Recognizing Jesus

Sermon Transcript

I’ve never been in a police lineup, but I’ve seen them in movies. In a police lineup, they’re looking for someone: Someone a witness can identify as the perpetrator of a crime. And they recognize him or her by their physical appearance. If one person comes up who they don’t recognize, they move on to the next guy.

 

In the passage of Luke on which we are focusing today, one character, John, is also looking for someone. In fact, John represents many in the nation of Israel at the time who were looking for someone, only the someone they were looking for wasn’t a criminal; he was a savior. That someone typically went by the title “Messiah,” the Hebrew word for “anointed one,” which when translated into Greek produces “Christ,” but in the predictions of his coming, no physical description of him was really given. By this time seven chapters into the Gospel of Luke, we know who Luke thinks is the Messiah: Jesus. An angel announced that’s what Jesus was when Jesus was born (Luke 2:11), after Jesus was baptized by John, he was anointed with the Holy Spirit (Luke 3:21-22), Jesus then identified himself as the one anointed to proclaim good news (Luke 4:18-19), and even demons recognized him as the Christ (Luke 4:41). When some previously thought that John might be the Christ, he made clear that he wasn’t (Luke 3:15-17), but now in this passage we find John wondering whether Jesus really is. Jesus has now gone public in his ministry, he’s done many wonderful deeds, and we just came off a sermon of his in which he explained what life in his kingdom was like, but John didn’t catch all that, because John had been in prison. So in this text, after word gets back to John about even more of Jesus’ wonderful deeds, he sends disciples to ask, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?” Are you the one we’re looking for, or should we move on to the next guy? Is Jesus really who he claimed to be, or can we today also safely move on to the next guy? This passage shows us that Jesus is the one who was to come. There is never a need to move on from him, never a need to look for another. So we’ll see in this passage what it looks like to recognize him, then how to recognize him, then the privilege of those who do recognize him, and finally why some don’t, and others do, recognize him.

 

What it looks like to recognize him (v. 1-10)

 

Our passage picks up after Jesus finished the sermon on the plain, and at that time he entered Capernaum, another town in the same region in which Jesus had been engaging in most of his ministry. There was a centurion there; centurions were Roman soldiers who were so named because they commanded a century of Roman soldiers, or about 100. So a centurion was kind of a big deal, and a centurion was not Jewish. To the contrary, the centurion’s presence in Capernaum reminds us that Israel, Jesus’ nation, was under the authority of the Roman Empire. Well Luke tells us that when Jesus came to Capernaum there was one centurion who had a servant on their death bed, and so when the centurion heard about Jesus, he sent to him the elders of the Jews to ask him to come and heal his servant. Note the power of the centurion: The elders of the Jews hold positions of authority among the Jews, the centurion is not a Jew, and yet, he sends the elders of the Jews to do something for him, and they do it.

 

When they come to Jesus, they make an argument to him for why he should heal the centurion’s servant. They say he’s worthy of this, though he’s not a Jew, because he loves their nation, and he is the one who built for them their synagogue. Centurions were paid somewhere between five and fifteen times the wage of an average soldier, so they could become quite wealthy, and this centurion used his wealth to build a synagogue for the Jews. This might be like the Philly chief of police giving money out of his own pocket to buy our church a building. Jesus then went with them to see the centurion, but as he approached the house, the centurion sent another delegation of friends, and look how their speech on the centurion’s behalf began: Lord. The centurion looked at the elders of the Jews and gave them orders; he looked at Jesus and called him Lord. Then they tell Jesus not to trouble himself, because the centurion says he is not worthy to have Jesus come under his roof. Recall that the elders of the Jews said that he was worthy, but the centurion himself says “I am not worthy.”

 

But, he says, only say the word, and his servant shall be healed. Why does the centurion think Jesus can do that? Well the centurion says that he too knows what it’s like both to be under authority, and to be in authority, as he has soldiers under him. He’s not the Roman emperor, but because the Roman emperor has given him real authority, when he says to a soldier, “Go,” the soldier goes, and when he says to another, “Come,” he comes, and when he says to his servant, “Do this,” he does it. Do you see what he’s saying about Jesus, then? He’s saying, “Jesus you can do that with my servant’s disease. The disease is so powerful it’s about to kill him, we’ve found no medical solution, but if you so much as say the word, the disease will obey you like my soldiers obey me.” The centurion had been given authority over about a hundred soldiers, but he expresses here a confidence that Jesus is the one who’s been given authority over him, over the elders of the Jews, and even over disease. He says Jesus doesn’t even have to come to his house, see his servant, make a diagnosis, touch him, or anything else. He basically just says Jesus if you so much as want to do it, you can.

