Summary
A Confident New Year
At the threshold of a new year, Matthew 16:5-12 offers a striking word for Christians facing the freshness, possibilities, and unknowns ahead. The disciples had crossed to the other side of the sea and realized they had forgotten to bring bread. Jesus seized the moment to teach: "Watch out and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees." The disciples, missing the point entirely, began discussing among themselves their failure to pack a loaf.
To grasp the rebuke that follows, one needs a running start. Jesus had already fed the five thousand with five loaves and two fish, and the four thousand with seven loaves and a few fish—two distinct miracles in two different territories, one Jewish and one Gentile, with baskets of leftovers each time. The disciples, of all people, should never have worried about where bread would come from. Yet faced with a single small loaf, they fixated on the shortage rather than the One standing before them.
Jesus' question cuts to the heart: "Do you still not perceive?" Their problem was not the missing bread. Their problem was being oblivious to the power of the One in their midst, focusing on a single small loaf instead of the Bread of Life, unable to recall what He had so recently done. In Scripture, leaven is overwhelmingly used in a negative sense—as in 1 Corinthians 5:6-8 and Galatians 5:7-9—and Jesus was warning against the corrupting influence of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees. The disciples eventually understood; the question is whether we do.
We can relate all too easily. Faced with various situations, challenges, and difficulties, we focus on the problem instead of the Lord. We grow oblivious to the reigning Lord Jesus Christ in all His power. We suffer a strange inability to recall the countless acts of His faithfulness toward us. This forgetfulness is born out of our sin, and to us also Jesus says, "Do you still not perceive?"
Every New Year's Eve, crowds gather in Times Square in a spirit of optimism—hoping to leave the old year behind and step into something fresh. Optimism is certainly preferable to pessimism, but God moves His people beyond a self-generated optimism. He does not ask us to manufacture positive thinking or talk ourselves into hope. Instead, He gifts us with His own confidence, rooted in His promises.
The Lord Jesus Christ has borne our sin on the cross. The debt is paid. We have been reconciled, claimed as His own in the waters of Baptism, and the sacrifice has been accepted. For the Christian, today is simply one more day in all of eternity. If God has done that, He will most certainly express His grace this side of heaven as well. There is no need to doubt His provision; the evidence of His faithfulness is everywhere. The ball drops on New Year's Eve, but the risen Lord reigns over all of it. So perhaps, rather than wishing one another a "Happy New Year," Christians might greet each other with something better: a confident New Year, born of the risen Lord Jesus Christ and His promises.
Video citations
- “New Year” 1-7-24 — What you open your Bible's please with me to the 16th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew for our study this morning. If you're using a Pew edition of Holy Scripture, you're going to find that on page…