Matthew 9:1-17
“Notice what you notice.” Today we have three events taking place at Capernaum – the healing of the paralytic, the calling of Matthew/Levi, and the issue of fasting. Today’s reading covers all three of those events in Matthew’s Gospel. The next six days will break down each of these events into Mark’s and Luke’s coverage of each. With those accounts covered separately we can see differences and similarities in all three events.
I had a number of “notices”, but wanted to focus most on Matthew’s calling. Here again we have Matthew’s seemingly immediate response to Jesus’ call: As Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth, and He said to him, “Follow me.” And he rose and followed Him (v. 9). We dealt with these immediate “Follow me” responses earlier in the calling of the Peter, Andrew, James, and John and saw that there was probably more history behind those calls than what was reported in John, Matthew, and Mark. The same is probably true of Matthew’s call.
First, a bit of geography. I’ve always wondered at Capernaum becoming Jesus’ home base, since He was raised in Nazareth, some 25-30 miles away. It’s true that Peter lived there and may have had a fairly large house in which Jesus may have resided. But also, look at the map below. Capernaum is located on a major road from Damascus, Caesarea Philippi, or Tyre to Jerusalem (although there were other routes that travelers could have taken). Coming from Galilee and not yet ready to deal with Jerusalem, Capernaum was an ideal location for ministry. It was probably one of the largest cities in Galilee and would have given Him ready access to other locations. It would also have been a good location for a tax collector to maintain an office or to travel to other locations!
We have already seen that Jesus’ activities in Capernaum had generated a large following (Mark 1, Luke 4). Matthew would surely have known of Jesus and likely may have been one of those who witnessed Jesus’ healing powers. Just a few days ago we saw in Mark 1:33 …that the whole city was gathered together at <Peter’s> door for that Sabbath healing event. Matthew could well have been one of those gathered. That is, when Jesus called Matthew, it was probably more than a “seemingly immediate response to Jesus’ call”.
Slava Bohu!!