Today, we are presented with a text that offers us A Sword, A Cross, and A Reward.
In order to have a greater sense of what lies before us this day, let’s back up a bit. This is the third, consecutive week where we are invited to investigate Jesus’ initial missionary discourse. Going back yet one chapter earlier, this present discourse is prefaced with Jesus’ invitation, “Follow me,” to our present author Matthew, a tax collector turned disciple. Chapter 10 began with Jesus’ calling of a dozen disciples to be repositioned from merely following Him, to be sent out by Him as his authorized apostles.
These 12 are initially sent first, foremost, and specifically to the nation of Israel. “Go nowhere among the Gentiles and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” This initial action should not surprise us. He was, after all, born King of the Jews, and would later die with the inscription, “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews,” above his head. Of this sending, the blessed Dr. Martin Franzmann muses, “The fact that Jesus sends out twelve apostles – the number is stressed repeatedly – indicates that He is through His emissaries, laying claims to all Israel, to the whole twelve tribes.” Indeed, there is something quite satisfying about the completeness of this arrangement. Jesus, bound to Israel according to the flesh and according to prophecy “as a covenant for the people” now selects 12 from the people for those same people, David’s people.
Yet, in short order the calling would supersede the borders of Israel. Again, Franzmann comments on the “ultimately universal nature” of the mission of the 12. “They knew that the Lord had given His servant to be, not only a ‘covenant to the people’ but also ‘a light to the nations.’ They knew that the son of David was to stand as ‘an ensign to the peoples,’ that the Ruler who was to come from David’s city Bethlehem would ‘be great to the ends of the earth.’ Jesus had called them to be fishers of men, not only fishers of the Israelites. He had made them salt of the earth and the light of the world. … The fact that these apostles are twelve in number is therefore more than a statement of Jesus’ claim to all Israel, though that is true too. It states His claim on the world, on the completed people of God as it is to be at the end of days, a twelve tribes made up of men from all nations.”
And as revealed in last week’s text, this mission which continues with the church of today is fraught with painful progress with eyes on a final victory. As to the steepness of that climb… well that is a bit of the discussion for today. If the lead-up to this section is a bit of a dour downer, how much more so the words we begin with today, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” Then Jesus actually describes what this peace-less-ness might look like with this summary “a person’s enemies will be those of his own household.”
But wait a second. Isn’t this Jesus called to be the Prince of Peace? Didn’t angels herald his birth with “peace on earth?” Isn’t the Messiah one Micah prophesied would, “turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers”? Indeed, this is who Jesus the Christ is; prince of peace, one who reconciles the one who offers the great reward.
Still, this isn’t exclusively who He is. Rather, He is the one who ultimately brings peace that passes human understanding and genuine restoration. In order for this to take place, He is also one who separates what is worthless, worldly, and tainted religion from pure, undefiled, and unstained faith and all things false from fact. So, yes, He came and He comes to offer peace, but even more He brings a word which is “sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”
This sword would now be wielded by the apostles in their days, and eventually employed in Christ’s Church of our day and age. Also, this wasn’t the first time been utilized. Past Prophets parried, dodged, and thrusted against false prophets of their days.
Case in point is the Old Testament reading for today where a debate has formed with Jeremiah placed opposite another prophet, Hananiah, whose so-called words from God amount to nothing more than “don’t worry be happy” and “everything is awesome.” Contrary to this is the wet blanket, doom and gloom visions of the seer. It isn’t that he is a pessimist either. You can see in his words that he wants to be wrong. Peace, for Jeremiah, is the end goal. Yet, he knows that despite what He wants, what he prays for, the nation is doomed further deportation. The only thing that the nation can do is repent and accept the punishment in the present, with eyes on what is to come. For his words, Jeremiah is called a spy and traitor. His own nation, his own blood, his very family ignored him, hated him, tossed him in the bottom of a cistern. When things happened just as he prophesied, they kidnapped him, dragging him to Egypt hoping that God would protect them with this holy man among them.
Jeremiah’s story prepares us for Jesus’ story, as well as our own. He too would find himself abandoned and betrayed by His blood. His mother and brothers questioned His words. He would be sacrificed by the religious leaders of His day who believed it to “be expedient that one man should die for the people.” How else to keep the peace, right? As for those formerly brave apostles being sent out by Jesus, they would abandon, deny, and sell him out in the hopes of saving a sliver of self-peace.
But then, Jesus did the impossible. He rose! He restored those who doubted saying, "Peace be with you." He reconciled Peter to himself sending him out again with the mission to feed His lambs. Only, after Jesus’ resurrection did this section truly resonate for them. Only knowing of His resurrection do we begin understand this section. The peace of Jesus came through the sword of His violent death and resurrection. His Cross.
Later, the apostles, though not all of them, would also find courage to face the sword, to bear their own crosses. They themselves would welcome a prophet’s profit, a righteous reward. They would die to this world, with peace that passes human understanding, peace not as the world gives, everlasting peace, and eternal reconciliation.
Still, not all will walk this path. As I stated before, not all the apostles would follow Jesus through the shame of the cross to the exultation of the grave. Judas tried to find his own way, his own peace. First it was the increase of money and perhaps the approval of those in power. Yet when he found those things lacking, when he recognized his sin, he attempted to undo it by returning the ill-gotten gain. But it was not to be. Powerless against the powers of this world and his own sin, he sought to end the restless warring evil by taking his own life. To the very end, peace was still available to him. Judas could have waited on the Lord to renew his strength and to forgive his sins.
Like the Apostles, you may know of a loved one who has chosen to go their own way, seeking a self-made peace, a truce with Satan, and to coexist with the world. Like this, If we are perfectly honest, at times this describes our lives too. When this takes place, repentance is the only cure. As Dr. Franzmann notes, “But to find life in this world is to find a doomed life; to lose one’s life in this world for the Christ’s sake is to lose the doomed life a to find the one real life in Him.”
Which leads us to the last section. While the first part challenges our sense of peace, the second part softens the blow for the believer in this world. Yes, there are some, perhaps even our very own family, who will not only wander from the faith, but may indeed become enemies of the faith. Still, there are others who though initially strangers, will welcome Jesus’ disciples as those sent from God, even as if they were blood relatives.
Jesus informs us that there are those who will share their possessions and even their very lives, who will “give one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple.” They do so not for earthly gain, but because they know that though they give away everything earthly they “will by no means lose [their] reward.”
Not only is this last section meant to soften the blow, it also describes the work of believers in the present. We are called to share, even give away what is temporal and fleeting. We are to use the worldly wealth to support Christ’s church. We are to invest in the eternal.
And this is just the beginning. In the end, at the last day, those who are called to follow as disciples, who through great pains, walk through the wilderness of this world seeking the way of their king, clinging to his mercy a great reward awaits. At the end of our journey lies the eternal reward of the everlasting and imperishable heavenly kingdom. A Sword, A Cross, A Reward. This is our lot in the moment. With these, Jesus, is with us to the very end. Thanks be to God!
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