May 20th, 2023

This Sunday is ‘The Seventh Sunday of Easter’, the last Sunday of the Easter season. But worship still continues on the day that Jesus rose from the dead. And with these writings we continue to make our way through the Gospel according to Matthew.

We are going through a non-sermon section of that gospel account, what are typically considered chapters eleven and twelve, and in the last writing we came upon the first ‘then’ of this section, and the point was made that that ‘then’ could be considered a midpoint. But we are going to be coming up other words that are considered time references at the beginning of the next sections as well, and this will eventually include two more ‘then’ statements. How do they connect?

Much could be said, but what should probably be said first is that our current, twenty-first century culture is very much based on time. And we are used to things happening so quickly, and when that does not happen, it is so easy to lose one’s patience.

When we hear the word ‘then’, we might think that something happened immediately after the previous things. (We will direct our attention to the word ‘immediately’ when we deal with the Gospel according to Mark.) For now, the word ‘then’ helps to give some order to things. But things do not have to happen immediately in close succession.

A good example of this slower pace in the Gospel according to Matthew could be found in the beginning of chapter three. At the end of chapter two, Joseph and Mary, with the baby Jesus, start dwelling in Nazareth, and the prophecy came true that he will be called a Nazarene. Then the next chapter starts out by saying: ‘Now in those days, John the Baptist arrives, proclaiming in the wilderness of Judea.’ Jesus is much older at that point. There is an awful LOT in ‘those days’.
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After the first ‘then’, there will be two time-related phrases of an ‘appointed time’. These seem to connect to the ‘then’, and then we get to a significant high point in this non-sermon section, that of a low point when it comes to what Jesus’ enemies think of him, and when we come to what the Old Testament has said of him. There will be two more times that the word ‘then’ comes up within this non-sermon section, and this section of translation will come up right before the next ‘then’. These time references seem to connect one another and give a wide range of reactions to Jesus and the path toward which he moves, that of his death and resurrection.

We will also come to the only historical present of this entire non-sermon section, the point when he heals the man with a withered hand. And the result of this is huge, that the Pharisees want to destroy him. This may be considered a low point—or a high point when we eventually come to the cross—and eventually the empty tomb.
Here is a somewhat-literal translation of that section [Matthew 11:25-12:21]:

In that, the appointed time, answering, the Jesus said: “I confess to you, Father, Lord of the heaven and of the earth, because you hid these things from wise and cunning, and you revealed them to infants; yes, the Father, because thus, well-pleasing it was before you. All things to me were delivered by the Father of me, and no one fully knows the Son except the Father, neither the Father anyone fully knows except the Son and to whom if he wills, the Son, to reveal. Come toward me, all the laboring and being burdened, and I will give rest to you. Take the yoke of me upon you, and learn from me, because meek I am and lowly in the heart, and you will find rest to the souls of you, for the yoke of me, gentle, and the burden of me, light, it is.”

In that, the appointed time, he went, the Jesus, on the Sabbath through the grainfields; now the disciples of him hungered, and they began to pluck heads and to eat. Now the Pharisees, seeing, said to him, “Behold, the disciples of you are doing what not it is lawful to do in a Sabbath.”

Now he said to them, “Not did you read what he did, David, when he hungered and the with him, how he entered into the house of the God and the Loaves of the Presentation he ate, which not lawful it was for him to eat, neither those with him, except for the priests only? Or not did you read in the Law that on the Sabbaths the priests in the temple, the Sabbath they profane, and guiltless they are? Now I am saying to you that, than the temple, a greater, it is here. Now if you had known what it is: Mercy I desire and not sacrifice, not you would condemn the guiltless. For Lord, he is, of the Sabbath, the Son of the Man.”

And departing from there, he came into the synagogue of them. And behold, a man, a hand having withered, and they questioned him saying, if it is lawful on the Sabbaths to heal, in order that they might accuse him.

Now he said to them, “What will there be of you, a man, who he will have sheep, one, and if it falls, this, on the Sabbath, into a ditch, not he will lay hold of it and raise? Therefore, how much surpasses a man than a sheep. So that, it is lawful on the Sabbaths, good to do.

Then he says to the man, “Stretch out of you the hand.” And he stretched out, and it was restored, healthy, as the other. Now going out, the Pharisees, a counsel, they took, against him, thus him, they might destroy. Now the Jesus, knowing, departed from there.

And they followed him, crowds, many, and he healed them all, and he warned them that not manifest, him, they should make; that might be fulfilled, the spoken through Isaiah, the prophet, saying, “Behold, the servant of me whom I chose, the beloved of me, into whom it was delighted, the soul of me. I will put the spirit of me upon him, and judgment to the nations he will announce. Not he will quarrel, nor he will shout, nor he will hear, anyone, in the streets, the voice of him. A reed, having been bruised, not he will break, and flax, smoking, not he will quench, until he throws out into victory the judgment. And in the name of him, nations will hope.”