MATTHEW 12:9-21
WHEN I SAY THE WORDS "POWERFUL KING," what sort of a man do you envision? For me, kings like Henry VIII of England and Leopold II of Belgium come to mind, and also other world leaders like Alexander the Great, Caesar Augustus, Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan, Ivan the Terrible, Napoleon, Hirohito, Adolf Hitler, Pol Pot, and Mao Tse-tung—mighty men who had absolute rule over a certain country or region or empire, and who all just happened be notoriously wicked. When I think “powerful king” I think of men infamous for their injustices and lack of mercy.
Perhaps your mind is more edified than mine. So when I wrote “powerful king” you thought of good kings, like Solomon (really?) or Hezekiah (are you sure?) or Uzziah (nice try). You thought of someone. There had to be good kings, right ? And whoever they are, you are thinking of them right now.
But for me, with my unedified imagination, the only men I could think of as “powerful kings” all fit well the famous dictum, “Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.” That saying comes from Lord Acton (1834-1902) in a letter he wrote to Bishop Mandell Creighton in 1887. The full saying is; “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.”' Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Hamlet, and Richard III are not merely historical fictions. They represent men who still make the front page of the world’s daily newspapers. Powerful kings tend to be or become unjust and merciless.
Ah, but then there is Jesus!
Throughout his Gospel, Matthew has been arguing that Jesus is the absolute sovereign, the most powerful king. We saw this in the last tract. Jesus is greater than King David. Jesus is greater than the temple. Jesus is the Son of Man. Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath. And we are moving toward the climax of the Gospel where we will read that Jesus is Lord of Heaven and earth (28:18). Yet here in 12:9-21 we learn that this powerful king is unlike other powerful kings in that he is merciful (vv. 9-14) and just (vv. 15-21).
Jesus, the Merciful King
First, Jesus is the merciful king. Verses 9, 10a say, “[Jesus] went on from there and entered their synagogue. And a man was there with a withered hand." We move on to verse 10b, where the Pharisees asked Jesus, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?" They asked this question because they knew the answer. According to their law it was unlawful “to set a broken limb or straighten a deformed body” on the Sabbath.
They asked this question “so that they might accuse him” (v. 10c). They thought the odds were good that Jesus might be at odds with them, and if so they would have grounds to accuse him of breaking Sabbath law. But Jesus replied by switching from the Scriptural defense of verses 1-8 to common sense and shared human experience and sympathy. He exhorts them to use their heads and hearts: “Which one of you who has a sheep, if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will not take hold of it and lift it out?” (v. 11). The answer to Jesus’ question is obvious. Of course the Pharisees would do that. In fact, according to one of their laws, it was permissible to rescue an animal on the Sabbath (see b. Sabb. 128b). Perhaps that’s why Jesus uses this illustration.
After establishing that a sheep is worthy of saving on the Sabbath, in verse 12 Jesus gives the argumentative punch: “Of how much more value is a man than a sheep!” Notice the exclamation point. It could be an exclamation point or a question mark. I like the translator’s exclamation point. However, with the forces of animal equality pushing in on us, we might be forced to turn that exclamation point into a question mark: “Of how much more value is a man than a sheep?” Biologically speaking all creatures are equal, right? Save the whales, save the sheep, and so on. Jesus says, “No, they’re not” (cp. 6:26; 10:31). Come on, even the most biologically-sensitive person would save a drowning child before a drowning sheep (cp. Luke 14:5). We’ll leave the exclamation point as is. You see, even Jesus’ analogies tackle some of the tough issues of our day. People are more important than animals.
Back to the argument. If a human being is more valuable than a sheep, and if any normal human being would save a sheep that has fallen into a pit (i.e., “work” on the Sabbath), then “it is lawful to do good [to people] on the Sabbath” (v. 12). God is best worshipped on the Sabbath—who could
think otherwise?—when love for animals and people are extended. One is reminded of 1 John 4:20, 21. How can you love God whom you’ve not seen if you can’t love your brother whom you have seen? Love of one’s neighbor trumps Sabbath law. No, that’s not right. Love of one’s neighbor is Sabbath law. It is lawful to love. Healing another person on Saturday or Sunday or any day of the week is an act of love. It’s okay. It’s worshipful.
