Author: timmacbride

Jesus heals a paralytic (Matt 9:1-8)

/ timmacbride

Yesterday we began a quest to work out what Jesus meant when he said “they don’t put new wine in old wineskins” (Matt 9:17). If you’re joining us now, you’d be advised to read that one first. In fact, since last week we’re on a quest to find the big picture Matthew is stitching together for us in chapters 8 & 9.

Today’s story is about a healing miracle. There are plenty of those stories in the gospels. But in this one, we see there’s much more going on than just a healing. It starts off like any other miracle story. A person comes to Jesus who needs to be healed. They show faith – that is, they trust that Jesus is able to help them. And Jesus responds. Yet in this story, Jesus’ response is a little jarring.

Continue reading →

Some tips on wine storage (Matt 9:14-17)

/ timmacbride

(Continuing our series in Matthew chapters 8 & 9, and looking for the big picture Matthew’s trying to get across.)

Sometimes, my grandmother would speak a different language. Not a foreign language. It was still English. I understood the words – they just made no sense.

For example, a favourite saying of hers was: “I’m not as green as I’m cabbage-looking.” Right. Never thought you looked like a cabbage. More, say, cauliflower, if I had to make a vegetable comparison. What on earth are you saying?

Or if you were looking for something, and asked her where it was, she’d say: “up in Annie’s room, hanging on a tack.” Theirs was a single-story house, but I was for many years suspicious of a hidden attic containing a family secret.

She’d sometimes say we had “eyes like two burnt holes in a blanket”. I wouldn’t know. I don’t smoke in bed.

And my favourite, if my shirt wasn’t tucked in properly: “Giddy giddy gout, your shirt’s hanging out. Six miles in and seven miles out.” I used to point out that that meant there was only a net of one mile hanging out, which, proportionally, wasn’t so bad.

Continue reading →

Following Jesus (Matt 8:18-22)

/ timmacbride

Before we get to Matthew 9 next week, there’s one story we skipped over in chapter 8. As we’ve seen Jesus healing lepers, responding to the faith of outsiders, calming actual storms, and driving out demons – we’ve been asking how should we respond? That’s what today’s brief story is all about, nestled in amongst all these stories of Jesus doing miraculous things.

 8:18-22 When Jesus saw the crowd around him, he gave orders to cross to the other side of the lake. Then a teacher of the law came to him and said, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.” Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” Another disciple said to him, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” But Jesus told him, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.” 

Continue reading →

Devilled ham (Matt 8:28-34)

/ timmacbride

The next story in our look at Matthew chapter 8 looks like it’s unrelated to yesterday’s. But it’s basically the same story as the calming of the storm. In your Bibles it might be titled “the healing of two demon-possessed men”. Or in mine, “Jesus makes devilled ham.”* (I’m into boutique translations.) Either way, let’s read it now:

8:28-34 When he arrived at the other side in the region of the Gadarenes, two demon-possessed men coming from the tombs met him. They were so violent that no one could pass that way. 29 “What do you want with us, Son of God?” they shouted. “Have you come here to torture us before the appointed time?” 30 Some distance from them a large herd of pigs was feeding. 31 The demons begged Jesus, “If you drive us out, send us into the herd of pigs.” 32 He said to them, “Go!” So they came out and went into the pigs, and the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and died in the water. 33 Those tending the pigs ran off, went into the town and reported all this, including what had happened to the demon-possessed men. 34 Then the whole town went out to meet Jesus. And when they saw him, they pleaded with him to leave their region.

Continue reading →

Jesus calms a storm (Matt 8:23-27)

/ timmacbride

(Continuing our series in Matthew chapter 8.)

8:23 Then he got into the boat and his disciples followed him. Suddenly a furious storm came up on the lake, so that the waves swept over the boat. But Jesus was sleeping. The disciples went and woke him, saying, “Lord, save us! We’re going to drown!” He replied, “You of little faith, why are you so afraid?” Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm. The men were amazed and asked, “What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him!” 

The power of nature is fearsome, unstoppable, and unforgiving. Even in this day and age with centuries of engineering and technological know-how, all we can do is observe it, make attempts at predicting it, and increase our odds of surviving it just a little.

Continue reading →

The Centurion’s faith (Matt 8:5-13)

/ timmacbride / 1 Comment

We began a series yesterday working through Matthew chapters 8 & 9. Following on from Jesus’ first public words in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew narrates Jesus’ first public actions. Throughout this series we’ll be looking for the big picture Matthew is building up by arranging these stories together.

Yesterday, we saw Jesus’ first healing: of a man with leprosy, an Israelite who was an outcast in his own society. It was a story of Jesus meeting people’s needs in the here-and-now, as a sign that he was fulfilling the “suffering servant” role spoken of in Isaiah 53.

Today, we see Jesus’ second healing, which is equally significant: a non-Israelite, who nevertheless displays the key requirement for experiencing the blessing of the kingdom – faith.

Continue reading →

Introducing Matthew 8-9: Healing a leper

/ timmacbride

We begin a new series through Matthew chapters 8 and 9. In our last look at Matthew’s Gospel (chapter 5), Jesus was saying a lot of stuff. Here, he’s doing a lot. It’s the walk that backs up the talk. We see healings, exorcisms, provocative encounters, and even someone raised from the dead. Although this might seem to be just a random collection of cool stories involving Jesus, there’s a very deliberate point being made by the Gospel author throughout these chapters. Our task will be to work out what that is.

In the meantime, we’ll look through the stories one-by-one, to build up a picture of what Matthew is telling us. Keep this quest for the big picture in mind, as any application we find in each story will mostly be secondary to this larger point being made.

Continue reading →

Psalm 96

/ timmacbride

We finished our series through 1 Samuel 8-17 yesterday. Next week we’ll start something new. For today, a very brief meditation on Psalm 96, which connects in some way with the message of the David and Goliath story. It’s all about proclaiming God’s name – God’s honour and reputation – to the world, in light of what he has done for us.

Read Psalm 96 now.

Sometimes I find it helpful to “update” psalms as a way of praying them myself. Not in terms of the imagery, but in terms of what has happened since then in salvation history – you know, Jesus, Easter, the Holy Spirit and all that…

Here’s a New Testament mediation on Psalm 96. Use it to spark your own prayers:

Let all the earth sing to God a new kind of song, because in Jesus he has done something new amongst us.
Sing to God, praise the very essence of his being; tell the world each day what he has done for us.
Tell all the nations of his indescribable glory, and go to all the people groups of the world to announce the saving act of the cross.
For God is great, and deserves our praise; any other god or idol or cause or life-goal is nothing compared to the one who made the galaxies.
And this same greatness is demonstrated to the world through the likes of us, in whom he chooses to dwell.
Give God his due: offer your whole self in response to his glory.
Commit yourself to tell the nations of God’s just and fair rule, which cannot be changed.
Let all the heavenly creatures rejoice, along with all of creation, because God is coming to judge his world.