Matthew 11:28-30 - "Come to me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest."

Matthew 11:28-30

Just as the Father is pleased to reveal himself to the unsophisticated and simple-minded and hide from the wise and intelligent, so he is pleased to invite the weak and weary to himself, not the strong and successful. The invitation "Come to me all who are weary and heavy-laden" may sound like Jesus is just saying, "If you ever need help or find yourself in a jam, I'm there for you." But it's so much more than that. He's not saying, "Even if you're weak, you can come to me." Rather he is telling us that you can't come unless you are weak, unless you have thoroughly given up on yourself. He does not offer himself to the proud and self-sufficient but says, "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart." In order to have him you must learn his ways of humility, otherwise you will never see how spiritually destitute you truly are, how much you are in need of the living water he offers.

We like to think we are perfectly capable of living our own lives and, sure, once in a while we might need Jesus' help, but even then we are careful to ask him for the kind of help that we think he'd be willing to give. We're very calculating about all this. Coming to him with this prayer request would be silly, whereas that request is too hard to answer. I could ask him for this one here, something that he wouldn't mind providing me, which I'm half expecting is going to work out by itself anyhow. But this will never do. The strong and capable cannot fully rest in Jesus' arms, cannot come to know his heart of gentleness and humility. And so Jesus veils himself from the proud but reveals himself to the poor and needy. It's another way that he blinds some but give others the sight to see.

Once you do see him with eyes of humility, you no longer have to bear your own yoke. Jesus willingly takes the burden upon himself. Whatever burdens have weighed upon you, you no longer have to carry alone, whether anxieties or demands or responsibilities, Jesus wants to take them from you. He gave them to you in the first place so that you would come to grips with your own frail limitations, and now he takes them from you so that you will know the freedom of relying on his strength alone. Years after Jesus ascended to glory, Peter remembered the teaching of his Lord and summed it up this way: "Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your anxiety upon him, because he cares for you" (1 Peter 5:6-7).

Matthew 11:25-27 - "At that time Jesus answered and said, 'I praise Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth...'"

Matthew 11:25-27

That God would hide his mysteries from the wise and intelligent and reveal them to babes sums up the heart of what he is all about. He is the God who deals with us through paradox. He sent his Son to show that the weakness of God can overcome the strength of the Devil, and that the sufferings of God can bring greater blessings than the glories of the world. Likewise he desires to reveal his secrets to the humble and uneducated to show that the foolishness of God is wiser than the wisdom of men.

"Yes, Father, for thus it was well-pleasing in Thy sight." Why does it please God to identify with the lowly and despised? Here is my best intuitive guess. Put yourself in God's shoes. He is the almighty one. No one resists his will. He is the beginning and the end of all things, he has the final say. But he also seeks to glorify himself before angels and men. Now, at the end of redemptive history we know that the victory will belong to him, but how will that victory be achieved? God is not willing to achieve victory using his raw power, just smashing the Devil and his demons and anyone else who defies him. It's too obvious, and it doesn't do justice to the fullness of who he is. So he allows himself to be beset, to be mocked, to be delayed by the workings of evil for a time. Through it we see a different side of God that we never could have imagined before. A God who suffers. A God who is patient in the face of evil. A God who makes his home in the hearts of the weak and sinful and ignorant. By doing so, somehow his power and holiness and wisdom seem that much richer. All the hidden depths of God character are revealed and glorified in a way that could not have been otherwise. The angels who already worship and praise him do so with greater awe.

"No one knows the Son except the Father, nor does anyone know the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal him." This is the Father whom the Son reveals to us: the God who seeks out the lost, enters into our sorrows, cleanses our filth and carries away our diseases. If you recognize this God you have been given true sight, you've been healed of your blindness. But if you only know a God who is hard and demanding, nothing but a relentless display of fearsome power, you haven't truly seen him. You're still stumbling around in the dark.

Matthew 11:20-24 - "Then he began to reproach the cities in which most of his miracles were done..."

