For One and Many

Beloved People of God,

Jesus has such a powerful way of showing us who we are in the Father’s eyes. His disciples are perfect examples of this truth. Where Mark wrote of John and his brother as the “Sons of Thunder”—which has to be the most woefully under-utilized rock band name of all time—because of their fiery tempers (Mark 3.17), John saw himself in Christ as beloved (John 13.23; 19.26; 20.2; 21.7; 21.20; 21.24). The same is true for Matthew. Mark and Luke tell the story of Matthew’s calling, but they intentionally refer to him as Levi (that designation is important). But for Matthew writing his gospel, remembering the day Jesus found him despised and disdained by his countrymen, sitting in a tax collector’s booth, Matthew shares the name which Jesus used to redefine his life. The former tax collector tells us, “As Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, ‘Follow me’" (Matthew 9.9a).

At the heart of this story is man who the world called anything but “Matthew.” The Hebrew name Matthew means, “Gift of the Lord,” which was the last thing his neighbors saw. He was called a tax collector. He was called a sinner. He was an embarrassment, a sellout. He worked for Herod the Tetrarch, subservient to the Roman Empire. He was, to the Pharisees and the people around him, irredeemably unclean. But to Jesus, he was Matthew. Stop and read that again. To Jesus, Matthew was a gift from God, a purposeful creation made in the hands of the Master (Psalm 139.14-18).

Friend, maybe you feel like that despised tax collector today. Maybe your soul is sporting a black eye from the blows of a broken society. You feel frozen by your sin in the eyes of those around you. But Jesus, the Son of God, sees you as a gift of God. He sees you where you are and calls you by name to follow Him. Jesus loves you. He passed by your way to reveal God’s love for you, and for those around you. Beloved, today, hear Jesus’ personal call to discipleship and walk in His way.

For Christ the King, 

Brett