 'puts it away' in the mystery of His own pain. By quoting that verse here, Matthew has suggested that the redeeming passion of Jesus was present here, at the beginning of His ministry. What He did on the Cross must never be separated from what He did in His life, nor what He was on the Cross from what He was in His life. His ministry and His sacrifice (His life and His death) are one indissoluble, saving whole. He did not "come to do just three days' work" (in the Cross and the Resurrection). Without the life He lived, the death He died would have had no worth, and have been of no effect. Because He triumphed over sin all His life, because He bore sin and the issue of sin all His life, He was able to bear it away in His death. He is the Saviour of the world
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