Sometimes I help out with Imago Dei Youth and this week I was asked to teach the middle schoolers about chapters three and four from the Gospel of Matthew. Well, this is a dense passage, yet I’m quite pleased with how it breaks down into a clear story arc. So I’m gonna process through with you guys.
I like understanding most any story in terms of a Story Circle, which is just a circle divided into four quadrants. I learned about story circles from Dan Harmon, who believes every satisfying story can be mapped this way, from party anecdotes to 3-minute pop songs to epic novels. (I’ve written more about this in an article for Stark & Main, and I’m sure I’ll mention it again.)
While the circle is a helpful visual cue, we can also map a story with an eight point list, so that’s what I’ll do today. First, some context.
Background
The first chapter of Matthew establishes the lineage of Jesus of Nazareth all the way back to Abraham, then briefly covers the circumstances of his birth in Bethlehem. The second chapter tells the story of how the three magi traveling to the birth of the Promised King unintentionally tip-off King Herod, who is not pleased about possibly being usurped and copes with that by ordering every boy under two murdered.
But Joseph receives warning from an angel and escapes to Egypt. After Herod dies, the Holy Family leaves Egypt and settles in Nazareth.
Then we shift perspectives to a new character.
1
1-2 While Jesus was living in the Galilean hills, John, called “the Baptizer,” was preaching in the desert country of Judea. His message was simple and austere, like his desert surroundings: “Change your life. God’s kingdom is here.”
3 John and his message were authorized by Isaiah’s prophecy:
Thunder in the desert!
Prepare for God’s arrival!
Make the road smooth and straight!4-6 John dressed in a camel-hair habit tied at the waist by a leather strap. He lived on a diet of locusts and wild field honey. People poured out of Jerusalem, Judea, and the Jordanian countryside to hear and see him in action. There at the Jordan River those who came to confess their sins were baptized into a changed life.
John is legit. He’s living in the desert, wearing furry leather. He’s munchin’ on bugs, scoopin’ honey from bee’s nests. John is mighty and admired. He’s also, according to Luke, Jesus’s cousin. His mission in the wilderness is to proclaim the imminent arrival of God.
And 500 years have passed since the last prophet, Malachi, so this is a big deal. People flock to John to confess their sins, and their souls are washed in baptism. In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus refers to John as “the greatest messenger you’ll ever hear,” and later says, “Let me lay it out for you as plainly as I can: No one in history surpasses John the Baptizer…”
Those ellipses are intentional because we’ll read the rest of that passage later. My point is, John was basically the coolest guy every except for One Other Guy.
2
7-10 When John realized that a lot of Pharisees and Sadducees were showing up for a baptismal experience because it was becoming the popular thing to do, he exploded: “Brood of snakes! What do you think you’re doing slithering down here to the river? Do you think a little water on your snakeskins is going to make any difference? It’s your life that must change, not your skin! And don’t think you can pull rank by claiming Abraham as father. Being a descendant of Abraham is neither here nor there. Descendants of Abraham are a dime a dozen. What counts is your life. Is it green and flourishing? Because if it’s deadwood, it goes on the fire.
11-12 “I’m baptizing you here in the river, turning your old life in for a kingdom life. The real action comes next: The main character in this drama—compared to him I’m a mere stagehand—will ignite the kingdom life within you, a fire within you, the Holy Spirit within you, changing you from the inside out. He’s going to clean house—make a clean sweep of your lives. He’ll place everything true in its proper place before God; everything false he’ll put out with the trash to be burned.”
The next step in any story is establishing the problem in the world. As John’s good acts and teaching gain popularity, everyone wants to wallow in their credibility. The Good Thing becomes tarnished by selfish men. In this case, the antagonists are the Pharisees and Sadducees, the two dominant camps of Jewish leadership at that time.
This theme—which I’ll call the Two Governments—repeats again and again throughout the New Testament. Essentially, there are always two factions, and those factions feel extremely threatened by God’s Kingdom because they hope to hold their power.
