Word of Salvation – Vol.52 No.47 – December 2007
Through Suffering Into Glory
(A post-Christmas sermon)
A Sermon by Rev John De Jongh on Matthew 2:13-23
Reading: Jeremiah 31:1-17
Outline:
Through Suffering into Glory
1: Jesus fulfils OT prophecy: Israel in Egypt
2: Jesus fulfils OT prophecy: Israel in exile
3: Jesus fulfils OT prophecy: The suffering servant
And so: Trust in this Messiah, so that through sharing in his suffering you may also share in his glory
Songs: Rej 337; Rej 458; 176; 357; 530
Dear congregation…
What is it that people say? Nothing good comes easy. Nothing worthwhile comes cheap. If you want something good for nothing, you get something good-for-nothing. Basically – if you want something worthwhile, you need to work for it, pay for it, struggle for it, suffer for it.
That principle is also true in the kingdom of God. Jesus says the same sorts of things about inheriting his kingdom and eternal glory: ‘No one who has left [family or fields] for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (… and with them persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life.’
Paul says the same sort of things, for example in Romans 8, ‘If we’re [God’s] children, then we’re heirs – heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.’
And so do the other Bible writers – like the writer of Hebrews, ‘Although he was a son, [even Jesus] learned obedience from what he suffered and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him … .’
In fact it’s the pattern of history. Throughout history, over and over again, God has worked at bringing his people into glory through suffering. God’s new humanity only enters God’s glory through sin and suffering.
Moses only became leader of Israel after 40 years spent in the desert.
Israel only entered the Promised Land through slavery in Egypt and another 40 years in the desert.
David only became king of Israel after spending 15 years on the run from King Saul.
And after King David, Israel only entered the Messianic age through the suffering of exile.
Matthew chapter 1 shows that Jesus is a new beginning, a new humanity, a new Israel, a new King of the Jews, fulfilling all these Old Testament shadows. We should not be surprised that his beginnings followed the same pattern of glory coming through suffering. Should we even be surprised that he fulfils what was said about Israel as a nation at different times and places in their history of suffering and struggle? Yes, Jesus enjoyed God’s protection and provision through it all, but God led him through suffering into glory.
Point 1: Jesus fulfils OT prophecy: Israel in Egypt
This passage in Matthew naturally breaks into 3 sections, each one describing suffering and struggle that Jesus went through in fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy. The first section is verses 13 to 15 with Jesus having to flee to Egypt for protection from Herod.
You can probably think of a few times people from Israel escaped to Egypt for protection in the Old Testament. Abraham went there to escape a famine. Jeroboam, who became the first king of the northern tribe, escaped there when Solomon tried to kill him. Around the time of the exile, a big group of Jews escaped there for fear of the Babylonians.
But the main time you think of Israel going to Egypt is when God used Joseph to prepare Egypt for a famine. It was so bad the rest of his family eventually followed him there because Egypt was the only place anybody knew of that still had food. And that arrangement worked for a while, until over the centuries Joseph was forgotten, and Israel grew into a big nation, and Egypt decided to use them as slaves.
But then, when the time was right, God used Moses to save Israel out of Egypt and bring them into the Promised Land. And first of all he took them to Mt Sinai, and declared them to be his chosen people out of all the nations of the earth, his holy nation, his kingdom of priests. They were to be his people and he would be their God. They were to represent him to the nations.
God had used Egypt to save Israel from death. Egypt had been the place where they had spent their first years as a nation. And when the time was right, God saved them out of there. As Hosea says in chapter 11 of his prophecy, ‘When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.’
Jesus is the new Israel and his early life follows the same pattern. When Jesus was a child God loved him. God saved him from death by using Egypt. And when the time was right, out of Egypt God called his Son.
In Jesus’ day, the nation of Israel was failing dismally to represent God before the nations. They were more influenced by the world, than influencing the world. Jesus’ work was cut out for him. As the new Israel his job was to represent God before the nations. And so God brought him out of Egypt in preparation for his work of redeeming the world and restoring us to right relationship with him. Jesus’ birth and call out of Egypt was the dawn of the new Messianic age.
And for anyone who knew anything about all of this, it was a cause for great hope. Jesus is retracing Israel’s footsteps – not to fall in the desert in the way that they did, not to rebel, and sin, and fail – but to stand against sin and Satan and succeed – to stay true even to death on a cross, resurrection, ascension and eternal, heavenly glory. And it’s the cause for great hope for us, because we can follow in his footsteps. Everyone who puts their trust in Jesus has a place in spiritual Israel through him, we’re spiritual children of Abraham, and we go along with him into the eternal Promised Land – if we’re willing to share in his suffering so that we might also share in his glory.
Point 2: Jesus fulfils OT prophecy: Israel in exile
Herod discovers that he’s been outwitted by the Magi, and he’s furious. He doesn’t know that Joseph and Mary and the baby have escaped, he doesn’t actually know anything at all about them. But after the Magi have left, he does the only thing left to do as he sees it, and kills every boy child around the age that Jesus would be. He was a ruthless man. He wouldn’t let anyone come between him and his throne. He’d already killed a host of people to protect his position, including family and friends. Killing another 20 or so babies was no big deal to him. Compared to the other atrocities he’d already committed it didn’t even make the history books. You start to see him as a Saddam Hussein, a Gaddafi, a Stalin – that was the kind of person he was.
