CERC Blog
BOSS SUDAH DATANG.
Posted on 1 Jan 2020 by CERC
BOSS SUDAH DATANG.
This was the tagline we chose for 2019’s sermon series on the Gospel according to Matthew, which recounted the life of Jesus from His birth to His death. Jesus is The Boss, and He has come to us.
Over and over throughout Jesus’ life, many events occurred and pointed towards the special status of Jesus.
Before His birth, Jesus’ parents were told by an angel to name Him “Jesus”, for He will save His people from their sins. Born of a virgin by the Holy Spirit, He would be the fulfilment of Immanuel — God with us (Matt 1:21-23).
When Jesus was baptised, God announced from heaven that He was God’s beloved Son, with whom God was well-pleased (Matt 3:17).
Immediately after His baptism, the Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness — read carefully — to be tempted by the devil, as if to prove a point. In His steadfast obedience to God as a man, Jesus succeeded where Israel as a nation failed (Matt 4:1-11).
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He was The One.
Jesus preached repentance ahead of the imminent kingdom of heaven, called His disciples, and taught them what it meant to be the blessed sons of the perfect heavenly Father (Matt 5:48). He performed miracles that further testified His identity as the prophesied Messiah of Israel. This all culminated in the emphatic confession of Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God by Peter, one of Jesus’ disciples (Matt 16:16). Yes!
Yet… Peter was immediately stumbled when Jesus, whom he had just confessed as the Christ, foretold His impending suffering, death and resurrection (Matt 16:21-23). It seemed even Jesus’ closest companions did not truly understand who He was.
Exactly as prophesied, Jesus entered into Jerusalem on a donkey to unusual fanfare (by His standards), loudly announcing to all Israelites who knew their Scriptures this: “Your King has come” (Matt 21:1-10 cf. Zech 9:9). Yet, this invited only scorn and derision from the Pharisees and chief priests, who sought to put Jesus to death.
Their cause was helped when Judas, another one of Jesus’ disciples, betrayed Jesus for thirty pieces of silver (Matt 26:15). The other eleven disciples fled the scene for fear of their own lives (Matt 26:47-56), despite saying they would not deny Jesus even if they must die (Matt 26:35).
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And so, it was by the very hands of Israel, the nation that Jesus came to save, that Jesus — their King — was crucified on the cross (Matt 27).
This would have been the end of the story for any other king. And if Jesus’ story ended just like this, there is nothing about the Christian faith that is worth proclaiming.
But it did not.
Three days after Jesus’ crucifixion, two women went to see the tomb in which Jesus laid. But when they arrived, they were instead greeted by an angel, who rolled back the stone in front of the tomb and invited the women in.
“[Jesus] is not here, for He has risen, as He said. Come, see the place where He lay. Then go quickly and tell His disciples that He has risen from the dead, and behold, He is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him” (Matt 28:6-7).
And so, armed with their secure belief, the women departed from the tomb with fear and great joy, and told the disciples. Two thousand years of Christianity was put into motion through lowly-esteemed nobodies who witnessed the empty tomb and understood who Jesus was.
Jesus’ eleven disgraced but redeemed disciples went to Galilean mountain and met Him there, and received what we know today as The Great Commission:
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All authority in heaven and on earth
has been given to me.
“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
As the new year dawns upon us, let us reflect on how we have responded to Jesus Christ as revealed by the Gospel according to Matthew. We have witnessed Jesus’ life and death, come into, and seen His empty tomb. There is no mistake anymore: Jesus is the king; He has come; and His transformative work on the cross is done. Will we now repent and be transformed by it? If yes, what else is left for us to do other than to go and tell the world about this good news?
It is now our turn to pick up our cross and go.
The entire year’s sermon series on Matthew is available on our website. So, if you missed a sermon or two, or want to listen in again, make sure to check them out in the link above!