Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Jesus Heals Many

14 And when Jesus entered Peter’s house, he saw his mother-in-law lying sick with a fever.

15 He touched her hand, and the fever left her, and she rose and began to serve him.

16 That evening they brought to him many who were oppressed by demons, and he cast out the spirits with a word and healed all who were sick.

17 This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah: “He took our illnesses and bore our diseases.”

We continue today looking at the many miracles performed at the hands of Jesus.

And as I’ve pointed out before it’s important that we keep in mind that Matthew has hand-picked certain miracles to show or to teach us certain things, so when we read these texts remember that the author intends for you to see and understand something.

Matthew isn’t just writing everything down that he’s able to recall from his time with Jesus as a sort of a log book, but rather he’s giving us a presentation of the life and ministry of Jesus with the intention that we learn something.

So when we looked at the beginning of chapter 8 we saw that Jesus has the power to make us clean, which was Matthew’s primary point in his account of Jesus healing a man with leprosy.

We also saw that Matthew intended to demonstrate Jesus’ willingness to make well even those who are culturally treated with disdain, who are society’s outcasts.

When we looked at the story of the Gentile centurion, shortly thereafter, we saw that Matthew wanted us to see that Jesus has authority over sickness, and that he’s even willing to heal the ethnic outsider, even if that person is a Gentile.

We also saw that Matthew wanted us to see that the substance of salvation is not found in our bloodline or our ethnic lineage, but that faith in the Son of God is essential for entrance into the kingdom of heaven.

It’s why he said to his fellow Jewish-men that many Gentiles like this centurion will recline at the table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.

Jesus heals Peter’s mother-in-law

So today we move on to yet another account of Jesus’ miraculous works.

We read there again in verse 14,

14 And when Jesus entered Peter’s house, he saw his mother-in-law lying sick with a fever.

15 He touched her hand, and the fever left her, and she rose and began to serve him.

This text is particularly interesting, historically speaking, for a couple of reasons.

The first, is that we learn Peter has a home in Capernaum, we also learn that Peter is presumably married, and that his mother-in-law is living together with them in their home.

In Mark’s Gospel we find out that this is the home of both Simon Peter and his brother Andrew.

It also appears that this a place where Jesus often stayed while in Capernaum, some have even speculated that Jesus considered this is semi-permanent home while in town.

And what’s also particularly interesting about this story is that modern day archeologists have unearthed what appears to be a Christian church in Capernaum, just south of the town’s local synagogue that was in use during Jesus’ time.

Now what’s particularly interesting about this church is that it’s octagon-shaped and believed to have been built sometime between the 5th and 6th century AD.

The significance of the octagon-shape is that it tells historians that this particular church was what they call a memorial church, which means that it was built over a geographical area of biblical significance.

More specifically, a geographical area that was associated with a place where Jesus was remembered to have been.

Now, at the center of this church they “found remains of a square room that seems to have been used as a house church as early as the late first century AD.

Many graffiti in Aramaic, Greek, Hebrew, Latin and Syriac, as well as crosses, were scratched into or drawn on the plastered walls of this room.”

There were also “artifacts such as lamps, fishhooks, and Herodian-era coins [showing] that the room was previously used for more mundane purposes.”

In other words, they found what appears to the home of a fisherman that was later the meeting place of a Christian house church.

“Most scholars agree that the … church preserves the location of Peter’s house in Capernaum … [and was] perhaps the very room in which Jesus stayed when he was in town.”

(Crossway, Archeology Study Bible (ESV), p. 1382) Isn’t that incredible!

Unfortunately, I think we can often feel disconnected from the Bible when we read it because the culture of the Jewish people was very different than our own today, the setting is foreign to us, so when we read of places like the Sea of Galilee, or Capernaum, Bethsaida our minds often tend to checkout as we’re reading our Bibles.

So I think it’s massively encouraging and helpful for us to do whatever we can to connect with the text, in order that we might think about and understand it more deeply.

Which is why archeological finds like this one can be incredibly exciting and encouraging, they can go a long way in rooting what we’re reading into human history, they can go a long way in helping the text come alive.

And it’s important that we realize that what we’re reading is not a collection of fairy-tales, they’re not even just good stories compiled for us to glean certain good moral principles, which is what many in the world believe the Bible is.

But in fact, these are historical accounts of what God has done amidst the affairs of man.

The Bible is not simply a fictional allegory, it’s God’s revelation to us rooted in real human history.

So when we read these verses we’re reading about a real man named Peter who lived like the rest of us in a town called Capernaum, they suffered from real sicknesses just as we do, and a real flesh and blood Jesus touched the hand of Peter’s mother-in-law who was sick with a fever, and immediately the fever left her.

And people just like us built a church around Peter’s house to help preserve the memory of their Lord and his time on earth.

Jesus heals many who were sick

Now the text goes on in verse 16 and says,

16 That evening they brought to him many who were oppressed by demons, and he cast out the spirits with a word and healed all who were sick.

17 This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah: “He took our illnesses and bore our diseases.”

16 That evening they brought to him many who were oppressed by demons, and he cast out the spirits with a word and healed all who were sick.

Jesus’ miraculous works made him the focal point of all those who were sick.

In fact, in Mark’s account he says that,

Jesus’ miraculous works made him the focal point of all those who were sick.

In fact, in Mark’s account he says that,

the whole city was gathered together at the door.

Word of Jesus’ works preceded him everywhere he went.

He took our illnesses and bore our diseases

Now, just as I mentioned at the beginning, Matthew has a point to all of this, and that point is found in verse 17, so let’s read it again together,

17 This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah: “He took our illnesses and bore our diseases.”

Matthew is telling us that one of the primary reasons Jesus is healing the people of their illnesses is in order to fulfill OT prophecy.

This would have been particularly important to Matthew’s intended Jewish audience.

Fulfilling OT prophecy was essential to the Messiah’s credentials, and so Matthew continues to go to great lengths to demonstrate Jesus’ credentials, to show how his works were a fulfillment of what the OT scriptures pointed to.

And as we’ve discussed before there are many reasons behind Jesus performing miracles, some of which are primary motivations and some of which are secondary motivations.

For instance, one of the reasons behind Jesus’ miraculous healings is that of compassion for the people, and another, as Matthew describes here is to fulfill OT prophecy.

And the OT prophecy that he references is from Isaiah chapter 53, which if there’s any text from the OT that the NT church seized upon to explain the ministry of Jesus, it was this one.

So turn with me to , starting in verse 1, I want us to read this together and get a feel for the context of what Matthew quotes from.

Matthew is honing in on

53 Who has believed what he has heard from us?

And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?

2  For he grew up before him like a young plant,

and like a root out of dry ground;

he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,

and no beauty that we should desire him.

3  He was despised and rejected by men,

a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;

and as one from whom men hide their faces

he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

4  Surely he has borne our griefs

and carried our sorrows;

yet we esteemed him stricken,

smitten by God, and afflicted.

5  But he was pierced for our transgressions;

he was crushed for our iniquities;

upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,

and with his wounds we are healed.

6  All we like sheep have gone astray;

we have turned—every one—to his own way;

and the LORD has laid on him

the iniquity of us all.

7  He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,

yet he opened not his mouth;

like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,

and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,

so he opened not his mouth.

8  By oppression and judgment he was taken away;

and as for his generation, who considered

that he was cut off out of the land of the living,

stricken for the transgression of my people?

9  And they made his grave with the wicked

and with a rich man in his death,

although he had done no violence,

and there was no deceit in his mouth.

10  Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him;

he has put him to grief;