Matthew 11:20-24

In our previous passage Jesus was already condemning "this generation" for acting like fickle children, but now he pushes the envelope further by pronouncing a frightening judgment upon the Israelite cities of Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum. They did not believe the many miracles he had performed among them, and now there is nothing left to reveal except the wrath that their unbelief deserves.

Nothing is scarier than hearing Jesus pronounce woe upon people. Jesus is our only hope anywhere, ever. Outside of him there's nothing, no escape, no plan, no recourse, no alternative except to head straight for your doom. He is the trapdoor out of the fiery furnace, the eject button out of the nosediving plane. If Jesus condemns you, it's like hearing a life raft condemn you to a drowning.

The ancient cities of Tyre and Sidon were great centers of trade. According to Isaiah 23:3-9 Tyre was a city known for its wealth, beauty and honor, the way you'd think of a London or Paris today. Ezekiel 26-28 recounts God's judgment upon Tyre, humbling her great pride and defiling her splendor through the invasion of Nebuchadnezzar with his Babylonian army. By comparison the cities of Chorazin and Bethsaida were little podunk towns, villages really. They weren't wealthy and extravagant. They weren't great metropolises that were "playing the harlot with all kingdoms of the earth" as Isaiah said of Tyre. Yet because these cities rejected the Messiah who appeared to them in the flesh, performing signs and miracles in their midst, their sin would be judged more harshly than even the pagan decadence of Tyre and Sidon.

Capernaum receives the worst condemnation because Jesus says it will be judged more harshly than Sodom. I don’t know if Sodom's sins were objectively worse than Tyre’s and Sidon's, but certainly the mention of Sodom would have a greater emotional impact on the average Jew. To say you are worse than Sodom, now them's fightin' words. It's something someone would say along with an insult about your mother. Except here Jesus is not trying to pick a fight, he's deadly serious. The people of Capernaum evidently prided themselves on their piety. They thought they would be “exalted to heaven” when in fact they would “descend to Hades.” Jesus is just trying to get through to them about the reality of their situation.

I’ve puzzled over Jesus’ statement that if Tyre, Sidon and Sodom had seen these same miracles that he’d performed in Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum, they would have repented and saved themselves from judgment. The question is, if such repentance were possible for these cities, why didn’t God give them that chance? It’s hard to say what kind of repentance Jesus is talking about here, but I imagine a repentance similar to Ninevah’s when Jonah preached to them. Ninevah saved itself from destruction for a time, but when it later returned to its wicked ways God’s judgment came swiftly (Nahum 1:14). The rule is that your judgment is harsher when you sin against greater revelation. Is it possible, then, that even though cities like Tyre, Sidon and Sodom could have repented with exposure to greater revelation, yet God chose to spare them the greater judgment that would have awaited them had they gone back like Ninevah did to their old ways? Jesus says that Judgment Day would be “more tolerable” for these cities since they didn’t sin against revelation the way Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum did. It’s strange to think that Judgment Day could be tolerable for anyone, or that God might be sparing certain sinners a worse fate by withholding his revelation from them, but now we’re treading into mysteries beyond our understanding.

Matthew 11:16-19 - "But to what shall I compare this generation?"

Matthew 11:16-19

When you read this passage to yourself, it helps to imagine the children speaking in a taunting, snotty voice: "We played the flute and you did not dance; we sang a dirge and you did not mourn." Jesus says this unbelieving generation is like those children. Nothing you do satisfies them. Everything you do is subject to their criticism. You did this. How come you didn't do that? You did that. How come you didn't do this? They also feel entitled to set the agenda. You will dance when we say you dance, and you will mourn when we say you mourn.

John the Baptist hailed from the old covenant era. He was the last of a long line of Old Testament prophets who practiced the asceticism and repentance that was appropriate for those who waited for the Messiah's coming. John had put off worldly things. He lived in the wilderness. He dressed in camel's hair. He ate a frugal diet of locusts and honey. In other words he took on the posture of someone preparing to meet his Lord and his Judge because, well, he was. Yet most people saw only a crazy man. So extreme. So out there. Must be demon-possessed or something. "For John came neither eating nor drinking and they say, 'He has a demon!'" The eyes of unbelief are always looking for reasons to reject the messengers of God.

