I randomly came upon Matthew 9 today. This chapter narrates a few of the short miracle stories that I and many others grew up hearing about at Sunday school: the paralytic, the synagogue teacher's daughter, the woman with the hemorrhage, and (almost as an aside) Jesus calling Matthew the tax collector and having dinner with a bunch of sinners.
As often happens, this time one particular phrase in the chapter completely changed the framework of the entire story for me, and it's in verse 1: "Getting into a boat, Jesus crossed over the sea and came to His own city."
Knowing as I do that at that time in history even the largest cities did not boast a population of 1 million, and knowing that Nazareth was by no means the booming metropolis of Roman-occupied Israel, I'm suddenly realizing that every single individual described in this chapter may very well have been a life-long acquaintance of every other single individual in this chapter. I suppose I could have been heart-warmed by the thought of these Nazarenes all sitting around complaining of their various ailments together and sharing their distaste for the town's tax-collector, Matthew, until their very own home-grown Messiah walks by and makes everything better. Instead, I found myself troubled by the seriousness of their conditions for having lived the past decade or three just a few blocks down from God incarnate.
We know that this story takes place nearer the beginning of Christ's ministry than the end. So, for instance, the woman who had a hemorrhage for twelve years would have been suffering since the Son of God down the street was eighteen years old. We don't know how long the paralytic had been paralyzed, but chances are his condition didn't start the day prior. The two blind men calling out for the Son of David had probably been blind for a little while too. We know that an entire entourage of "sinners" comes to have dinner with Jesus at (presumably) Matthew's house, implying that there was a large enough number of people in this small community for the righteous Jews to label "sinners": frauds, degenerates, thieves, irreligious, sexually promiscuous, unfaithful, lowlifes. Jesus grew up in a neighborhood filled to the brim with human suffering and corruption. Why on earth did He wait until He was thirty years old to do anything about it?
Another read-through of the chapter shows me that maybe I need to rethink the question. Let's take the synagogue official, for instance. This individual is a leader in the community, and the minute his daughter dies he knows exactly where to find Jesus. This indicates to me that Jesus was not some strange young man living on the fringe of an already tiny community. No, He was known by this point. No doubt the twelve year old boy who taught in the Temple that one Passover had done even more noticeable things about His Father's business as He grew up. The people of Nazareth might not believe, even in thirty years of knowing Him, that He was the Messiah, but they had to have known there was some greatness in Him. In Luke it says that He kept increasing in the favor of men as He grew up. He had a reputation.
So I suppose at this point the question is reversed: why did the woman wait twelve years to chase down her gal-pal Mary's little boy if she truly believed that merely touching the fringe of His cloak would cure her? Why did the paralytic finally agree to be carried to Jesus and ask forgiveness of sin? Why did the two blind men content themselves with a life of begging when a potential Messiah--whose reputation was that He had God's favor--lived just a short walk away? Why did the "sinners" keep on sinning when such an example of excellence lived next door? Possibly the most confounding question of all: why did everybody decide they needed Jesus to save them at the same time?
As soon as I have the question, Scripture has the answer at the end of the chapter:
Seeing the people, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd. Then He said to His disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest.”
Instantly I see Jesus wearing his title as Designer of the solar system: every particle moves on its own course, on its own schedule, independently whirling around the same center and suddenly, like the planets aligning, times and seasons converge and it's time for a harvesting of souls! In this context I see the work of the Gospel as an apparent cacophony suddenly synchronizing into a perfect symphony: a great whole in which no individual instrument lies independent of another's story. To ask why Jesus never crossed the street to heal the hemorrhaging woman when He was a teenager, or why she never crossed the street to ask Him to, is like asking why a farmer doesn't scan his fields to harvest just one ripe grain of wheat: it wasn't time for the whole crop.
How Jesus must have struggled to restrain Himself from every possible gesture of love because He knew there would come a time and season when demonstrating His desire to forgive and heal would have its maximum effect. Or maybe He understood the principle of only helping those who were ready to be helped. Either way, the little community that raised the Messiah played a grand drama of suffering that was destined to end in miracles, and miracles that lay in wait for the opportunity of faith.
I know what it's like to feel distressed and dispirited and like a sheep with no shepherd. I understand what it feels like to call out to God in desperation for this thing or that or to be saved from the influence of so many "sinners" in my neighborhood, and feel like He doesn't hear. How foolish I've been, not to see that God plays such an elaborate game of chess against sin and suffering, and that in the right time, the right place, the right combination of movements will occur and His love and grace will always prevail! But not while mere pawns are in center stage. Not until the harvest is plenty and the workers report in. Not yet. But certainly.
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On an unrelated note, I've started an additional blog. Please read, participate, and enjoy! Happy New Year and God Bless!
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