And then Matthew finishes this second section with another Old Testament prophecy that takes us back to that other time in Israel’s history that was as difficult as their slavery in Egypt – the exile in Babylon. The quote comes from Jeremiah 31. There’s a lot in that chapter that talks about God’s everlasting love for Israel, and the peace and prosperity that they’ll be blessed with when they come home. You’ll remember too that it’s the chapter where Jeremiah talks about the new covenant that God would make with his people – to replace the old covenant that they’d broken, which was why they were in exile in the first place. It looked forward to when everything would be made right, their sins forgiven, God’s law written on their hearts and minds, God being their God and they his people.
But in the middle of the chapter comes this passage about weeping for those going into exile. Ramah was one of the places where the exiles were gathered before marching to Babylon nearly 600 years before the time of Jesus. It was also traditionally accepted to be the site of Rachel’s burial 1400 years before that. And so this quote is a picture of Jacob’s favourite wife weeping for her descendants as they’re herded together and banished from the Promised Land.
But then straight afterwards, in Jeremiah 31, God says, ‘Restrain your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears, for your work will be rewarded,’ declares the LORD. They will return from the land of the enemy. So there is hope for the future,’ declares the LORD.
And the picture of despair turns into one of hope springing out of suffering and struggle and exile.
And it seems that the quote here in Matthew is meant to help us see through the temporary sorrow of Herod’s furious lashing out at the children of Bethlehem, because God would even bring joy and deliverance to Israel our of this situation, through the quick return of Bethlehem’s Messiah from a foreign land. Again, God is working through struggle and suffering to bring his people into salvation and glory.
And as Abraham’s spiritual children, this is as relevant for us as for them. Maybe the way into God’s kingdom is through suffering. Maybe Jesus’ suffering overflows into our lives. But that’s only because the way to glory is through suffering. If we’re willing to share in Jesus’ suffering we will share in his glory. As Paul says in Romans 8, ‘I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.’
Point 3: Jesus fulfils OT prophecy: The suffering servant
Then finally in 4BC Herod died, and his reign of terror came to an end. Jesus was free to return to his homeland. But due to circumstances they don’t return to Bethlehem, but Nazareth in Galilee. And maybe it all seemed a bit arbitrary at the time, it was the safer place, and that was where Mary and Joseph had come from in the first place. But again, through the processes of history God was achieving things that only come clear down the track.
And this time the prophecy is even harder to work out. There simply isn’t an Old Testament quote that says that Jesus would be called a Nazarene.
But you notice already from the introduction that there’s more ambiguity to this quote than the others. The first quote came from a prophet, and you discover it is Hosea. The second quote comes from Jeremiah. But this third quote is something that was said through the prophets, plural.
And it seems that it’s not meant to be a specific quote from anywhere in particular, but something that the prophets said together. But what does it mean? Nowhere in the Old Testament is there even an implication that Jesus would be called a Nazarene, or grow up in Nazareth.
The thing about Nazareth was that it was an insignificant little place. It had a population that was partly Gentile which affected the way they looked at life. Folk living in Nazareth were held in contempt by the average Jew. They were a disgrace to the rest of the country. Nathanael, before he becomes one of Jesus’ disciples asks if anything good could come out of there. To call someone a Nazarene was as good as swearing at them.
The place where Jesus grew up in itself already put a cloud over his head. He came from the wrong side of the track. There were already questions about his conception and birth, now there were questions about where he grew up. Already on the basis of his birth and upbringing he was despised, rejected, and held in contempt.
And you start to think of Isaiah 53, ‘He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.’
You think of Psalm 22, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? … I am a worm and not a man, scorned by men and despised by the people. All who see me mock me; they hurl insults, shaking their head.’
And through Zechariah the Messiah Shepherd of Israel says, ‘The flock detested me.’
And so, maybe the quote doesn’t come from the Old Testament as a quote, but the sentiment, and the implications of the name “Nazarene” do. And Jesus would live up to the name more than anyone else from there ever would – to the point that his despisers would even kill him on a cross.
Conclusion
But even in his suffering he was God’s servant. And as Isaiah 53 also says, it was through his sufferings that he took up our infirmities and sorrows. He was pierced for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities – bringing us peace and healing. It’s by putting our trust in him that our sins are dealt with and we find peace with God again. He suffered for us, so that we would not suffer eternally.
In fact we’re now given the honour of sharing in his sufferings so that through them we might be prepared for glory.
Jesus already suffered in his early years, moving house a few times in almost as many years, escaping to Egypt and then returning home again. Being set up for insult and abuse in his growing up years already, simply because of where he lived. He suffered throughout his life, living in a world of sin and suffering, eventually ending his life on a cross, taking upon himself eternal hell for everyone who turns to him in faith. But his reward through all of that was eternal glory by his Father’s side on an eternal throne.
And our privilege is the opportunity to put our trust in him,
sharing a little of his suffering as we serve him in his kingdom,
but knowing that this is also a preparation for us, to share in his glory.
Amen