August 26th, 2023

We continue on within the season of Pentecost, and we are currently at what is usually called the Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost (with the Gospel reading from Matthew 16:13-20). And while I am not triskaidekaphobic—and if you are not familiar with the Greek language, you may wish to look up that word—at both churches this Sunday we are having a Christian Education emphasis instead of looking at the typical texts for this Sunday. Whatever text is the basis for the sermon this Sunday, on this website we are pushing ahead in the Gospel according to Matthew so that, hopefully, we may be able to end our study of this gospel account when the church year ends in November.

For a while we have been covering a chapter a week, but that is not the case this time. The twenty-first chapter of this gospel account is a long one, and there are parables at the end of this chapter and at the beginning of the next, so it seems to make sense to take those together.

To offer a quick review, after the first sermon of this gospel account, there were some historical presents (when a past tense verb was expected but a present tense verb is given), and they were most often connected to Jesus. But that has gradually changed as this gospel account has progressed, and now the words of others are also in the historical present.

Why the difference? It may be to show that Jesus is in the process of teaching his followers, and although he will certainly remain with his Church (see Matthew 28:20), he will be present in a not-so-obvious way. Although those who speak the Lord’s words within the Lord’s Church are still sinners, their words, when they are his words, will still ring true for all eternity.

This role of Jesus in all of this may also be seen in the change of the historical present verbs. One significant event that stands out when it comes to the use of the historical presents is the ‘mount of metamorphosis’ in chapter seventeen. Jesus has some unique historical presents at the beginning of that text. On this special mountain, Jesus ‘takes’ and ‘leads up’ (verse 1) his special disciples to that special place and has them in the company of Moses and Elijah, some very special people.

With that in mind, a connection may be made to the chapter we are looking at now, chapter twenty-one, when Jesus goes up to Mount Zion, where Jerusalem is. Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem has some historical presents that put the focus on him. But he is certainly going there in a gentle way, and the historical present verbs are all ‘to say’, with two of the three sayings incorporating a bible passage. His words come in a very gentle way, and they make the Almighty’s presence known.

Jesus is getting the attention as he travels into Jerusalem. But he is not doing it by having himself be as bright as the sun. And when he ends up doing a miracle with the fig tree, it is an extremely hidden one. Only his disciples marvel at it. And that is also the case when the miracles happen through his words today.

Words are certainly important to Jesus, and that truth within those words certainly continues. What follows is an attempt at a somewhat-literal translation of most of the twenty-first chapter of the Gospel according to Matthew [21:1-27; and if you are familiar with the Greek language, you may wish to try translating this yourself]. As in the previous chapters, the words in bold print are the historical presents.

And when they came near into Jerusalem, and they came into Bethphage, into the Mount of the Olives, then Jesus sent out two disciples, saying to them, “Go into the village, the in front of you, and immediately you will find a donkey, having been tied, and a colt with her; loosening, lead to me. And if anyone to you, he says anything, you will say that the Lord of them, a need, he has. Now immediately he will send out them.” Now this happened in order that it might be fulfilled, the thing having been spoken through the prophet, saying, “Tell the daughter of Zion; behold, the king of you, he is coming to you, humble and having mounted upon a donkey and upon a colt, son of a pack animal.” Now, having gone, the disciples and having done as he directed them, the Jesus. They led the donkey and the colt, and they put on them the cloaks, and he sat upon them.

Now the most crowd spread, of them, the cloaks in the way, now others were cutting branches from the trees, and they were spreading in the way. Now the crowds, the going before him, and the following, they were shouting, saying, “Hosanna to the Son of David; having been blessed, the one coming in name of Lord; hosanna in the highest.”

And having entered, he, into Jerusalem, it was shaken, all the city, saying, “Who is this?”
Now the crowds were saying, “This is the prophet, Jesus, the from Nazareth, of the Galilee.”

And he entered, Jesus, into the temple, and he threw out all the selling and buying in the temple, and the tables of the money-changers he overturned, and the seats of the selling the doves, and he says to them, “It has been written, ‘The house of me, a house of prayer, it will be called,’ now you, it, you are making, a cave of robbers.”

And they approached him, blind and lame in the temple, and he healed them. Now, having seen, the chief priests and the scribes, the marvelous things which he did, and the children, the shouting in the temple and saying, “Hosanna to the Son of David”, they were incensed. And they said to him. “Do you hear what these are saying?”

Now the Jesus, he says to them, “Yes; never did you read that ‘out of mouth of infants and nursing ones you prepared praise’?” And having left them, he went out, outside the city, into Bethany, and he lodged there.

Now early, going up into the city, he hungered. And having seen a fig tree, one, by the way, he went to it, and nothing he found in it, except leaves only, and he says to it, “Never from you, fruit may happen, into the age.” And it withered, instantly, the fig tree.
And, having seen, the disciples marveled, saying, “How instantly it was withered, the fig tree?”

Now, having answered, the Jesus said to them, “Amen, I am saying to you, if you have faith and not doubt, not only the, of the fig tree, you will do, but on the contrary, also if, to the mountain, this, you say, ‘Be taken and be thrown into the sea,’ it will happen. And all things, whatever you ask, in the prayer, believing, you will receive.”

And having come, he, into the temple, they approached him, teaching, the chief priests and the elders of the people, saying, “In what authority, these things, you do? And who, to you, gave the authority, this?”

Now having answered, the Jesus, he said to them, “I will question you, I also, a word, one, which, if you tell me, I also you will tell in what authority, these things, I do. The baptism of the John, from where was it? From heaven or from men?”

Now they dialogued in themselves saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say to us, ‘Because of what, therefore, not you believed him?’ Now if we say, ‘From men,’ we fear the crowd, for all as a prophet, they have, the John.”

And having answered the Jesus, they said, “Not we know.”
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He himself said to them, “Neither I myself am saying to you, in what authority these things I do.”