But John was kind of crazy-looking. Are you sure you want to say that people rejected him out of unbelief? John probably looked like the equivalent of today's homeless person shouting out in the street as if he were on drugs. He didn't exactly package his message to appeal to the demographics he was trying to reach.

Fair enough. Enter the Messiah and see how people respond to him. Jesus is not out there wandering in the wilderness but comes straight into town where people live. He's wading through the crowds, he's going to people's weddings, he's making the wine flow, he's the guest of honor in every home that will open its doors to him. That's because his arrival means the time of mourning and waiting and longing is over. The bridegroom is here, let's get this party started. It's a time of celebration, the kingdom of God has arrived. The king himself has arrived. No more of John's extreme practices and extreme diets and extreme everything. Happy now?

No, of course not. Now comes the criticism about the Messiah's overindulgence. "The Son of Man came eating and drinking and they say, 'Behold, a gluttonous man and a drunkard, a friend of tax-gatherers and sinners!'" How can this social butterfly be the Messiah? Where's the self-deprivation of John? Where's the fiery judgment for sinners that John talked about? Huh? Huh? Huh? All of a sudden everyone's so concerned that Jesus is not acting like John, and this becomes an excuse for not believing in him. Never mind the fact that they never believed John in the first place.

Unbelief is like that, too smart for its own good. I'll never be fooled. I see through your tricks. I know what you're up to. Even if I have to contradict myself, it's better than being taken in. But in reality it's acting like children who idly make fun others just because it makes them feel superior. They don't even know what they want, but they do know that they're determined to be unhappy with whatever you give them.

Matthew 11:12-15 - "And from the days of John the Baptist until now..."

Matthew 11:12-15

John the Baptist marks the turning point in redemptive history from the old covenant era to the new. As we saw in our previous passage he is the last of the Old Testament prophets, a part of the old order who stands on the brink of something new and more glorious, like Moses standing at the top of Pisgah viewing the promised land before his death.

Yet today's passage speaks of John as also the beginning of a new order. "From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence." The coming of John marked the dawn of the kingdom of heaven and everyone senses this change, this shift taking place in history, not merely human history, but in the greater realm that encompasses both the spiritual and the material world together. With John's appearance people realize that something new, something truly great is happening, but that does not mean they understand it or know how to respond to it.

"The kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and violent men take it by force." It's kind of a mysterious saying but I think it's safe to say that whatever Jesus is talking about, he's saying something negative, not positive. I believe he's saying that while men recognize at some level that the kingdom of heaven has come, they seek to lay hold of it by violent impulses for their own violent purposes. For example John 6:14-15 says that after Jesus fed the five thousand, the people began to say, "'This is of a truth the Prophet who is to come into the world.' Jesus therefore perceiving that they were intending to come and take him by force, to make him king, withdrew again to the mountain by himself alone." They had the right idea, that Jesus is a Prophet, but they had their own agenda for him. When they saw Jesus' supernatural powers it only inflamed their lust for rebellion and violence. They wanted the kingdom of heaven to come so they could overthrow the Roman authorities they were chafing under.

"For all the prophets and the Law prophesied until John. And if you care to accept it, he himself is Elijah, who was to come. He who has ears to hear, let him hear." Jesus seems to think that his present hearers are in danger of disbelieving John in view of his current suffering and imprisonment. That's because violent men desire power and triumph; they are not willing to have a kingdom that requires suffering, submission and death. But John the Baptist truly is Elijah about whom Malachi 4:5 prophesied: "Behold, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord." Like Elijah, John appeared onto the scene roaming the desert, dressed like a wild man, calling down fire from heaven, and confronting the king with his sins. But like Jesus, John will suffer an early death. As John himself once said, a disciple is not above his teacher, so a mere messenger is not above the king for whom he faithfully prepares the way. If John's imprisonment and death shake people's faith, what will they do when it comes time for Jesus himself to go to the cross?

Matthew 11:7-11 - "And as these were going away, Jesus began to speak to the multitudes about John..."

