Shrove Tuesday…

Shrove Tuesday

Treasure On the Mountainside

 

‘Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down.’

Matthew 5:1-2

 

Did the grass crunch under His feet as He ascended the hillside that day? Did pebbles slide and roll between His dusty sandalled toes? Was the breeze warm against His cheek, or did it prick His skin with a chill?

As the God of Heaven and earth, the creator of all things inhabiting human skin, sits down on a mountainside He made, it was not just skin and bone and five senses He was inhabiting that day. The God of all the universe wrapped in human flesh came among us also inhabiting our long and often fraught human story, this long story already written down before time began. The cyclical story of a people created and falling and a God catching and re-creating, a family called out of comfort into a land following Him, a people called out of slavery into the promised land of relationship with Him.

Jesus didn’t just live in a carpenter’s family, a community in Nazareth, a middle-eastern people group, He lived in a story that was already being told about Him. This moment on the mountainside was a continuation of a very, very long story. Humankind’s long story with God. The long story of grace.

Years before, Israel had been rescued from slavery by God, had passed through the waters of the Red Sea (Exodus 14:26-27) and then tested in the wilderness by God (Deuteronomy 8:2) before finally arriving at Mount Zion where God gave them the law of the covenant through Moses (Exodus 20).

So when Jesus, after leaving Egypt as a baby (Matthew 2:15) passing through the waters of baptism (Matthew 3:13), being led by God to be tested in the wilderness (Matthew 4:1), now finally climbs this mountainside and begins to teach, the long story of God’s walk alongside the Jewish people is layered into every word.

Matthew, the author of this Gospel makes it abundantly clear that this moment on the mountainside is embedded deeply within the long story of God’s walk with His people. Matthew arranges Jesus’ teaching into 5 blocks paralleling the five books of Moses- the Pentateuch. This Sermon on the Mount beginning with the Beatitudes is the first of these blocks of teaching.

Jesus is portrayed as the new Moses leading His people to the promised land, revealing God’s Covenant law to His people. But this is not simply a repetition of the past. This covenant is new and old all at once, the old with the life of the new breathed into it, the new covenant as spoken by the prophet Jeremiah…

“The days are coming,’ declares the Lord,
    ‘when I will make a new covenant
with the people of Israel
    and with the people of Judah.

It will not be like the covenant
    I made with their ancestors
when I took them by the hand
    to lead them out of Egypt,
because they broke my covenant,
    though I was a husband to them,’
declares the Lord.”

Jeremiah 31:30-32

This new covenant unveiled by Jesus on this hillside will be lived by Jesus throughout His public ministry until His dying breath. It is not however just a new teaching or a spin on the old teachings of the law.

Through His words Jesus is staking the flag of His Kingdom in the ground and claiming His promised land: God’s Kingdom coming on earth as it is in Heaven. The Sermon on the Mount is the inaugural address of God incarnate as King.

‘His disciples came to him, and he began to teach them. He said…’

Matthew 5:1-2

Jesus sits down on this Galilean mountainside, takes a breath and begins to pull back the curtain of Heaven and shine light into the world, a world that has been constantly pulled off course by the magnetism of darkness.

In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus presents all His listeners then and now with a new compass. A right-way-up compass (which is upside-down in comparison to the one human kind has been habitually navigating life by). And Jesus invites us to navigate our lives with His new compass to guide us, just as the original covenant law was intended to guide ancient Israel.

Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount is His reimagining of the Jewish covenant law with the heartbeat of the Kingdom pulsing through it.

Jewish people viewed their written story, their Covenant Law as something to be enjoyed and loved… like treasure. Jesus invites us to engage with His new covenant, not as a bunch of rules to follow but as the treasure He intends it to be for us. Treasure to build our lives on.

Treasure given to us on the mountainside.

Are you ready to climb this mountainside to discover it? Tomorrow our journey starts!

Journalling Journey 

We are part of a long story of grace, a long story of God whispering to us messages, of love and loving guidance, teaching us how to walk in His life-giving Kingdom path.

What practices can you set up in your life so that you spend time ‘on the mountainside’ daily listening, hearing and following His lead?

Think through when, where and how this will happen. Let’s begin!

 

Todays Hillside photograph is taken from Sugarloaf Mountain, Wales, UK

Explore further…

If you want to explore the Sermon on the Mount further below are two videos from The Bible Project which frame the Sermon on the Mount beautifully. Have a look!

And don’t forget to download your free printable Sermon on the Mount Journal or Journey Cards (available in our Post Box) as tools for your mountainside climb. There are also fellowship bookmarks to download if you are taking this journey with others.

A treat as the Journey Begins…

Our family recipe for Shrove Tuesday pancakes.

Shrove Tuesday Pancake recipe