A Lenten Reading of Matthew - Day Thirty-Nine

Scripture Reading: Matthew 27:1-56 (NRSVUE)

It is only in Matthew's account that we see the price of Jesus' betrayal named as thirty pieces of silver. This references the prophecy from Zechariah 11:4-14.  Within this text, the prophet is insulted by the wage they pay him (30 shekels of silver) which is the price you would pay for a slave from Exodus 21:32.  Zechariah sarcastically calls it a "lordly price", and he throws it into the treasury of the house of the Lord.  Notice that treasury could also be translated as potter's house.  

We see Judas returning his wages in a similar fashion.  The religious leaders buy the potter's field as a place to bury foreigners which is another tie to the Zechariah text.

Within the prophet's passage, we see God break the staffs named Favor and Unity.  

When Jesus dies, we see the curtain in the Temple - separating the world from the holiest presence of God - torn in two.  As the early church moves forward, we see that God's favor falls upon Jesus and that anyone - even a foreigner or Gentile - may put on Christ and find this favor.  One could say that the staff of favor was broken by the cross.  Any kind of Unity of Judea would have been seen as smashed within the destruction of the Temple forty years after Jesus.

The Gnostic Gospel of Judas presents Judas as a faithful disciple who betrays Jesus at his own insistence.  Gnostics were believers in a strict separation of the earthly and the spiritual.  The earthly was seen as evil while the spiritual was seen as divine.  Gnostics didn't mix the two.  And so, Judas is seen as a hero by setting up the death of Jesus which frees him from this (supposedly) evil sphere and allows him to return to the spiritual.  

Some Gnostic theologies went on to say that Jesus was never here in an earthly body in the first place and only seemed to be present.  According to them, his suffering wasn't real because he wasn't really here physically.  

These theological expressions were branded heretical by the early church, and this is partly why we proclaim in the Apostles' Creed, "he suffered under Pontius Pilate."  

We can see in Matthew's writing that Jesus does actually suffer and die.  His suffering is physical, but it is also spiritual in that he feels forsaken by God.  One could say that God experienced the lows of human experience physically and spiritually through the person of Jesus of Nazareth.  Of course, Jesus also experiences the betrayal of his disciple which would have been a relational low.  

As we experience Good Friday, we may bring our own sense of loss or suffering.  In Matthew's Gospel, we remember that early in the account, Jesus is named Emmanuel which means, "God is with us."  God's solidarity with us during our painful times is expressed in the cross.  

We also remember that Simon of Cyrene carries the cross for Jesus.  This would have been difficult for Peter because he may have felt that it should have been Simon Peter carrying it.  

How might we express our thankfulness to Jesus by carrying his cross today?  

Prayer for the day:

By your wounded hands: teach us diligence and generosity.
By your wounded feet: teach us steadfastness and perseverance.
By your wounded and insulted head: teach us patience, clarity and self-mastery.
By your wounded heart: teach us love, teach us love, teach us love, O Master and Saviour.
Amen.

Prayer by Daphne Fraser, Church of England, 20th Century

Photo by Michal Kosmulski via Flickr.com.  Used under the Creative Commons license.

 

Daily Devotion for Lent 2025, Day 39

Today's Reading: Job, Chapter Forty, verses one through fourteen

As we see the humbling of Job, we may find that Job represents humankind in our efforts to put ourselves in the place of God.  This has long been a theme in the Bible and we see it many times over in Genesis with:

• Adam and Eve putting their own will above God's
• Cain playing God with the life of his brother
• The Tower of Babel where the technology of humanity has exceeded their wisdom and allowed them to seek to upstage God.  

This also becomes a lesson in grace versus works as we determine that our "own right hand" will not be able to give us the victory.  Certainly, death always looms large for mortals.

On Good Friday, this may read a little differently if we imagine Jesus in Job's place as he quotes Psalm 22 from the cross:

"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

The Psalm goes on to ask further, " Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?  O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer; and by night but find no rest."

Yet, this quote from the cross would also cause a reader who knows the Psalm to remember verse 27 which states, "All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations shall worship before him."

