Bible Study

Jesus: Concealer, Revealer, Healer

Matthew 11:25-30

Introduction

Juanita had come to the church I pastored having already survived ovarian cancer ten years, perhaps a miracle in itself. She credited God and believed that God would continue to defy the medical prognosis. I agreed with her in prayer. So did others. Sometimes, for brief periods, it seemed that God’s answer was, “Yes.” There were other moments. I viewed these other moments as tests of our faith, to see if we would stand with strong confidence in face of contrary evidence. One day, in the hospital, Juanita said she believed that the Lord was telling her she would not make it much longer. Trying to buy some time, I said, “The Lord has not told me that. Let’s both pray about it. We will come back together tomorrow and compare notes on what God is telling us.”

As I walked back to my car, I heard a voice in my head say, “You let Juanita do the praying.” “What?” I said, not because I hadn’t heard, but because I was asking myself, “Does this voice sound like me?” It didn’t. The voice continued, “Yes, I have the power to heal her from cancer. But there are more important things at stake. She needs to focus on those. Don’t distract her with your need for her to be healed from cancer. Let Juanita do the praying.”

We will return to Juanita’s story. In the meantime, just note that the voice was asking me to give up my way of seeking Juanita’s healing. There would be another way of healing for Juanita.

Matthew 11:25-30

At that time Jesus declared, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children;  yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.  All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Background

Jesus was on a mission, a mission to make the love and power of God real to people, a mission revealing that the kingdom of heaven, the reign of God, was breaking into ordinary daily life for those who had faith.

Jesus and his disciples were offering:

What kind of response was the mission getting? Large crowds sought the benefits of the signs and wonders, but few understood their significance. Most of the established religious and political leaders opposed the mission. Today’s passage is part of Jesus’ response to the mixed results.

We will look at three themes: Jesus Concealer, Jesus Revealer, and Jesus Healer.

Jesus Concealer

"I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children;  yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.” 

Jesus thanks his heavenly Father that he has concealed the truths of the kingdom ministry from people that Jesus calls “the wise and understanding.” Let’s clear up one matter immediately: God created our minds so that we could develop them and use them for good purposes. Jesus was not pro-ignorance.

So who were “the wise and understanding,” and why was Jesus celebrating that the Father had concealed the truth from them?

I believe Jesus was using the term “the wise and understanding” sarcastically to refer to people who had developed religious systems for trying to explain and control God, for trying to make God safe and predictable. He was referring to people like the Sadducees with their temple regulations and the Pharisees with their burdensome oral traditions. The Sadducees and Pharisees were not really wise and understanding. They were so caught up in their systems that they could not see that the living God was at work in the ministry of Jesus. 

Why do we want religious systems? Because God is so unpredictable, and because we feel so out of control. Much remains to us a mystery. We are not comfortable with that and, so, we invent our systems to try to explain and control the mystery.

We may deceive ourselves into thinking that we have the handle on it all by organizing selected scriptures into a religious system, an imaginary box in which we think we can keep God. The scriptures and every one of their promises are true, but the ways we select and organize them may be misleading. Our systems can put God in a box and try to keep him there. We may not notice that our religious systems climb onto our backs, put their hands over our spiritual eyes, stick their fingers in our spiritual ears, and beat us about the head so that we are distracted from the wholeness of truth; they may become heavy weights on our shoulders, dragging us down with overwhelming guilt and failure or, alternatively, if we are very good at denying reality, they may operate the air pumps of pride and arrogance that cause our chests to puff out and our noses to turn up. Their worst effect is that, after we load our religious systems on the backs of immature Christians, they end up discovering that our systems just don’t work for them, and they may conclude that God does not love them, or that they just cannot believe in the God we believe in.

People who thought that they had God in a box were unable to see God in the ministry of Jesus, because Jesus just would not stay in their God-boxes. Jesus made a practice of confounding box-people. Jesus said that he spoke in parables “so that they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand, lest they should turn and be forgiven.” In effect, Jesus said to these people, “Okay, you want God in a box, fine, have it your way, but, as long as you keep God in a box, you’ll miss out on the kingdom party.”  He was intentionally concealing his message from them until they were willing to surrender control to the living God. In the end, our systems do not work. In the end, God is God, and, thank God, we are not. The sooner we surrender our systems the better.

