Jan ’18 Newsletter – The Firstfruits

Jesus was walking through Capernaum when he was suddenly approached by a high-ranking Roman officer. This man of status humbled himself and pleaded with Jesus on behalf of his personal servant who was on the brink of death. Believing that just one word from Jesus could make his servant well, this officer implored him to have mercy and heal him.

Jesus looked at this Gentile ruler and then turned to the religious, but loveless Jews around him and said,

“I tell you, many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” Matthew 8:11-12.

I imagine the mouths of the Jews hit the floor as they listened to Jesus say that people from outside of Israel would be with their ancestors while they themselves, the “true” heirs, would be thrown outside the banquet and into a place of suffering.

2,000 years later, in the month of December 2017, a Congolese man, a Cameroonian woman, and an American woman sat together and talked for hours about this passage, reveling in the fact that they were the fulfillment of it. They were the Gentiles who were from the “east” and “west” who belonged with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the banquet halls of Heaven, all because of Jesus.

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