That is our Lord’s brief lecture on mercy. (Remember, he is the merciful King.) Next he demonstrates mercy: “Then he said to the man, ‘Stretch out your hand.’ [Luke 6:6 tells us it was his right hand; it was hard to make a living in those days, and even today, with a bad right hand.] And the man stretched it out, and it was restored, healthy like the other” (v. 13). Praise God! What a miracle! This is not something you see every day, is it?
Notice that with this miracle Jesus didn’t move. He didn’t lift a finger. He didn’t touch the man. One wonders if he even blinked. He just spoke a few words. That’s power, sure enough. But that’s also hard to categorize as work—just saying four words. The Pharisees said eight words in verse 10. With such talk, were they working on the Sabbath?
But Jesus knows what he’s doing here. He is intentionally provoking the Pharisees. Think about it. This man was not in mortal danger. This withered hand wasn’t going to kill him on this day or anytime soon. Perhaps he had lived with this withered hand for years. This man’s restoration could have waited for Sunday or Monday. So why not wait until then? Or why not wait until the synagogue service was over and then heal the man quietly and secretly?
Furthermore, why perform this miracle when Jesus wasn’t even asked to perform a miracle? The man with the withered hand didn't beg him for divine physical therapy. No one asked Jesus to heal anybody. No stretcher came through the open tiles of the ceiling. No desperate voice pleaded for help. Did you know there are only three miracle stories (by my count) in all the Gospels when Jesus took the initiative? Jesus is the one, in Mark’s version of the story, who asked the man to stand up and to stand front and center. And here in Matthew, as well as in Mark, Jesus is the one who with one simple command—“Stretch out your hand” (v. 13)—restored a useless and shriveled limb. But why? Why did Jesus do this then and there?
He did it because his mission was the cross! And we see the shadow of his own strctched-out hands begin to form in verse 14 with the Pharisees’ response to Jesus' miraculous mercy; “But the Pharisees went out and conspired against him, how to destroy him” (v. 14). Here the conversation of the cross starts to form in the back room, and now in Matthew’s Gospel the action intensifies as the clash of authorities gets louder and louder. Soon even the crowds, who now stand amazed at Jesus, will join in the cleric-stirred chant, “Let him be crucified!” (27:22, 23).
Verses 9-14 don’t merely record another Sabbath controversy. This text is not primarily about Jesus’ interpretation of the Sabbath—the Pharisees have it wrong, and he has it right, so he corrects them, first in word and then in deed. There is more to it than that. This is a passage about Jesus as the merciful King. He is Lord of the Sabbath, and he uses that Lordship to do good, to show God’s mercy in healing a man’s withered hand, and he shows mercy by taking the sins of the world upon his own hands and feet and side (“with his wounds we are healed,” Isaiah 53:5).
Jesus, the Just King
This is precisely what comes to Matthew’s mind. As he is writing his Gospel, deciding what stories to include and where to put them, right after he recalls and writes about the Pharisees’ response to Jesus’ miracle, he thinks about the “servant” in Isaiah (42—53). Isaiah 42:1-4 is quoted in verses 18-21.
So from verse 14 to verses 15-21 there is a natural progression. You can think of it this way: Jesus demonstrates mercy (vv. 9-14); Jesus embodies mercy (vv. 15-21). Or you can think of it more specifically, as I have outlined the whole passage:
1. Jesus is the powerful King.
2. But unlike most powerful kings he brings mercy (vv. 9-14), and in his merciful life and death he brings justice (vv. 15-21).
Look again at verses 15-21, and note the word “justice.”
Jesus, aware of this [their growing hostility], withdrew from there. And many followed him, and he healed them all and ordered them not to make him known. This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah:
Behold, my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved with whom my soul is well pleased.
I will put my Spirit upon him, and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles [what an interesting concept to come after a Jewish Sabbath squabble]. He will not quarrel or cry aloud, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets; a bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not quench, until he brings justice to victory; and in his name the Gentiles will hope.
What’s going on here? Jesus withdraws from the heated debate. The Pharisees want him dead. But it’s not the right time for him to be captured and killed. Timing is everything in Jesus’ mission and in God’s plan. In “the fullness of time” (Galatians 4:4) Jesus came into the world, and at the right time (“my time has not yet come,” see John 7:6-8) he would leave it. This explains why he leaves that situation in the synagogue and why he commands those he healed “not to make him known” (12:16).