 

In response to this, we read in verse 9 that Jesus marveled at him. Throughout Luke we have seen people marveling at Jesus, and we will continue to see that. But this is the only time in which we are told that Jesus marveled at something. What was it? Thankfully Jesus tells us. Verse 9 continues to say that turning to the crowd that followed him, he pointed out to them what was so marvelous: I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith. The elders of the Jews told Jesus about the centurion’s love for the nation, but that didn’t cause him to marvel. They told him about how he built for them their synagogue, but that didn’t cause him to marvel. He commanded about a hundred soldiers, but that didn’t cause Jesus to marvel. What caused Jesus to marvel was his faith. What draws the attention of our Lord? Not wealth, not status, not achievements–faith. 

 

And we can see three things about the centurion’s faith that were marvelous. One was the humility it contained. True faith is humble faith, a faith stripped of all entitlement. It’s a faith that comes to him saying, “I am not worthy.” The natural heart approaches Jesus like the elders of the Jews did, with all the reasons we are worthy. It’s why when you ask someone if they were to die tonight, and God were to ask them why he should let them into heaven, they almost always say something about what they’ve done. I’ve been baptized, I’ve tried my best to help others, I’m generally a decent person, I’m not perfect, but I’m working to improve myself, and I’m not one of those really bad people. I’ve been baptized, I’ve served as an altar boy, I’m in church at least some Sundays, I give some of my money to the church or other charitable causes. In summary, “I’m worthy.” The centurion doesn’t do that, though. He has no argument to make to Jesus as to why Jesus should heal his servant. In fact, he asserts repeatedly that he is not worthy of anything from Jesus. 

 

What do you think Jesus owes you? If the answer is anything other than condemnation, you aren’t even in the ballpark of the real Jesus. And yet, we grumble, we get impatient, we envy the life the Lord has given someone else. Why? Isn’t it because our hearts are saying, “I deserve better?” Let’s snap back to reality: No we don’t. Marvelous faith is humble faith.

 

Marvelous faith knows its unworthiness, but it also doesn’t despair, because while it knows that Jesus doesn’t have to do anything good for us, it also trusts that if Jesus wanted to, he could do anything, even heal a servant on his death bed just by speaking a word. Marvelous faith is also confident faith; not confident in itself, but confident in Christ. Only say the word, the centurion says, and my servant will be healed. There is a false humility that says, “I’m so bad not even Jesus can really help me,” or, “I’m so bad Jesus wouldn’t want to help me.” Do you see how proud such sentiments actually are? Do you really think your sin is greater than Jesus’ grace? Do you really think it determines what Jesus is willing or unwilling to do? John Newton once wrote to someone feeling these things, “You say, you find it hard to believe it [is] compatible with the divine purity to embrace or employ such a monster as yourself. [In thinking this, you] express not only a low opinion of yourself, which is right, but too low an opinion of the person, work, and promises of the Redeemer; which is certainly wrong.”

 

Marvelous faith combines a low opinion of ourselves with a high opinion of the person, work, and promises of the Redeemer. It is humble, and because it is humble, it is also confident that Jesus is able and free to save even a wretch like me. And not only is it confident that Jesus is able and free to save a wretch like me; it’s confident that he’s able and free to save anyone he wants. The centurion’s servant was on his death bed, and yet the centurion believed that with only a word, Jesus could heal him. Do you have friends or family, who to you, seem utterly lost? With a word, Jesus can save them too.

 

And finally, his faith was marvelous, Jesus says, because it did not come from an Israelite. He says specifically that not even in Israel has he found such faith. Instead, he found it in a Roman centurion. And so it is that in the thousands of years since this time, though many Jews rejected him and still do to this day, people from every tribe and language and people and nation to which this gospel has come have come to him with no sense of their own worthiness, but with confidence in his power to save, and have received salvation from him. There is no “Christian type.” Jesus does not marvel at a certain ethnic group or a certain cultural heritage. Anyone from any culture from anywhere in the world who comes to him with no worthiness of their own, but with confidence in his power to save, will find him both willing and able to save them. Some of you grew up in families and cultures in which Christ was ignored or hated, in which it was not normal to call him Lord in any kind of real way. You’re now feeling like the outcast, the weird one; the centurion certainly was. Don’t let that stop you from coming to Jesus. His people are defined by faith, not heritage. It’s faith that draws his attention, and it’s faith that ultimately receives his salvation.

