By Dan Doriani, taken from ESV Expository Commentary for the Gospel of Matthew
Jesus grew up in the small town of Nazareth, in Galilee, about 15 miles from the Sea of Galilee and 20 miles from the Mediterranean Sea. Nazareth rests in the bowl of high plateau that watches over the fertile, green north of Israel. Nazareth was a smaller town with a few thousand people. It was a remote place, and yet the region’s Greco-Roman buildings, polyglot street talk, and tax burden regularly reminded everyone of the Roman Empire. The ruins of baths, libraries, and hippodromes, with Greek inscriptions on tombs, bear silent testimony that Matthew had reason to quote Isaiah’s phrase referring to “Galilee of the Gentiles.”
A Jew from Galilee could also visit Maritime Caesarea on the coast, built by Herod the Great decades earlier. The beautiful city boasted a spectacular port, a Greco-Roman amphitheater seating five thousand people and carrying a whisper to the last row, and a Roman aqueduct bearing water from Mount Carmel. A little closer, Tiberius lay by the Sea of Galilee. It was a large, new city, built on cheap land on a cemetery that made it unclean for observant Jews.
Jesus’ father was an artisan, and Jesus was too. We call them carpenters, but the Greek term tekton labels someone who worked with wood, stone, and metal. Later tradition says Joseph and Jesus made excellent plows.
Then John the Baptist appeared. There was no mistaking his voice. He dressed like a wild man and lived in the wilderness of Judea without proper food or shelter there, but the people thronged to hear him say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” In that setting, the coming of God’s kingdom could be heard as a declaration of the end of Roman Rule. But John, the first prophet in centuries, meant more. Judgment was at hand, repentance was imperative, and a deliverer was coming soon. Not he, but someone whose sandals he was unworthy to carry. That someone was Jesus.
Jesus’ ministry began quietly. He toured Galilee and Judea and performed a few miracles, recounted in John 2-4. He began to be recognized as a teacher who performed signs and met with people, including great leaders – like Nicodemus – and with nobodies – like an oft-divorced Samaritan woman. He also began to meet his first disciples.
Soon, however, Jesus burst upon the world as a healer and prophet. There was no mistaking the miracles. People entered his presence roaring and howling and left calm and quiet. They came mute and left shouting for joy. They entered rigid and left loose and flowing. They entered paralyzed and left strong enough to walk. The stories spread like gossip, and the crowds came from everywhere.
The crowds marveled at his deeds, of course, but they also noticed the company he kept. He spent time in the synagogue and time in the streets. He dined with the elite and the outcasts. He feasted on the finest fare, yet at night he had nowhere to lay his head. Above all, he was a friend of sinners.
The crowds adored him, but the leadership gave him the gimlet eye. If Jesus was a holy man, they wondered, why did he associate with sinners? And who was this fatherless laborer from Nazareth, of all places? He clearly lacked training in the sacred tradition. Yet he dared to act like a rabbi, gathering disciples and teaching the law. Worse, he spoke like a prophet: “Truly I say to you.” Who gave him the right to talk like that, like God? And he hardly lived like a holy man. He flagrantly associated with disreputable women and called Roman agents his friends, dining with them in broad daylight.
These objections had an element of sincerity. Jesus did violate social norms, especially the expectations for a rabbi or holy man, but hypocrisy and envy tinged the accusations. After all, Jesus’ gains were the accusers’ losses. More importantly, they slowly proved that they were implacable, so that the more good that Jesus did, the more hostile they became, finally accusing him of healing through allegiance with the Evil One himself.
As the criticisms grew to a preliminary crescendo, Jesus withdrew. He told cryptic stories, explaining them to a few friends, not the masses. He withdrew to focus on a dozen disciples, and for good reason. Half the time, they hardly knew better than the masses. But he spoke to them of grace, of life in his kingdom, and of his impending death.
He returned to public life just before Passover. Jesus had been to Jerusalem before, his hard feet feeling the polished stones of the temple courts. He knew the crowds, so thick in Jerusalem’s narrow streets. He had seen the buildings, nearly finished after decades of work. The rays of the setting sun were so bright on the marble walls that it could dazzle the eyes, but the light did not blind Jesus, for he knew where to look. Inside those walls, under the current priests, he discerned ritual without substance, like a leafy tree that never bore fruit. Zeal for his father’s house consumed him. When he visited the temple, he saw money-changers in the court of the Gentiles. The Lord had designed his temple to become a house of prayer for the nations, but their commerce made it almost impossible for the Gentiles to worship. In righteous wrath, Jesus threw them out.
At that moment, no one could resist him, and for a while he shut the temple. But the authorities were livid. “Who gave you the right? Who gave you the authority to operate in our temple?” they demanded.
At times, the Pharisees thought Israel would be better off if Jesus were dead. But the Pharisees were a mixed bunch. A few thought he must be a man of God, and others at least wanted to hear him out. Beyond that, the Pharisees had no power to execute Jesus. But when Jesus judged the temple, he crossed the high priests, and, unlike the Pharisees, they probably had enough political leverage to move the Roman authorities to execute this troublesome teacher. It would be essential to convince the Romans that Jesus was dangerous, and Jesus had said and done enough that it should be possible. Since Roman law protected the temple, that would be a promising option.
It was not easy, but the high priests and elders eventually persuaded Pilate to condemn Jesus to die. Crucifixion was always a grim business, but this one had a surprising and ominous element. Jesus’ crucifixion certainly did not last long, just a few hours. And Jesus seemed to continue his work even from the cross, talking and praying to the end. A strange darkness descended on the land, and an earthquake followed. More than that, Jesus did not die like the rest. It seemed that he chose the moment to take leave of this life and give his spirit to the Father.
Some people, even among the Roman executioners, wondered if they had made a terrible mistake. Still, the authorities had to believe they had won the day. After all, if Jesus was the agent of God he claimed to be, God would hardly have let him die so ignominiously, would he?
His disciples had reason to cower in seclusion. They had hoped that Jesus was the one who would redeem Israel, but now he was an executed criminal. And what did that indicate for their status as his followers? Blessedly, they did not hide for long. For, on the first day of the week, as he had often foretold, the Father raised Jesus.
Healed, transformed, empowered, Jesus passed through his grave clothes and left the tomb. Angels patiently waited for his disciples, and when some women came, they were told that Jesus had risen and ordered to tell his disciples. The disciples saw him later that day, and on other occasions over the next forty days. When they met him, they saw he was the same Jesus, yet transformed. Some doubted, or hesitated, so he ate with them and even invited Thomas to put his hand into his side if he needed proof. They believed. He appeared to the Twelve, then even to five hundred all at once. And they believed and set about making disciples of all the nations.