Jesus’ behavior here reminds Matthew of Isaiah. Matthew is often reminded of the book of Isaiah. He has already quoted it four times (see 1:23; 3:3; 4:15, 16; 8:17). Matthew is reminded of the Suffering Servant of Isaiah. And so, one third through his Gospel, Matthew now quotes Isaiah 42:1-4, 9 (this is his longest Old Testament quotation). And in this Old Testament text, Matthew sees that Jesus is the powerful King (spoken of earlier in Isaiah 7, 9). But Jesus has not come to start a political war. Nor has he come to make a big deal of himself—“Here I am, King Jesus. Look at me! Quick, someone call CNN.” Rather Jesus will retreat behind the cameras. He’ll do his work, as important as it is, but he’ll do it without dramatic flair, but with purpose and perfect timing.
And with God’s love within him (this is God’s “beloved son,” 3:17; 17:5) and God’s Spirit upon him, God’s servant will serve. He will serve the weak, those people who are like bruised reeds. A reed is a symbol of weakness. Nobody names a sports team the Rumbling Reeds or something like that, right? Also a bruised reed is a picture of something utterly useless, something that looks beyond repair. He will serve people who are like bruised reeds and smoldering wicks (picture a lamp about to go out, something that has very little life left in it).
The servant will serve people who look like they are about to be snapped off or snuffed out—the “good for nothing,” we might call them, “the losers,” “the marginalized.” To those sorts of people from among the “nations” or “Gentiles” (non-religious elite Jews—shall I put it that way?) and from those who keep breaking Pharisaical Sabbath laws (because such laws are too heavy, too burdensome), Jesus comes not only with rest but also with justice. He comes to judge those who will not believe, but also those who will believe or, put differently, who place their hope in the saving name of the Suffering Servant and the King of kings. You see, Jesus is Lord—not just Lord of the Sabbath or Lord of the nations but Lord, period. The noun in 12:8, “Lord,” tells us “who Jesus is,” and the other noun here in verse 18, “servant,” tells us “how he is” or how he rules—he rules in humility for the humble.
“Are you the king of the Jews?” “Yes, it is as you say—King of the Jews”—written in Aramaic, Greek, and Latin (John 19:20), that all the world might read it and know it. Jesus is a king, a king who rules in humility for the humble. He enlists in his army a bunch of weaklings. Have you ever heard of such strange behavior? Would Alexander the Great have allowed bruised reeds and smoldering wicks as soldiers? Would Hitler have allowed his troops to lack rigorous training, discipline, skill, and courage? And yet the kingdoms of this world—whether great Greece or great Germany—have all come to an end, and other kingdoms will soon come to an end, but the kingdom of God, with its weaklings, marches on. The truth is that Jesus came to bring justice to nobodies who could find it nowhere else, a justice that will come finally, ultimately, with the final judgment.
Although Matthew’s quote of Isaiah 42 emphasizes what the servant does not do, it ends with the one thing he will do—bring justice. One commentator puts it this way:
This Servant will never rest in his nonviolent zeal until he brings God’s great verdict of perfect justice and righteous judgment to earth. The Servant is quiet but not quietistic, nonviolent but not noninvolved, gentle but passionate for God’s truth—a truth, we are promised, that he shall one day bring successfully to victory. This victory is won at Jesus’ awful cross, is proclaimed at his triumphant resurrection, is worked out in history in his reign at God’s right hand, and will be consummated at his glorious judgment.
Yes! Yes indeed.
So coming out of the dark cloud of verse 14, these verses from Isaiah are like gentle warm rain. Jesus will die, but in his death justice begins to “roll down like waters” (Amos 5:24). the earth is slowly being “filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord” (Habakkuk 2:14), and soon the whole earth will be flooded with hope.
The Bottom Line
When the small group I lead gets together on Sunday nights to discuss the passage that was preached on Sunday morning, I usually start by asking the group a simple yes or no question. I usually start by asking, “What was the main point of the talk (which should be the main point of the Bible text)?” Or put differently, “What is the bottom line?”
Suppose a man in my group says, “I think this passage is about religious hypocrisy.” I say, “Yes, true, but how so?”
“Well,” this man replies, “it is as the great mathematician and physicist Blaise Pascal once wrote [you’ll have to forgive me, my group is very heady], ‘Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.’”