 

When you recognize Jesus rightly, this is what it looks like: Humble faith, confident faith, and a faith that transcends ethnic and cultural distinctions. But how can you recognize him rightly? How can you know he truly is the one who was to come? Let’s look at that next.

 

How to recognize him (v. 11-23)

 

In the next story starting in verse 11, he goes to a town called Nain, which was about a 1-2 day journey from Capernaum. Upon arriving there he sees a funeral procession for a young man who was the only son of a widow. To lose such a son was a big deal for the reasons we’d generally assume and to which we’d most naturally relate: They probably had a very close relationship, and having already lost a husband, she now loses her only son. Any sane human would be deeply grieved by this. But it was also socially tragic at the time, because women were generally dependent on men for provision. While married, this woman could depend on her husband for provision, but then he died. So throughout the Bible, widows are right there with the poor, the sojourners, and the orphans as the most vulnerable populations. But at least this woman had a son, who was required by his God to honor his mother, and so would have been expected to take on the responsibility of her provision. But then he died too. 

 

So when the Lord saw her, what does verse 13 tell us? It tells us he had compassion on her. And you think, “Well yeah; any decent person would,” but did you know that not every culture or civilization has historically seen compassion as such an obvious virtue? The Roman stoic philosopher Seneca the Younger viewed it as “the fault of a weak mind.” Somewhat famously, the ancient Greek city-state of Sparta was built around military prowess, and compassion was seen as a threat to that. Other cultures like samurai-era Japan prized the preservation of honor above compassion. They certainly would not have assumed that the true God was compassionate. Don’t miss the glory, then, that when the true God became man in Jesus Christ, one attribute we see is compassion. He sees a woman he’s never met grieving the death of her son, he sees her desperate situation now without any ordinary means of provision, and he feels pain for her.

 

There is no indication in the text at all that this woman’s husband’s death or her son’s was due to some kind of judgment on her sins. Rather, she lived in the fallen world in which we all live, in which death is never far away. Both the righteous and the unrighteous lose husbands, both the righteous and the unrighteous lose children, both the righteous and the unrighteous get sick, like the centurion’s servant. Former U.S. Senator Ben Sasse, an evangelical Christian, was recently diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer and given a few months to live. Commenting on when he got the news, he said he already knew he had a death sentence on his life; it was always just a matter of when and how. And so I know that many of you in the room today have been touched by death in some way in recent years, often the death of someone close to you, and even of a child. The proportion, the type, and the experience of grief varies between these, but what I want you to see here is that Jesus doesn’t condemn the woman’s grief; he has compassion on her. And as you grieve, he is not condemning your grief; he has compassion on you.

 

And yet, the next words he says to the woman are, “Do not weep.” The vibe there is not “Oh stop it!” It’s more like, “Weep no more,” because he is about to do something that will wipe away this woman’s tears. He goes up to the bier, which was kind of like a stretcher, on which dead bodies were carried to be buried, and he touched the bier. When he did that, the bearers stopped dead in their tracks. If there was one thing you wouldn’t do to a bier carrying a dead body unless you absolutely had to, it was touch it. Under the law God gave Israel before the coming of Jesus, contact with a dead body rendered someone unclean, much like touching a leper. Leprosy was like death because the skin of lepers was decaying like a corpse, but this guy was really dead! Yet Jesus touched the bier, and once again, far from contracting uncleanness, Jesus then spoke to cleanse the unclean! In this case, he told the young man to rise. How crazy would it be to speak to a dead corpse and tell it to rise unless you were the one with the power to give life? This is why we can’t just treat Jesus like another interesting teacher or philosopher. To speak to a dead corpse and tell it to rise without actually having the power to do so isn’t something wise, sane teachers do. Yet Jesus did it, because he was more than that. He was the one God anointed with his Spirit and gave his authority, not only over sickness, but over death itself.

 

So we read in verse 15 that once again, as Jesus spoke, even the dead man did what he said, just like the centurion’s servants did what he said. Jesus told the man to rise, and the man got up. Jesus then returned to the boy’s mother the son she’d lost. Having seen this, now the people start to recognize him. First we read in verse 16 that fear seized them all; they recognized that this is someone operating with the power of God, and not just another elder of the Jews or scribe or teacher. It’s a fear of awe, a sense that we are dealing with someone infinitely greater, infinitely more powerful, than we. And yet that power works for good, such that we see the fear accompanied with rejoicing. They conclude that a great prophet has arisen among them, and that God has visited his people. Fear and joy; two other things that typically come with a recognition of who Jesus truly is.