There are countless religious systems. Our worldly minds invent them continually. I have already given one example of a religious system, my conviction that we could get Juanita healed from cancer by holding on with faith.  Let’s look at a quite different example of a religious system.

The minister had been taught in his training to explain away the supernatural; that was his religious system. This left him with a problem in praying for people. One day, he was visiting in the hospital with a woman who was critically ill. She asked him to pray for her healing. He fumbled his way through a half-hearted prayer, “God, if it is your will, and if it is possible, help this child of yours in her affliction to find such comfort as you offer. Amen.” The woman threw back her covers, got out of bed, began walking about the room, and declared herself healed. The minister excused himself quickly, made his way in a stunned blur back to his car, where he put his head on the steering wheel, banged his fists on the dashboard, and cried out, “God, don’t you ever do that to me again!” A living God is a scary thing to a person living by a religious system.

If we want always to be able to explain and control and predict God, we don’t really want a living God. Jesus thanks his heavenly Father that we just won’t understand his message until we are ready to surrender control. As long as we are trying to work our religious systems, we will find that the real Jesus is a Concealer. It is not that Jesus wants to be a Concealer; it is just that he has to be a Concealer until we give him permission to be Lord.

Jesus Revealer

“All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” 

Jesus told his disciples: “Nothing is hidden except to be made manifest, nor is anything secret except to come to light.” Jesus came to reveal the kingdom of God to all who know their need for it, to all who want a living, reigning God. That’s why he healed the sick, raised the dead, forgave the sinners, and gave hope to the poor: so that they could see God’s reigning love and power. He conceals only if we force him to it by our refusing to let him be our Lord.

Jesus uniquely reveals the Father. No one else can do it. No religious system can do it. Protestant Reformer Martin Luther advised: “Stop speculating about God and trying to climb into heaven to see who or what or how God is; hold on to this man Jesus; he is the only God we’ve got!” In other words, Jesus shows us all that we need to know and all we really can know about God. We don’t need religious systems. We just need Jesus.

Saving relationship with God is a gift that Jesus gives. It does not depend on our working ourselves up to it. We don’t achieve a relationship with God by our fervent worship. We don’t achieve a relationship with God by following all the rules. We don’t achieve a relationship with God by avoiding all negative thoughts. We don’t achieve a relationship with God at all. We simply receive (receive not achieve!) a relationship with God because we let Jesus reveal God to us. 

Jesus came to reveal how we can enter a living relationship with God through him. This is more than knowing about God; this is knowing God. We can know about Abraham Lincoln, but we cannot know him. Honest Abe was assassinated 140 years ago, and, whatever his eternal fate, he is gone from earthly life. Although Jesus was crucified nearly two thousand years ago, not only can we know about him, but also we can know him. We can know him because he is resurrected and exalted Lord, and because he will send his Spirit to live in our lives. He is the only person in history of whom that is true.

There is a big difference between knowing about Jesus and really knowing him. You may think you know your sweetheart until you marry your sweetheart. Then there are some surprises. Sometimes the surprises delight us. Sometimes they dismay us.

The surprises, the delight, the dismay, are also true of our relationship with God. But there are important differences. 1. God is in charge of our relationship with him. 2 When we are dismayed with God, it is not because there is anything wrong with God, but only with our expectations.  God’s way is always wiser and more loving than ours. Sometimes it takes a long time for us to see it, but, when we do, we know why it is so important to have a living God. Without a living God, we might be stuck with getting exactly what we want, and getting exactly what we want is one definition of hell.

Jesus is a Revealer who opens the way for us to have a living relationship with the living God. Alleluia!

Jesus Healer

“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Jesus eases our burdens and heals our lives in many ways. Here are three:

1. Because of Jesus, it is not all up to us.

Because the God to whom Jesus connects us is real, it is not up to us to manufacture him. Because God is in charge, we do not have to be in charge. Because God is gracious, we do not have to work our way into deserving his presence or his help. Because God is providing, we do not have to be anxious when we lack the resources to do what he calls us to do. Consider how much having a living God eases the weight on our shoulders.

