Posts tagged “Gospel of Matthew”

Sermon for the Feast of St. Matthew

Posted on September 21st, 2011

I am not who I want to be. I am not who I should be. I want to be a Christian, a disciple of Jesus. But the horrible truth is that I am a sinner through and through. I wish I were improving, becoming more spiritual, more knowledgeable, more faithful, more loving. But my own experience is that I am growing worse and not better. I am not who I want to be, and I suppose I won’t be who I should be until I die. Those are my own thoughts, about myself, today. But I imagine that they were also, at least partially, the thoughts of Levi the Tax Collector as he sat in his office the day Jesus came by. He probably…

Categories: Sermons

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Mystery in the little martyrs of Bethlehem

Posted on December 27th, 2008

I’m struggling writing my sermon for tomorrow, Holy Innocents (Mt. 2.13-18), because I simply don’t know what to make of those little children who were killed. My mind keeps going to the still-born baby I buried a couple of years ago, the time I visited the hospital to pray with a woman about to have a procedure to remove her miscarried child, and my wife’s own miscarriage. One points to the mercy of God and the hope of the resurrection, but it doesn’t alleviate the sadness that will always be there in this life. I suppose the only thing to say is that why God allows suffering even to “innocents” (and their parents, especially mothers) is a mystery, and we must trust God works…

Categories: Theology

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The one and only Son

Posted on December 26th, 2008

In an earlier post today, I wondered why Matthew renders “sons” in Jeremiah as “children” (tekna). Gibbs writes in his commentary on Matthew [thanks, Heidi!], “Matthew has taken ‘sons’ in both the LXX and the MT and deliberately rendered it as ‘children.’ His purpose in so doing is to emphasize that Jesus is the true and only ‘son’ and fulfillment of all of Israel’s history. In Matthew 1-4 only Jesus is called ‘son’ (huios), and he is so designated repeatedly.” (p131) Interesting that this comes so close to the citation of Hos. 11.1 in Mt. 2.15, “Out of Egypt I called My SON.”

Categories: Theology

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Matthean Mystery

Posted on December 26th, 2008

Well, not a deep mystery; more a puzzle, really: What text of Jeremiah was St. Matthew working with? In the Gospel for the Holy Innocents (Dec. 28), Matthew quotes Jeremiah 31.15. The first thing I noticed was that both the ESV and NKJ translate bane (“sons”) as “children,” despite the LXX having huiois (sons). For some reason Matthew has tekna (neuter “children”). Why? It was clearly only boys who were killed. Does the fact that it is neuter give it broader application to the whole Jewish people? Then, there is the matter of “comfort.” Rachel refuses to be comforted. Jer. 31.15, Heb. has hinnachem, “comfort, relent.” LXX decides to go the “relent” route with pausasthai, “cease.” But Matthew, curiously, uses a term loaded with meaning:…

Categories: Theology

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Quirinius conundrum [updated]

Posted on December 23rd, 2008

Sometimes living 10 miles from church really stinks. It would be nice to skateboard over there and check out Just’s Luke commentary, see what Fr. Brown has to say, and look at the CPH lectionary book. I think that the Luke 2 gospel for Christmas Eve gives Luke 2.2 as saying something like, “This registration took place before Quirinius was governor of Syria.” At least, I think I remember seeing that when I was proofreading the bulletin. [Update: It turns out I was wrong. I just know I saw it somewhere, though.] However, the version of ESV in my Accordance program has, “This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria,” with a footnote for reading it the way I’ve rendered it…

Categories: Theology

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