Ladies and Gentlemen I give you The New Testament

Some time after finishing reading Matthew I realised that my thought process is very much an 'in the moment' thing and that all the things I had thought of to say were long gone. So I restarted. This time I will be writing as I go. I'm actually really pleased I started over because it has been pointed out to me that I was looking at this book all wrong, well not all wrong, but I certainly wasn't looking at all of it. I changed Jesus' voice in my head so now he sounds more like that guy everyone knows who almost never raises his voice and some how can say the harshest thing to you without offending. But we'll get to Jesus in a minute because he's kinda mute for a little while.

I don't know if Matthew knew he was writing the first book of the New Testament, or even if there was an order set for a reason, but whether he knew it or not Matthew's book was to become the first. It was probably for the best that he didn't know, after all how would you start the first installment of something that has to tell everyone in the nicest way possible that the game has changed and that your position on the board isn't where it used to be and a lot of the rules have changed?

I don't know if I expected an introduction along the lines of "Hi everyone, my name is Matthew and I used to be a tax collector... this is the story of Jesus..." but it certainly isn't there. No instead Matthew welcomes everyone to the Gospel of Jesus Christ with a list of his geneology. I'm sure it's a really important point to a lot of people but it's not the way to draw your readers in. I think this says two things about Matthew. Firstly he's no writer. It's probably a good thing, a writer would be easily tempted to twist truth to make good stories or bury the truths in clever constructions and styles. It leads me to believe that what Matthew writes is pretty much just his thoughts on paper, he has what he wants to say and he writes it. Secondly he doesnt have time for small talk. He just jumps straight into listing a names of ancestors like he can't wait to get it off his chest, maybe he thought that was he was writing was so important that he just couldn't wait to share it. Either way, he opens his account with a list - like every good tax man.

So what is it that Matthew is so desperate to say?

Well the second chapter describes Jesus's birth and all about how his parents hid him from herod... you know, the nativity stuff. What strikes me is how short work Matthew makes of it. I dunno about you but to me a Virgin birth, Joseph's acceptance of it, multiple angel visits, tricking a powerful ruler and hiding the messiah in exile are pretty big deals but Matty boy covers it all in what 20 sentances?! In Matt's eyes it was clearly worth a mention but not worth wasting too much time on. He wanted to get on to something bigger, so do I, so lets go. One thing I notice is that Matthew isn't an emotions man - he never says "Joseph was pretty upset that his virgin wife was pregnant" he's a facts man. OK onward.

John Prepares the Way. Now Matt doesn't appear to feel the need to explain the passage of time between his brief run over Jesus' birth and his baptism except to mention John the Baptist. Reading about John I'm left wondering what would happen if some crazy fellow started ranting and raving in the 'wilderness' today, eating insects and dipping folk in water. Scary cult stuff. I doubt people would travel from all over the region to join in. I'd probably look it up on youtube though, so maybe if there were no youtube I would make a trip to see him just to see the spectacle. It appears he doesnt have a very high regard to religious leaders either, he's certainly got balls this fella. But how did John know this baptism lark? did it come to him in a dream? Did he just decide 'I think i will dip folk in water and say some magic words to prepare them for Jesus' arrival'? Matt doesnt know, nor care because he's working up to this...

So Jesus rocks up. As I said Matthew doesnt bother saying how long it's been or what Jesus has been up to but I'm reliably informed he's about 30. Another fortunate thing for me is that I spoke to Rach before writing this and learnt that J the B was infact Jesus' cousin. That's good news because I was ready to go off wondering how John immediately knows who Jesus is when he arrives. John doesnt wanna baptise him - fair enough in the circumstances, I wouldnt wanna give tennis lessons to Rapha Nedal either - but Jesus insists with the words "Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness." (Matt 3:15). Welcome to cryptic Jesus, it's all down hill from here. Maybe the 30 year gap was spent thinking up confusing ways to say things! in order to fulfill righteousness? Like some gateway Jesus has to pass through to become super-jesus. Maybe it was an instruction before he left the house:

God : "Now, have you got everything?"
Jesus : "Yes Dad"
God: "Do you remember the plan?"
Jesus: "Yes Dad"
God: " Oh one more thing, before you do all those things we had planned first you have to spend thirty years growing up not doing too much, then when you're ready go get baptised, then if I'm happy and I think you're ready we can go from there"

(God played by Brian Blessed, Jesus by that ginger guy from Love Actually and the BT adverts)

Either way it seems to me like it was a sign that he was ready for the big stuff, to start he teaching. Afterwards the 'rises out of the water' maybe that means gets out of, maybe it means flys, and God speaks. How loud do you suppose god speaks? When he says "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased." do you suppose that it was just enough for John and the surrounding folk to hear? I mean God's gotta be pretty loud for his voice to get down here. Just a thought.

Ok so this post was pretty dull, but it gets better I promise. More to come very soon!