 

The report of this then spreads, and it spreads all the way to John. So John hears this report, and he starts to think, “Might this man be more than a prophet?” He sends his disciples to essentially ask Jesus, “Are you actually the one of whom the prophets spoke, the one who is to come, or are you just the next prophet, such that now we must still continue waiting for the one who is to come?” Is Jesus the one who is to come? That’s the question. And on one level, John should already know the answer. John was the baby who leapt in his mother’s womb when Jesus was in his mother’s womb and the two met. John was there when Jesus was anointed with the Holy Spirit. But shortly after that happened, John was thrown in prison for preaching righteousness (Luke 3:19-20). So now here’s the question: If Jesus really is the one who is to come, and he’s now come, why is John still in prison? I mean, didn’t Jesus even say that the Lord anointed him to proclaim liberty to the captives, and to set at liberty those who are oppressed (Luke 4:18)? So where’s that liberty for John?

 

And isn’t this one objection people make to Christianity all the time? If Jesus is real, why’s he still allow so much suffering and injustice to remain in the world? It’s not a logically valid argument against Jesus’ reality or God’s existence, and most professional philosophers realize that. It’s not logically valid because it contains a hidden premise that isn’t valid. The hidden premise is this, “If I can’t think of a good reason for a good God to allow suffering and injustice, there must not be a good reason,” which then produces the conclusion, “Therefore, a good God must not exist.” Well no, on the hypothesis that there really is an infinite God who is good, we would expect that there would be things he’d do that we wouldn’t understand. Ok, so the argument isn’t logically valid, but it still has a kind of gut-level appeal to many. And while we can’t get into John’s gut, that seems to be part of why he sends his disciples to ask this question.

 

Well it’s not like Jesus is saying things and doing nothing to prove his claims. Verse 21 tells us that in that hour he healed many people of diseases and plagues and evil spirits, and on many who were blind he bestowed sight. So before he tells us how to recognize him, notice how not to recognize him: By a narrow focus on your own circumstances. He never promised John that John wouldn’t spend another day in prison when he came. For his own wise reasons, he left John in prison. Did he owe John otherwise? No; remember the centurion–he owes us nothing. So if you look at Jesus and say, “Well Jesus, until you heal my sickness, until you relieve my depression, unless you heal my relative, I won’t believe in you or I at least won’t rejoice in you,” you’re only hurting yourself. You’re making yourself more miserable than living in a fallen world already is, and you’re blurring your own vision from recognizing Jesus rightly.

 

Jesus is in fact the one who was to come, and here’s how he says John can recognize him as such: The lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. Jesus says here’s what to learn from that story of him raising the dead young man: He is the one who was to come. He is the savior, the one on whom the people of Israel rested all their hopes, and now he has come. And not only did he raise the dead, but he proved that he is the one who was to come ultimately when he died, and then rose from the dead. The eyewitnesses of his acts passed these things on, and they’ve now been written down for us so that we too might know that he is the one who was to come, and we need not look for any other.

 

Are you still looking for another who is to come? I sometimes think if I could just get an hour with the most gifted, most educated, most fruitful pastor, then my life would really sing. For you singles in the room maybe you’re tempted to think of a spouse this way. But no one greater than Jesus is coming, because no one greater than Jesus exists. No one else gave sight to the blind, mobility to the lame, cleansing to lepers, hearing to the deaf, and life to the dead. No one else can today. There’s not a friend like the lowly Jesus; no not one, no not one. If you aren’t satisfied with him, it can only be because there is something about him you’re still missing. Don’t go look elsewhere; get to know him better. You don’t need more than him; you need more of him. Let’s keep that in mind as we seek to help one another as well, brothers and sisters. What others need from you more than they need your advice or your expertise is they need you to point them to Christ. If you can talk to someone about Jesus, about who he is and what he’s done, then you can be a real help to others.