2. Jesus provides emotional healing.

Many of our burdens come from past emotional wounds that have caused us to believe lies of Satan about how we are worthless, or about how we have to do it all ourselves, or about how we can wall ourselves off from pain, or about how we can chemically cover our pain, or about how we don’t need any help. Our believing such lies gives permission for Satan to frustrate our best efforts to live as children of God. Constant frustration is burdensome indeed. Jesus can come into our souls and replace those burdensome lies with the liberating truth. What healing!

3. Jesus sends spiritual gifts.

There is an instructive legend that Jesus as a young man in Joseph’s carpenter shop made yokes for oxen. His yokes were designed to fit the oxen perfectly so that they could without pain or discomfort pull heavy loads. People came from miles around to get their oxen fitted with one of Jesus’ yokes because the oxen could do so much more when properly fitted. This legend reminds us that Jesus offers a yoke with a perfect fit for us. Jesus has an individual calling specially designed for each one of us, and he matches the spiritual gifts to our callings. When we are operating within the gifts Jesus gives to us, then our service is not burdensome. It may be hard work, but it has patterns of refreshing and satisfaction built into it, it flows naturally as an expression of who we are, and it accomplishes more than we could by our best efforts.  

Set Free

Does that mean that as Christians we do not need to expend any effort? No. We still have to be available to God. We have to study his word, pray, listen to the Spirit’s guidance, faithfully meet with fellow believers, and take actions that show and share his love with others. But these things are not tasks or burdens; they are just part of the joy of being in God’s presence. Let’s say that you are a young adult who has just fallen deeply in love. Is reading a letter from your loved one a burden? Is talking on the phone with your loved one a burden? Is valuing the tender counsel of your loved one a burden?  Is taking part with your loved one in a gathering of close, mutual friends a burden? Is showing pictures of and telling others about your loved one a burden? Of course not! It is no more burdensome if the loved one is the Creator and Redeemer of the universe who loves us more than we can imagine.

Religious systems burden us with what we have to do to earn God’s favor. Jesus has a better answer. Jesus is a healer who uses his truth to rebuild our hearts and minds in the image of God. When Jesus is at work in our lives, we can be honest and open and vulnerable and real, just as he was. When we have a daily relationship with the living God, we don’t need systems; we just need to trust that God is good, loving, and sovereign.

The Rest of the Story

Do you remember Juanita who had cancer? When the voice told me to let her do the praying, I released her from my expectation that she would continue to believe that she would be healed in this life of her cancer.  After that, I always tried to ask her what she wanted to pray. I joined my prayers with hers. We prayed about spiritual problems in her life, about her beloved family members, about broken relationships, about her hopes, fears, joys, sorrows, about her faith in Jesus and her love for him. In the time Juanita had left, she expended most of her energy creating positive memories for her loved ones.  She died on Thanksgiving Day. Her funeral was a celebration of a life that had been well-concluded. Before she died, she asked my then fourteen-year-old daughter to sing at her funeral. Carissa sang from Handel’s Messiah, “Come unto him, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and He will give you rest. Take his yoke upon you and learn of him; for he is meek and lowly of heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For his yoke is easy and his burden is light.”

I believe that such rest, such a light yoke, is exactly what Juanita received when I set her free from my system, from my burdensome expectation. She used the rest well. I believe that Juanita has now entered a cancer-free zone, so the prayer for physical healing has been answered after all. But, within the bonds of this life, she received spiritual and emotional healing that she would not have received, and her loved ones have received blessings that they would not have received if we had kept her energy focused on beating cancer. God knows best, and our faith is measured by our expecting the best even if the specific details we expect do not happen because God has in mind a “better best” than we do.  

Living with this kind of faith in a living, loving, delivering God can set us free to receive daily blessings and healings from the One who reigns.

Conclusion

If you would let Jesus replace the systems in your life with his living presence, you are invited to come forward to seal that intention with prayer. Jesus is ready to be your Savior and your Lord. He is ready to be your Immanuel, God-with-you. Let him out of the box. Don’t make him be a Concealer for you; let him be a Revealer and Healer for you.

Come unto him, and he will give you rest.

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