I say, “That’s a good quote. I could have used it in my talk this morning.”
“You see,” he goes on to say, “with their stubborn resistance, blind jealousy, and hatred, the Pharisees’ priorities became so twisted that they accused Jesus of breaking the Sabbath for healing a man, while they, on the Sabbath, are plotting to murder an innocent man (Jesus), thus breaking the great commandment to love one's neighbor (Leviticus 19:18). We must be careful that we don’t let man-made traditions blind us to love, or to true religion, as James put it.”
“True,” I say, “an excellent point and a good application, but do you think that is really the bottom line?”
Another brave soul raises her voice and shares her opinion. “This text is about the Sabbath. As you said last week, the church has lost the sense of the sacredness of time. We need to stop wasting time, especially on the Lord’s Day, watching football, basketball, or the Olympics, whatever we watch, and use that time—redeem the time—for worship and works of mercy. We have to give God our Sundays! Isn’t that our Ecclesias motto?”
“It is,” I say. “It’s one of our many mottos. And yes, I agree that it is great on Sundays to take a break from whatever you do for a living and gather in the morning and evening for worship with God’s people—to stir one another up toward love and good deeds. And it’s good to spend time with family and take a long walk with your spouse, visit someone in the hospital or in a retirement home, volunteer at a charity, or bake brownies for our poor famished college students. Yes, spend yourself on others. Yes, yes, yes—that is resting in Christ, working for him on the Sabbath. But I think the Sabbath issue here is not the bottom line. Neither this text nor the one before it is about the Sabbath. The Sabbath is merely the setting. It’s a dramatic setting. It’s like all the characters are balancing on a tightrope talking. But this passage is not about the tightrope, is it? So, nice try, but you too are wrong. [Don’t you wish you were part of my growth group? I have a very inviting personality.] Any other thoughts?”
“Okay...” Someone else works up the courage to give it a try. “The bottom line—that’s what you want, right?”
“Yes, it is,” I say.
“The bottom line is not the inward focus but the outward focus. It’s not about religious hypocrisy— we shouldn’t be like the Pharisees—and it’s not about what we should or should not do on Sundays, but it’s about the Ecclesias mission to the world.”
He stops and looks at me.
I nod encouragingly and curiously. “There is so much,” this man goes on to say, “we can learn about missions from Jesus’ method and his target. Listen, his method (and it’s not just here, it’s everywhere in the Gospels) was not some big PR campaign—‘Come see Jesus, the mighty miracle-worker.’ We are so concerned about power and publicity—voting in the right politicians, making sure Jesus gets some face-time on the news or in our public schools. But Jesus’ own method was always calculatedly quiet, and Jesus’ power was perfected in weakness... and yet look at the results: millions of people still to this day, and for 2,000 years, call him ‘Lord’ and ‘Savior.’ It’s time the Ecclesia stopped looking to be so fashionable and started acting like Jesus.”
Silence.
“So what I’m saying,” he goes on, “is that Jesus’ method has to be ours, and his target needs to be ours as well. He went after the broken reeds and smoldering wicks, not the rich, not the famous, not the religiously pristine. It’s time we as an Ecclesia go out and bring in the lowlifes and losers.” Then I turn to the group and say, “I’ll admit he’s preached a better than I did, but I’m glad to say that he too is wrong. No, no, no, my friends. These are all excellent thoughts and perfect applications of this passage, but they are not the bottom line. The bottom line is not inward or outward but upward. This passage is about Jesus and his identity.” Identity, identity, identity. Every passage in every Gospel—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—is primarily about Jesus’ identity. (It’s not only that, but it’s primarily that.) And here again in our passage Matthew is telling us in story form who Jesus is. He is the powerful King. He is the powerful but merciful King! He is the powerful but just King!
He is the powerful, merciful, just King who says, “I don't care how wretched or unremarkable you are or may seem, I’ve come to bring even you life and rest and hope. So come to me. Trust me with your life. I’m a servant and yet a king. I’m a powerful king and yet full of mercy and justice. So line up, broken reeds and smoldering wicks; come unto me. ‘All ye nations rise, join the triumph of the skies.’”
Jesus is the bottom line. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus.
(R. Kent Hughes. and Douglas Sean O'Donnell., 2013; edited Carl Hinton., 2020)