While the Pharisees & Sadducees are the steadiest examples of the Two Government paradigm, there are plenty of others, including Jews & Hellenists, Epicurean & Stoics, and Apollo & Paul’s acolytes in Corinth. Presenting the illusion of a Two Government alignment is a common strategy of Evil, which C.S. Lewis discusses throughout The Screwtape Letters.
3
13-14 Jesus then appeared, arriving at the Jordan River from Galilee. He wanted John to baptize him. John objected, “I’m the one who needs to be baptized, not you!”
15 But Jesus insisted. “Do it. God’s work, putting things right all these centuries, is coming together right now in this baptism.” So John did it.
In almost every story, the character must experience reluctance to enter the new and unfamiliar world. It’s almost as if our calls to adventure have to be rejected before they truly begin. Think Neo taking a scorpion in his navel before he leaves the Matrix, or Luke finding out his aunt and uncle are dead before leaving Tatooine. There’s also a mysterious thread of grace in this theme, like the point is, You will never change of your own volition.
So yes, even John the Baptizer, whose whole life was tuned to this moment, from leaping with joy in the womb to all those locusts and honey while he waited out in the boonies. John’s full devotion to this role is what makes him the greatest messenger. Yet, when faced with the final crowning achievement of his life’s work, John balks at obeying Jesus.
Jesus gently insists, though, and explains this moment is necessary. A passing of the priesthood? Of some prophetic authority from Man to God-Man? These are deeper theological questions than I can answer. The point is, John doesn’t disobey again.
SONG BREAK!
4
16-17 The moment Jesus came up out of the baptismal waters, the skies opened up and he saw God’s Spirit—it looked like a dove—descending and landing on him. And along with the Spirit, a voice: “This is my Son, chosen and marked by my love, delight of my life.”
In most stories, the midpoint of the story would have a moment of confession, or deep connection, or a love scene. Joseph Campbell refers to this in archetypal Hero’s Journeys as the Meet the Goddess moment.
And doesn’t the Holy Spirit’s descent to Earth to meet Jesus sort of resemble conception? I would submit to you that this is one of history’s ultimate love scenes.
We are now at the bottom of this particular story circle. In a song, the bridge would come next. Everything from here on out is rising action.
5
4 1-3 Next Jesus was taken into the wild by the Spirit for the Test. The Devil was ready to give it. Jesus prepared for the Test by fasting forty days and forty nights. That left him, of course, in a state of extreme hunger, which the Devil took advantage of in the first test: “Since you are God’s Son, speak the word that will turn these stones into loaves of bread.”
4 Jesus answered by quoting Deuteronomy: “It takes more than bread to stay alive. It takes a steady stream of words from God’s mouth.”
5-6 For the second test the Devil took him to the Holy City. He sat him on top of the Temple and said, “Since you are God’s Son, jump.” The Devil goaded him by quoting Psalm 91: “He has placed you in the care of angels. They will catch you so that you won’t so much as stub your toe on a stone.”
7 Jesus countered with another citation from Deuteronomy: “Don’t you dare test the Lord your God.”
With this baptism complete, the Forces of Evil stir. Their rule over the world is suddenly under threat from a New Kingdom, and Jesus must face the Devil.
He prepares for this showdown by fasting for forty days, which says something about the power of the Devil. This is The Big Boss of The Big Game. The villain who inspires all other villains. I think this showdown was definitely more drawn out than Scripture portrays and I hope to hear more about what happened someday firsthand.
6
8-9 For the third test, the Devil took him to the peak of a huge mountain. He gestured expansively, pointing out all the earth’s kingdoms, how glorious they all were. Then he said, “They’re yours—lock, stock, and barrel. Just go down on your knees and worship me, and they’re yours.”
10 Jesus’ refusal was curt: “Beat it, Satan!” He backed his rebuke with a third quotation from Deuteronomy: “Worship the Lord your God, and only him. Serve him with absolute single-heartedness.”