 

So Jesus says blessed is the one who is not offended by him. Another way to read that would be, “Blessed is the one who is not ashamed of him.” Blessed is John if he is not ashamed of Jesus, even though Jesus hasn’t busted him out of prison. Blessed are you who are not ashamed of Jesus, even when your neighbors and friends mock him or live as though they’ve found something better than him. Blessed was the centurion, who called Jesus Lord, despite Jesus having no armies to command, and no title given to him by the Roman Empire. Blessed are you who call Jesus Lord, even though he doesn’t get you a promotion or give you access to a great vacation. To have him is the great blessing, and so let’s look next at the privilege of those who recognize him.

 

The privilege of those who recognize him (v. 24-30)

 

Next Jesus turns and addresses the crowds concerning John. He was a strange guy in many ways: He lived in the wilderness, and scripture tells us elsewhere that he ate locusts and wild honey. With a man like that, though, Jesus is kind of asking, “What did you expect?” Don’t be surprised that he’s in prison even, because if what he was trying to do was dwell in kings’ courts, he’d have dressed in splendid clothing and lived for luxury. Instead, he was a prophet, and more than a prophet. 

 

This is he, Jesus says in verse 27, of whom God spoke when he said that he would send his messenger before the face of his people to prepare their way for his coming. In other words, John was the last prophet, the final one to come before the one who was to come! So Jesus says that is such an honor that among those born of women there is none greater than John. But then look at what he says next in verse 28: Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he. What’s Jesus talking about here? He’s talking about different eras of God’s revelation and activity. B.C. and A.D. aren’t just convenient ways of counting the years; a seismic shift occurred when Jesus came to earth. Before that, he was still the one who is to come. When Jesus spoke these words, though, he was the one who had come! And because he is the anointed king over God’s kingdom, with his coming, the kingdom of God also began to break in.

 

That’s why deaf people started hearing, and blind people started seeing, and dead people started coming back to life. So Jesus is saying that if you live in that era, and by God’s grace you are made a citizen of that kingdom, even if you’re the least in that kingdom, you are greater than the greatest man who ever lived before you, because you now have access to privileges that he never had. I remember a history professor I had said that people always asked him if he could live in any era of history, which one would he choose? He said the answer was easy: The present one. Even if you are poor in Philadelphia today, you have access to antibiotics and medical technology that the richest king of the middle ages couldn’t have dreamed of. And that’s something like what Jesus is saying here.

 

The citizens of God’s kingdom before Christ came didn’t even know what his name was going to be. They didn’t get to read or hear of his miracles. They didn’t get to hear or read of his preaching. They didn’t have these four Gospels like Luke that tell us these things in story after story. They had God’s good and holy law that told them if they did it they’d live, and if they didn’t, they’d be cursed, but they didn’t have the completed obedience of Jesus to satisfy the demands of that law on their behalf. They had lots of different sacrifices to cleanse them from the pollution of some of their sins, but they didn’t have one sacrifice to cleanse them from the true guilt of all their sins. They had the glory of God dwelling among them in the temple, but they didn’t have the Spirit of the risen Lord Jesus reigning in their hearts! They had the law written in tablets of stone, but they didn’t have the law written on their hearts! They had priests who interceded for them, but they didn’t have a living savior in heaven who would live forever to intercede for them! As Paul writes in Ephesians 1, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, “who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing” (Eph 1:3). 

 

You may look back on much of your life and see mostly the trainwreck you’ve made of it. You may look at your life now and see mostly all the things you aren’t doing, all the things you feel like you can’t do, for the cause of Christ and his kingdom. But here’s what we know about you if you’ve become a citizen of God’s kingdom through faith in Christ: You’ve been born again, you’ve been declared righteous in God’s sight, you’ve been adopted as God’s child, you’ve been set apart for his glory, you’ve been bought by the blood of his son, his Spirit lives in you, he is now at work in you transforming you from one degree of glory to another, he will keep you to the end, and he will raise you up on the last day, to reign with Christ forever in a resurrected body that will never die again, and from which every tear will be wiped away.

 

What could be greater than that? Money, titles, land, victories? All destined to perish, but the kingdom of God is the one kingdom that cannot be shaken. And so the one who is least in it is greater than the one who is greatest in the world. And we can see this in the response to what Jesus says. Verse 29 tells us that when all the people heard this, and the tax collectors too, they declared God just, having been baptized with the baptism of John. Why’s he mention the tax collectors specifically? Because to the Jews of the day, they were the least! Who was “great” in the eyes of the world in that day? The Pharisees and the lawyers. But it is they who rejected the purpose of God. When we read that the crowds declared God just, we could also say they declared him righteous, or they approved of the plan of salvation Jesus was revealing. Why the two different responses? That’s where our passage ends, with why some don’t, and others do, recognize him.

