Category: Matthew

While at a Robbie Seay concert I saw a guy with INVICTUS tattooed on the underside of his arm.  It was inked such that the letters began at his wrist and read down toward his elbow.  That way it would be shown off when he held a microphone.   It looked cool, but I think the message is foolish, especially for a Christian.  It seems safe to say he professes Christ since he works for a Christian radio station.

Invictus, Latin for unconquered, could be tolerated if one meant to communicate that because of Christ they are victors, not conquered by sin, Satan, or death.  If that is what the aforementioned person means, my apologies for referring to his tattoo as foolish.  But that is not the popular idea behind the word today.

The word’s current popularity is no doubt due to the film, which, by the way, I really enjoyed.  I do admire Nelson Mandela, and I love Clint Eastwood as a director / actor, but Invictus, well, it’s a lie.  The popular meaning is informed by the poem by William Earnest Henley.

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

I think Herod would have loved this poem.  I bet he had an invictus tat too.

Outside of Christ we are not conquers but conquered – in bondage to sin and death.  Yes in Christ we have victory, but it is His victory, a victory that we enter into by grace.  Christus Victor!  – that is our battle cry, not Invictus!

So will you seek the King?  Will you bow? Will you submit?  Will you give your treasures?  Will you worship?

Don’t fail to recognize how you may be similar to Herod.  Do you look at the humility of Christ and see it as an opportunity to exploit Him?  Do you tolerate or excuse sin by presuming upon His grace?  Do you treat Jesus as a ticket to get to some other main attraction?  Do you think you can dissect Him and take Him only as Savior and reject Him as Lord?

Woe to those who think they can conquer the unconquerable King.  There is only one man who legitimately wears Invictus; it is written down His thigh, “King of kings and Lord of Lords.”

A sad effect of the fall is that we find man’s fiction more fascinating than God’s fact.  Man’s fiction should awaken us to the bigger reality we live in.  Man’s mind is smaller than God’s and God’s story is more glorious than any we could dream.  “Avatar” is a children’s board book.

Matthew begins his gospel with a genealogy.  This is not a speed bump slowing your entry into the book, it is a majestic mountain to be stunned by.  Unless you are a Tolkien nerd you have very little clue what it means when Strider says, “Elendil!  I am Aragorn son of Arathorn and am called Elessar, the Elfstone, Dunadan, the heir of Isildur Elendil’s son of Gondor.”, but you know it means a great something!  The one with the rightful claim has come, here is the one hoped for, the one with authority.  A hidden hope has come to light and the darkness now trembles. Matthew is doing something like that with this genealogy.

Here is a line of kings, but the glory has faded; the regal glory and power that once flowed giving life, hope, protection, and salvation has run dry.  But from this dry ground a Savior and salvation spring forth.  His name is Jesus (meaning “Yahweh saves”, cf.  Matthew 1:21).  From the stump of Jesse a shoot comes forth (Isaiah 11:1-10).  He is the son of David, the Christ, meaning the Anointed One, the Messiah.

The King has come.  He will come again.  And of His rule there will be no end.

Matthew’s genealogy does not get boring, but it does get dry.  But from this dryness springs the one who is the Life.

The demands Jesus makes of His own in this chapter are unique. Others have made them, but we do not think them good men, but the worst kind of men. So the uniqueness here is not most deeply in what Jesus is commanding, but more so how He is commanding. Jesus commands these things with supreme authority. Jesus is the only one who can command such things of His followers, and not be tyrannical, not be evil. Indeed, if we have eyes to see, these commands come to us with the force not of demands, but of blessed privilege.

We are worthy of hell, because He is worthy of all glory, and we sought to steal it for ourselves. Yet Jesus so saves us that in calling us to Himself, He sends us out into the world with His power and presence to proclaim His authoritative message, making much of He whom we once so belittled, yea, whom we continue to so belittle. Yes, if we see, we too will depart “rejoicing that that [we] were counted worthy so suffer dishonor for the name. (Acts 5:41)

Only Jesus can say, “Go die for me,” and it come to us as life.