Matthew 11:7-11

Jesus would only give this tribute to John the Baptist if he knew very well that his imprisonment was the end of the line for him, otherwise why would he sum up his ministry at this point? It's probably a good thing that he made this speech after John's disciples left. While they may have been gratified to hear it, I'm sure it would have caused them sorrow to hear Jesus speak of John as having already run his course. They would know that John is simply waiting to die.

Jesus challenges the crowd on what they believe about John. They had all flocked out to see his famous Jordan River baptisms. Why did they gawk at him? What were they expecting to see? Certainly not a soft-willed man dressed in soft clothing, right? Perhaps at this point someone from the crowd shouted, "A prophet!" So Jesus answers, "Yes, I say to you, and one who is more than a prophet." John was not just any old prophet but the greatest in a long line of prophets, since he was set apart to prepare the way for the Messiah's coming.

Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way before you.

John is the greatest of "among those born of women" (which is just another way of saying among those who are born), and yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. I don't think Jesus is saying John is directly inferior to every person who enters the kingdom after him. Rather he is drawing a partition between the old covenant era, of which John's ministry is the climax, and the new covenant era that Jesus has come to inaugurate. The glory of the new covenant so surpasses that of the old covenant that the least member of Jesus' heavenly kingdom participates in something far greater than what even a great man like John the Baptist had.

Why is the new covenant era superior to the old? It is the difference between promise and fulfillment, between shadow and substance, between hope delayed and hope realized. John preached a message of sorrow and repentance, of humbling oneself before the coming wrath of God. After Jesus' death and resurrection the apostles would preach a message of rejoicing and forgiveness, of humbling oneself in light of the riches of God's grace and mercy. Even John, the very forerunner of the Messiah, could see only dimly the glory of the kingdom that Christ would usher in, and the least of us who stand on this side of the cross know a joy and intimacy with God that the Old Testament saints could only hope for from a distance.

Matthew 11:1-6 - "And it came about that when Jesus had finished giving instructions to his twelve disciples..."

Matthew 11:1-6

Back in 4:12 John the Baptist had been taken into custody, and now from prison he sends a message to Jesus asking if he's really the Messiah. You have to understand that John is rotting in a dungeon right now, and he had just spent the bulk of his ministry preaching that when the Messiah comes "he will thoroughly clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire" (3:12). Jesus hasn't exactly blasted Herod with unquenchable fire for arresting John, so what's up with that?

I suppose I shouldn't be finding humor in it, but it's always struck me as kind of funny how John words his question so cautiously. "Are you the Expected One or shall we look for someone else?" "Now, I'm not saying that I don't believe in the Messiah or that he's not coming soon, but I'm just wondering if you're him or if we should, you know, keep on looking?"

Here's why John the Baptist is confused. He's basically the last of the Old Testament prophets who looks forward to the coming of the Messiah as a future event, but there are certain things about that coming that he is yet ignorant of. In reality the coming of the Messiah happens in two stages: Jesus will come as the suffering servant, then the second time he will come as the glorious conquerer. But from the perspective of the Old Testament prophets, all the revelations about this two-stage coming appear to be a single event.

Here's an illustration that has helped me. If you were traveling and saw a distant mountain range, you might think all those mountains belonged to the same chain. But suppose you were to come closer and realize that the mountains were actually two separate ranges, one closer and one much farther away. It was only because you were looking from the perspective of a great distance that you thought you were looking at one chain. Same with John the Baptist and all the OT prophets. From afar they couldn't tell that they were foreseeing two events, not one. The Messiah as the suffering servant who would heal the lame and sick and the Messiah as the glorious conquerer who would destroy his enemies were seen as a single fulfillment, not something that would be staggered over time in two stages.

Jesus answered John by pointing to how he fulfills the suffering servant prophecies. "The blind receive sight and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up and the poor have the gospel preached to them." He doesn't explain the whole "two-stage parousia" thing or get into a big fancy theological discussion. He simply points to the prophecies in Isaiah that John would know so well. What John understands he should rest in, and what he doesn't understand--well, it turns out he will die before he can have all the answers. But faith that does not stumble is content not to have every question answered. Even a great man like John the Baptist had to humble himself and accept the limitations of his understanding.