 

Why some don’t, and others do, recognize him (v. 31-35)

 

In response to the rejection of verse 30, Jesus speaks of the action of the lawyers and the Pharisees as representative of that generation. He says that generation of Israel was like children who sit in the marketplace, who are never pleased, no matter what their friends do. So the friends play the flute for them, but they don’t dance. Then the friends play dirge for them, a word I’d only ever heard outside this passage in Don McLean’s “American Pie,” but it’s a word that refers to a sad song, the kind of song you’d sing at a funeral. But when the friends play a dirge, the other kids don’t weep. They won’t dance to happy tunes, and they won’t weep to sad tunes.

 

So Jesus says John the Baptist came in a dirge-like way–eating no bread and drinking no wine. But then they criticized him for it. So Jesus came in a more flute-like way, eating and drinking, and they found a different angle from which to criticize him. John and Jesus came in two different ways, but the Jewish leadership of that generation rejected them both. Why? Well, what did they have in common? They were both sent by God to proclaim his word. So what’s the real problem, then? Was it really John or Jesus’ diet? Was the kids’ problem really the flute or the dirge? No; the problem was their hearts. The problem with that generation is no matter what John or Jesus did, they didn’t want to hear it, because they didn’t want to hear God.

 

If you are here today and you are not a Christian, have you at least considered the possibility that your aversion to Christianity is not simply a problem with the evidence or arguments? Might it be that there is also something in you that doesn’t want it to be true? The philosopher and novelist Aldous Huxley once reflected on his embrace of a philosophy of meaninglessness: “I had motives for not wanting the world to have a meaning; and consequently assumed that it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption. The philosopher who finds no meaning in the world is not concerned exclusively with a problem in pure metaphysics. He is also concerned to prove that there is no valid reason why he personally should not do as he wants to do.” If you don’t want Jesus to be Lord, you’ll always be able to find a reason to claim he isn’t. Jesus is saying that’s essentially why so many in his generation did not recognize him. They didn’t want to.

 

This is also why it’s a fool’s errand for Christians and churches to be constantly trying to figure out how to make Jesus or Christianity likeable to an unbelieving world. You’ll never make him liberal enough for liberals, conservative enough for conservatives, revolutionary enough for revolutionaries, therapeutic enough for those who are saturated with a therapeutic worldview, mystical enough for those seeking a DIY spirituality, and so on. Jesus is already eminently glorious. He is the one who was to come, none greater is coming, and if others won’t recognize that, you won’t help them by trying to improve his image. Just tell them about the real Jesus. Tell them what you really do find so glorious about him. Tell them about his divine nature, his incarnation, his perfect life, his compassionate heart, his amazing miracles, his true teaching, his divine power, his humility, his authority, his sin-bearing, wrath-satisfying, fully-atoning death on the cross, his triumph over the grave in his resurrection, his present reign in heaven, and the promise of his glorious return. If they don’t understand those things, by all means, labor to explain them, and pray for the Spirit to give you words to speak clearly. But if they don’t embrace him, that’s a problem for you to lament, not a problem for you to solve. 

 

Because the reality is, if we hold up this Christ, the true Christ, not all will reject him. There was that crowd, including those tax collectors, who declared God just, and so Jesus concludes in verse 35 by saying that wisdom is justified by all her children. Wisdom here refers to the wisdom of God’s plan of salvation especially revealed in Christ, and what Jesus is saying is that those who are truly wise themselves will recognize the wisdom of God in that plan and declare God just. Wisdom is the art of perceiving reality and living in accordance with it, and so the wise perceive the reality of God’s plan, they perceive the reality of Christ’s glory, and they don’t call him a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners. They call him Lord. They call him the one who was, and is, and is to come. And they live accordingly.

 

In every generation, no matter how wicked it gets, God keeps a remnant for himself, to whom he reveals his wisdom. Don’t panic if it seems like many of the wise in the world don’t recognize him. He is the one who was to come. The centurion recognized it when he called him Lord, confessed his unworthiness, and put his confidence in Jesus’ ability to heal if he wanted to. So true faith always senses its unworthiness, but rests its hopes securely on Jesus’ ability to save. Jesus proved that he was the one to come when he raised the dead, and sent word of it back to John, along with reports of his other mighty works. Let us rejoice that God has revealed these things to us, and given us eyes to recognize Jesus as the one who was to come. Even the one who is least in his kingdom is truly great.