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Matthew 5:1-2 "Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down his disciples came to him. And he opened his mouth and taught them". Jesus will then go on to give the Sermon on the Mount. (Matthew 5-7)  

 

Matthew has Jesus giving His most important sermon by going up a mountain, to call to his Jewish readers' minds Moses giving the Jewish people the law. One difference, though, is that Moses came down the mountain to deliver God's word to the people, while Jesus, who is God, was already with the people, having already "come down" to the people in the Incarnation. Jesus, rather than coming down the mountain, went up to deliver this very new expansion of God's law.

 

Moses had to go up the mountain to hear from God. The people could not follow him, lest they die from being in God's presence (Exodus 19:24). They could not hear God's word unless Moses spoke it to them (Exodus 20:19). Moses was a very holy, special man, but he was merely a messenger for God's word. Jesus, on the other hand, is God himself. He did not have to go up the mountain to get God's word, it was in Him. Out of love for us, He humbled Himself to become one of the people, walking and talking among them. They could see and hear God without fear or danger, and without a go-between.

 

Both Moses and Jesus delivered God's word to the people, but Moses did so as a messenger, while Jesus did so as God's Son. God's law given to Moses was the beginning of His communication with His people, but He had much more to share with us, including His law of love as articulated in the Sermon on the Mount. God waited until we knew Him better before sending His Son as one of us in the greatest act of love that will ever be. Humanity could then look upon God without fear and hear Him with understanding. We had no more need of a messenger who would go up the mountain to get God's word for us, God Himself had come to give it to us, and He went up the mountain to speak to all of us the way God could only speak to Moses all those years prior.