12.01 | His Own City
Matthew 9:1-34
“And getting into a boat he crossed over and came to his own city.”
Matthew 9:1
Jesus came to His own city.
Do we see Jesus as having His own city?
Jesus grew up in Nazareth, but, after the arrest of John the Baptist, and Jesus’ own outright rejection in Nazareth, He moved His home base to Capernaum, a fishing town on the north of the Sea of Galilee. Its name meant ‘Village of Nahum’ — Nahum being a prophet in the Old Testament who foretold the coming demise of God’s enemies (specifically, for Nahum, the city of Ninevah). Nahum’s name itself has a double meaning, meaning both ‘comfort’ and ‘regret’—two words we’d rarely put together. The root of them is a sense of a deep sighing—a release of emotion that suggests letting go of something firmly clung to. Letting go can happen when we release our pain and receive comfort. Letting go can happen when we release one course of action to take up a new direction.
Today’s reading takes us rapidly through some of the stories of people in this place. We can move quickly over them, but they had real faces, real names, and real backstories. We read of the paralysed man with those relentless friends, whose physical incapacity was matched by the weight of knowing his moral failings. I wonder what he looked like, what he was doing the day before, what his family home had been like.
We read of the call of Matthew, who’d been working as a tax collector, slowly draining wealth from his own people (and likely corruptly) in order to fund the agenda of the occupying Romans. We touch on his social group—wealthy and corrupt like Matthew, likely bonded over their shared experience of social exclusion.
We read of the desperate father and his dying daughter, only imagining the panic and anxiety he must have brought with him. We read of the woman, whose experience of bleeding all those long twelve years would have meant twelve years of social isolation due to what was seen as ritual impurity, alongside the physical cost of her condition. We read of the blind men, and the mute oppressed by a demon.
In each of these stories, Jesus brings His rule into being—a rule of forgiveness, healing, inclusion, restoration, resurrection, deliverance, and a people again finding their voice.
It’s a whistlestop tour of some of the stories of Capernaum, village of regret, village of comfort.
Village where the people were split in two by the controversial figure of Jesus, with His extraordinary works and incredible claims of Himself.
Reflect:
What is your city?
What faces will you encounter? What stories will you intersect? Neighbours. Colleagues. That parent on the school run. The person you sit next to in the lecture hall. The checkout assistant in the supermarket. The friend you’ve been meaning to get in touch with.
What might it look like to bring the reign of Jesus into these lives?
It happens a story at a time. It happens when we stop long enough to see the person. It happens when we invite Jesus in.
Pray:
Lord Jesus
You had your city
You met the realities of those people, right there and right then
Here I am today
There are so many stories I might intersect
Lives of beauty; lives of pain
All fallen short of what you intended for them
Today
Would you open my eyes to see
To see what lives could look like with your reign breaking in
Would you lead me in each moment to see where I can be a bringer of life.
Simply. Lovingly. Patiently. Secretly. Supernaturally.
With eyes on you,
And in Your Name
Amen.
Old Testament:
For those also reading the Old Testament, your additional readings can be found here:
Genesis 28:1-30:24 | Proverbs 2