11 The Test was over. The Devil left. And in his place, angels! Angels came and took care of Jesus’ needs.
The Devil’s offers always seem pretty good on the surface. Hey, just prove God can make these rocks into bread. Or, I can see you’re definitely Messiah, so just have God’s angels make you fly! Then the offer gets real big: all the power and glory and control in the world.
The last offer seems impossible for us to fathom, and I wonder, Have any other men throughout history received this Devil Test? Like did Genghis Khan make it through the first two okay but fail on the third?
In any case, this section ends in satisfaction. Imagine the pressure cooker that must be a Devil Test and you haven't even eaten for a month. Then imagine angels caring for everything afterward. I thought about how some of my readers are ultra-runners and how this resembles a sort of Ultimate Aid Station.
7
12-17 When Jesus got word that John had been arrested, he returned to Galilee. He moved from his hometown, Nazareth, to the lakeside village Capernaum, nestled at the base of the Zebulun and Naphtali hills. This move completed Isaiah’s revelation:
Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali,
road to the sea, over Jordan,
Galilee, crossroads for the nations.
People sitting out their lives in the dark
saw a huge light;
Sitting in that dark, dark country of death,
they watched the sun come up.This Isaiah-prophesied revelation came to life in Galilee the moment Jesus started preaching. He picked up where John left off: “Change your life. God’s kingdom is here.”
This is the aftermath of the showdown. The Devil may be off cowering from the New Kingdom, but he still calls for an immediate counterattack: John the Baptizer is arrested and will soon be beheaded. Jesus knows the pieces are set and the clock is ticking on this phase of His mission. He moves to Capernaum to establish another prophesy: the Messiah arriving through Bethlehem—>Egypt—>Nazareth—>Capernaum.
And the teaching continues, except God’s Kingdom is no longer coming.
God’s Kingdom is here.
8
18-20 Walking along the beach of Lake Galilee, Jesus saw two brothers: Simon (later called Peter) and Andrew. They were fishing, throwing their nets into the lake. It was their regular work. Jesus said to them, “Come with me. I’ll make a new kind of fisherman out of you. I’ll show you how to catch men and women instead of perch and bass.” They didn’t ask questions, but simply dropped their nets and followed.
21-22 A short distance down the beach they came upon another pair of brothers, James and John, Zebedee’s sons. These two were sitting in a boat with their father, Zebedee, mending their fishnets. Jesus made the same offer to them, and they were just as quick to follow, abandoning boat and father.
23-25 From there he went all over Galilee. He used synagogues for meeting places and taught people the truth of God. God’s kingdom was his theme—that beginning right now they were under God’s government, a good government! He also healed people of their diseases and of the bad effects of their bad lives. Word got around the entire Roman province of Syria. People brought anybody with a sickness, whether mental, emotional, or physical. Jesus healed them, one and all. More and more people came, the momentum gathering. Besides those from Galilee, crowds came from the “Ten Towns” across the lake, others up from Jerusalem and Judea, still others from across the Jordan.
Well, I don’t mind that this passage ends with my given name, I’ll tell you that! ☺️
As vital as these events are, they’re still only a small part of a much vaster narrative. Now Jesus builds his crew, calling men whose names will echo on and on through history. Like, within a few miles of you, there are almost certainly multiple buildings and dozens of people named for these dudes. This scene reminds me a little of the Avengers assembling, the camera whirling to show them united as one. From here, God’s Kingdom will grow.
Stories measure units of change, and the change here is that the Two Government system is over. We have God’s Government now. The King of Kings has been coronated, and the world will never be the same.
This change is so vast and promising, in fact, that to have some inkling of understanding, we’ll return to what Jesus said about John the Baptizer in the Gospel of Luke.
28-30 “Let me lay it out for you as plainly as I can: No one in history surpasses John the Baptizer, but in the kingdom he prepared you for, the lowliest person is ahead of him.
This offer of God’s Kingdom is absolutely mind-boggling, but it’s also open to us. May our ears be opened to heed His call.
King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Nice lesson.