February 15th, 2020

It recently ‘hit me’ that the sixth Sunday after the Epiphany is our last look at the Sermon on the Mount for a while [Matthew 5:21-37]. Countless sermons have been preached about this sermon, many books have been written about it, and there is still much more that could be said.

If you are interested in the connection between the Sermon on the Mount and the Lord’s Prayer—this is something I brought up last week—I was going to suggest looking at the very recent book by Charles Nathan Ridlehoover, The Lord’s Prayer and the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s Gospel (T & T Clark, 2019). I also checked the price of it and would recommend you try to borrow it from a seminary library. And speaking of seminary libraries, if you are near Concordia Seminary in St. Louis (Missouri), or if you can get your hands on a copy of this, I would also suggest looking at the dissertation of David Elbert Fielding, The Lord’s Prayer: Its Interpretation and a Reassessment of an Eschatological Orientation, Favoring the Prayer’s Primary Application as Being for the Present Gospel Age (1995). But if you are not into books with long titles, you just might want to read the following few paragraphs. I will try to stay on a single point.

Both of the above books see the Lord’s Prayer as central to the Sermon on the Mount. The second book even goes so far as to say that the critical word ‘daily’ is the word in the exact center of the Lord’s Prayer. This is a very special type of bread for which we are asking. I have mentioned this point before, but not within the following context.
I would encourage you to see the Sermon on the Mount as a mountain, with that middle word ‘daily’ as the top, the peak, the very important point (literally). And when God comes down to that mountain and he gives that very special word (the word which we are not sure of its meaning), everything changes because of who he is and what he has done.

I have mentioned before that the petitions in the Lord’s Prayer change significantly after the mention of that special word, ‘daily’. In the Lord’s Prayer, the Lord’s presence makes forgiveness possible, both among us and among others. He takes the initiative and leads us—but not into temptation. He also rescues us from the evil. His presence does some significant things!

In the Old Testament, the Lord started to do amazing things on that one particular mountain in all the world, Mount Sinai. Then his presence was connected to a moving tabernacle or tent. Then it was connected to the stationary temple in the all-important city on Mount Zion, the holy city of Jerusalem. Then it was connected to Jesus. And all those things happened in a place on the earth that was close to three different continents and, therefore, that special word was able to be passed on to many others in the world.

Jesus moved on one particular day to a particular mountain and gave this sermon. This next Sunday he is going to move to another mountain to be transfigured. And in a few more Sundays, we are going to see him move on to another mount, a smaller one; it was called ‘The Place of the Skull’. And, just so you do not miss him, he is in the middle, between two criminals, both of whom were rightly condemned to death.

Just so you do not miss the importance of all of that which has happened on this earth, I have decided to include a picture with this blog. In the gospel text for this Sunday, heaven is called the throne of God and the earth is called his footstool (Matthew 5:34-35).

We usually think of a footstool as just a fancy place for the feet of someone sitting down—in this case, the king. The picture below is not so cute. It was taken from a larger one where the pharaoh, Amenhotep the second (1445-1420 B.C.), is placing his feet upon some of his enemies. A footstool is a place where a very powerful person’s feet would go. In Joshua 10:24, Joshua has the captains of Israel place their feet upon the necks of their enemy’s kings.
​
We deserve to be the ones in this lowly position on earth. What a different picture we have in the Bible of our Lord and his love for this sinful world!

---