Four Journalistic Accounts

Four men with pens and parchment

Set out to do the Master’s bid,

Moved by the Holy Spirit

Exactly as they were told they did.

Out of this came four pictures

Though of cameras, they had none,

In the Bible, we have the evidence

Of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

Two were primary reporters

Of what they had witnessed and seen,

Two were not far from the action

And wrote the account as streamed.

Matthew and John were disciples

And had walked beside the Christ,

They received his teachings firsthand

Without conditions or price.

Mark and Luke were followers

And most likely knew Christ’s disciples

But they all had the Spirit’s guidance

And in such a recording, there is no rival.

Way back in the Old Testament

The accounts were given their themes,

Two prophets had declared them

Long before Christ came on the scene.

These were Isaiah and Zechariah

And they, led by the Spirit of God,

Penned these themes in their books

And preached them to one and all.

They were not completely au fait

With all that these themes had meant

But simply declared the word

As the messengers that God had sent.

In Zechariah chapter 6 verse 9

There we read, “Behold the man”,

This was pertaining to Christ’s advents

And his work re the redemption plan.

  

The next declaration comes from Isaiah

As recorded in Isaiah 42 verse 1,

“Behold my servant” is the theme

700 years before Christ was born.

Zechariah is back: chapter 9 verse 9

“Behold your King,” he declares,

“Riding upon a colt the foal of an ass,”

Prophetic of that first Palm Sunday.

The 4th is recorded in Isaiah 40 verse 9

And that theme is, “Behold your God,”

A clear indication of the deity of Christ

And this to all would be spread abroad.

And so with eyes as roving cameras

And ears completely tuned to the Spirit

These four wrote as the Spirit led

Ever conscious of their God-given remit.

Behold Your King

Matthew, though the first as presented,

Is really the second journal penned,

A study of this account would reveal

“Jesus the King,” as Zechariah declared then.

As a king, his genealogy was presented

Making him an heir to David’s throne,

Starting at the first verse of Matthew

By verse 16 this is clearly shown.

In Matthew 5 he came to fulfil the law

Regarding its spirit and not its letter,

The liberty to do what is righteous

And not by its rule to be fettered.

Murder was anger for a brother

Adultery was committed in the heart,

Swearing of an oath was forbidden

And to love our enemy we should start.

As a King, he was greater than Moses

And over the Sabbath he was Lord,

He showed his authority over demons

As demonstrated in the Word.

He was much wiser than Solomon

And far greater than Jonah,

At birth and death, he was called a king

And showed his authority over nature.

Behold My Servant

Matthew to Mark was a quantum leap

From king down to “Jesus the Servant”,

No genealogy was required in this case

But key persons were used as a reference.

First a testimonial from John the Baptist

Re: coming after but preferred before

And God Himself was a reference,

Tell me, who could ask for more?

The Holy Spirit testified of him

This occurred at the baptism of John

And Jesus himself said he came to minister

As a reference, he must be accepted as one.

In one encounter with a blind man

He requested of him what to do,

No doubt he knew what the man required

But his was a servant’s point of view.

When questioned regarding the end

He indicated that was in the Father’s hand

He knew quite well a servant’s place

And stuck to the Master’s plan.

Behold The Man

 

He carried a two-fold nature

Not two natures as some may suggest,

Luke presented him as “Jesus the Man”

And as a man, he passed the test.

In Luke there is another genealogy

That goes all the way back to Adam

Luke chapter 3 verses 23 to 38

Definitely shows that he was a man.

He identified with each one of us

He showed complete dependence on God,

Even in the wilderness when tempted

By the sinister devil, that fraud.

In Luke his humanity is prominent

Even from the recording of his birth,

His compassion and sympathy were evident

As he reached out to all the earth.

Once as he stood overlooking Jerusalem

He looked down on the city and wept,

How he longed to gather them to himself

But for him, they had no respect.

His humanity was shown in Gethsemane

In that agonizing session

As he prayed in earnest to his Father,

O how he revealed his human passion!

There his sweat was like drops of blood

As he prayed the more earnestly,

Demonstrating again his humanity

As he previewed his pending agony.

Behold Your God

Matthew, Mark and Luke most may believe

But not John’s account of “Jesus as God”,

A perfect human or the archangel for some

But as God, they would never applaud.

Jesus’ use of I AM incensed the Jews

That claim was reserved for only God,

Such was their anger that they angrily declared

Jesus was a blasphemer, liar and fraud.

Yet John stated in the beginning was the Word

And the Word was God

And that the Word became flesh

John also spread it abroad.

At his arrest, Peter didn’t know the man

Though he had acknowledged him as the Christ,

But Thomas referred to him as Lord and God

When he saw the evidence of his sacrifice.

Jesus had not only come from God Himself

But God Himself who had come,

The Son of God means God Himself

The Son in the Father and the Father in the Son.

Behold a virgin shall be with child

And she shall bring forth a son,

And they shall call his name Emmanuel

Meaning, God Himself, with us has come.

He who has the Father accepts the Son

Along with the Holy Spirit these three-in-one,

God was in Christ reconciling the world

And through the Holy Spirit, the work is done.

Stewart Russell © April 2018