Jesus hasn't arrived yet.  He must suffer first, just as Job suffered.  They both have expressed the human dilemma of the seeming absence of God.

God seems to put Job (and humanity) in his place in chapter forty as we see him cowed.  But within Christian understanding of the Trinity, God (in Jesus) is the one to experience the absence of God.

On Good Friday, God enters that place on the cross.

Prayer for today:

God, thank you for wrestling with us during all the times we have put ourselves in your place.  And thank you for remaining with us in our time of need - even those times we could not perceive you.  As we remember your suffering on the cross today, may we not abandon you.  Amen.

Photo by Alicia Quan on Unsplash

New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Daily Devotion for Lent 2024, Day 39 Good Friday

“But I say to you who are listening: Love your enemies; do good to those who hate you;  bless those who curse you; pray for those who mistreat you.  If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt.  Give to everyone who asks of you, and if anyone takes away what is yours, do not ask for it back again.  Do to others as you would have them do to you.  “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them.  If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same.  If you lend to those from whom you expect to receive payment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to receive as much again.  Instead, love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return.  Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, for he himself is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.  Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful."

                                                                    Luke 6:27-36 (NRSVue)

 

On Good Friday, how does this read?  

At the cross, Luke records that the soldiers cast lots to divide his clothing.  This is a somber ratification of "do not withhold even your shirt."

When we are attacked, do we have the ability to respond differently?  Jesus indicates that we do.

In a Hollywood movie, what would the Son of God do to his enemies on the cross?  He would call down fire from heaven and light them up!

Jesus may have been tempted by his own disciples to do this.  In Luke 9:51-56, Jesus is not well-received by a Samaritan village.  James and John ask him, "Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?"  Jesus rebukes them and lives out today's teaching.

We are offered a better way to light up our enemies.

It is only in Luke's Gospel that Jesus offers his enemies forgiveness from the cross.  Luke 23:34 has Jesus utter before his death, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”

"Love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return."

Jesus lives this out on Good Friday.

And lest, we deign to think that this is unattainable behavior, Luke shows us that it is absolutely lived out by the early church.  Luke also wrote the "Acts of the Apostles" as a follow-up to the Gospel.

The apostle Stephen was preaching about Jesus and his audience didn't appreciate the light in which he painted them.  They took him outside the city and began to stone him.  In Acts 7:60, it reports that just before Stephen died "... he knelt down and cried out in a loud voice, 'Lord, do not hold this sin against them.'”  Today's teaching is not a lofting goal reached only by God but is lived out by the followers of Jesus.  Luke shows us that this expectation may be why the church flourished.

One of the people witnessing the stoning of Stephen was Saul who later became the apostle Paul.  Most of the letters in the New Testament were written by Paul or a school of Paul's thought.  Just before Paul began to start churches throughout the Mediterranean, the church was at a precipice.  Would it live into this teaching?  Saul was on the way to Damascus to arrest more Christians and was struck blind.  In a show of irony, Jesus sends him to a Christian in Damascus named Ananias for healing.  

What would Ananias think about this?  This was the man coming to arrest and harass his family!

When Jesus tells him in a vision to heal Saul, Ananias basically says, "Lord, this guy is our enemy!" As if Jesus wasn't aware of all his faults!  Do we ever wrestle with doing the right thing?

Because Ananias lived out the highlighted teaching from the Sermon on the Plain, the church thrived.

Maybe in a world where enmity comes so easily today, we have an alternate path.

Rather than light up our enemies, we can show them the light of Christ that shines through an act of love on a cross.  An act that gives us the strength to love.

May it be so today of all days.

Prayer for Good Friday: Teach us, good Lord, to serve you as you deserve; to give and not to count the cost; to fight and not to heed the wounds; to toil and not to seek for rest; to labor and not to ask for any reward, except that of knowing that we do your will; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen. 

 

Prayer by Ignatius of Loyola, Spain, 16th Century.

Photo by Pete Lambert via Flickr.com.  Used under the Creative Commons license.

New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.