Matthew 9, a visual study of the authority to forgive sins, the calling of Matthew, mercy for sinners, the faith-healings, and the harvest, from The Lampstand Project.
Mercy, and a harvest.
The miracles continue, but the claim grows. Now Jesus forgives sins, the thing only God can do. He calls a tax collector from his booth, eats with sinners, raises a dead girl, and heals all who reach for him. And at the end, he looks at the crowds and sees a harvest.
"The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest."Matthew 9:37-38 ESV
Chapter eight asked who this man could be. Chapter nine answers by raising the stakes. He does not only heal bodies now; he forgives sins, which the scribes rightly understand as a claim to be God. And he spends that authority not on the deserving but on the sick, the outcast, and the unclean. The chapter ends by turning his eyes, and ours, to a field full of people with no shepherd.
Mercy among the multitudes.
A series of encounters, each one a person the world had counted out, and each one gathered in. Tap any numbered marker to read its moment below.
Tap any numbered marker to read its moment
The paralytic.
They brought him a paralyzed man on a bed. And the first thing Jesus said was not "rise" but "Take heart, my son; your sins are forgiven." The scribes were scandalized, and they were not wrong about what the claim meant. Only God can forgive sins. To say it was either blasphemy or a revelation of who he was.
So Jesus gave them the proof they could see. "Which is easier, to say 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say 'Rise and walk'? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins," he turned to the man, "Rise, pick up your bed and go home." And he did. The healing was the visible sign of an invisible authority.
"Who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases."
The calling.
"As Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, 'Follow me.' And he rose and followed him." A tax collector was a traitor in the eyes of Israel, a Jew who collected for Rome and skimmed the difference. Jesus called him in one sentence, and he left the booth behind.
Then Jesus went to dinner at Matthew's house, full of tax collectors and sinners. The Pharisees were appalled. Jesus answered with the line that defines his whole mission: those who are well do not need a physician. He came for the sick. When they asked why his disciples did not fast, he spoke of new wine that cannot be held in old skins. Something genuinely new had arrived.
"And he rose and followed him."
The man writing this gospel is recording the moment he was called, and he tells it in five plain words, placing himself among the very sinners Jesus said he came for. He does not soften what he was. The mercy is the point.
"For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings."
The religious leaders kept their distance from sinners to stay clean. Jesus does the opposite. He goes to the table of the unclean, because mercy is not made unclean by the people it touches. It is the whole reason he came.
The ones who reached for him.
A ruler knelt: "My daughter has just died, but come and lay your hand on her, and she will live." On the way to the ruler's house, a woman who had bled for twelve years, unclean and untouchable all that time, came up behind him. "If I only touch his garment, I will be made well." She touched the fringe, and Jesus turned: "Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well."
Then he reached the ruler's house and took the dead girl by the hand, and she rose. Two blind men followed him crying "Have mercy on us, Son of David," and he asked them, "Do you believe that I am able to do this?" According to their faith, their eyes were opened. A mute man, freed from a demon, spoke. Everywhere, faith reached out, and mercy answered.
"The sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings."
The harvest.
Jesus went through all the cities and villages, teaching and healing every disease. And then Matthew gives us the heart behind the miracles: "When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd." The miracles were never the point. The people were.
And so the chapter that began with a single forgiven man ends with a whole field of them. "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest." The physician has seen how many are sick. Now he will send others to reach them, which is exactly what happens next.
"I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep... I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed."
Looking around.
The genealogy looked back. The geography looked out. The river looked up. The wilderness looked ahead. The mountain looked inward. Chapter six looked beyond. Chapter seven looked down. Chapter eight looked closer. Chapter nine looks around, at the crowds pressing in on every side, harassed and helpless, and sees not a burden but a harvest waiting to be gathered.
The authority that calmed the sea in chapter eight now forgives sins, calls a traitor to the table, and raises the dead. But its deepest motion is compassion. Jesus looks at a sea of need and does not turn away. He sees a harvest, and he begins to think about laborers. The next chapter will answer his own prayer, when he sends out the twelve.
"When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd."Matthew 9:36 ESV
All scripture quoted from the English Standard Version. A study from The Lampstand Project.