NOTES for Luk 7:18-35

Why does John, who himself bore witness to Jesus and saw the Spirit descending upon Him, suddenly send his disciples to Him with such a question? Perhaps he wants to strengthen his disciples' faith? Or perhaps in prison he himself was passing through the final trials of faith?

In any case, this question is extraordinarily important for us: “Art Thou He that should come?” We are called not merely to “believe” but to take a very decisive step—to take up the cross and follow Him. To do so, we must be certain that this is indeed He.

Jesus answers in the words of a messianic prophecy: let John's disciples judge by the works He performs. It seems that nothing else is left for us either: to look at what He does in our lives and in the lives of people we know, and to draw the right conclusions.

Today's reading touches on a very important theme connected with the ministry and witness not only of John the Baptist, but also of Jesus Himself. For Jesus it is completely beyond doubt that what many of those who came to John did not see was true: he was the greatest of all the prophets who had ever preached to the people of God (v. 28). Meanwhile, the very people who do not accept John are those who considered themselves the messianic remnant of which the prophets had spoken: the Pharisees and the teachers of the Torah ("scribes") (v. 30). In today's passage we see how Jesus explains this rejection. He compares those who reject John to children offended by their peers who refuse to play according to the rules they have set (v. 32). That is why they are satisfied neither with John's strict asceticism nor with Jesus' accessibility and openness (vv. 33-34).

Jesus expresses the essence of the problem in one phrase: wisdom is justified by her children (v. 35). For a better understanding of this phrase, it is important to keep in mind that among the Jews the concept of wisdom had long been associated not so much with theory and abstract knowledge as with practice. At first it referred to the practical skills of one craft or another, later to the practice of human relationships so necessary for rulers, judges, and statesmen, and after the Babylonian exile wisdom also came to be connected with the practice of following the Torah, which likewise required a certain skill, one that in a sense could be called the skill of righteous living.

Jesus has in mind another skill and another practice: the practice of the theological disputes so beloved by learned rabbis and simply educated believers. In the Gospel era such disputes were a favorite occupation and pastime of many inhabitants of Jerusalem. And it happened that for many of them, as one can see, these disputes turned into an end in themselves. The question was no longer how, by reading Scripture, to understand God's will through it, but what other interpretations of what had been read could be invented.

Of course, such intellectual exercises are harmless enough in themselves, and at times they can even be useful. But if one becomes too absorbed in them, they sometimes lead away from reality. All such exercises are always conditional to some degree. And if a person trains himself to see the world exclusively through the prism of theological concepts, even ones based on Scripture, it is very easy not to see behind them God and the One whom He sends into the world. All the more so because accepting Christ will require giving up many concepts. Naturally, one would like the real Messiah to correspond to them, so that nothing would have to be given up. But there is no correspondence, and then a choice has to be made. For someone, his own wisdom may turn out to be more important than the Kingdom. And even God can do nothing about that: such is the price of human freedom.

John the Baptist's question may seem strange: he was the first to recognise Jesus as the Messiah, yet now he seems to have begun to doubt the revelation he had received. Why? Probably for the very same reason that many of John's contemporaries also failed to recognise the Messiah in him. Indeed, people expected certain quite specific actions from the Messiah, and Jesus still was not taking those actions. He seems continually to hint that he is the Messiah, yet never does what everyone at the time expected the Messiah to do. At least, he does not do everything they expected.

He does not launch a messianic uprising or try to build an earthly kingdom. John probably expected something of the kind from the Messiah too, since he shared his contemporaries' ideas about him. Of course, in the Essene circles where John most likely spent his youth, the Messiah was seen somewhat differently. But Jesus' behaviour did not fit Essene messianic ideas either, and we do not know whether John still shared them as an adult. In any event, John's question was most likely connected with unfulfilled messianic expectations.

He may have thought that Jesus was not yet the Messiah himself, but one of the great prophets whom God had charged with preparing for the Messiah's coming, just as he himself had been. In reply, Jesus points John to the unmistakable signs that the Kingdom is near: miracles, healings, people being raised from the dead. This was the very Kingdom he had brought into the world, and Jesus evidently wanted John to understand that there was no other Kingdom. At the same time, he points to what prevents those around him from seeing this Kingdom. He sums up the problem in a single phrase: wisdom is justified by her children, meaning those who share that wisdom and hold to it.

Here lies the root of the problem: each of us, as a person of the fallen world, is accustomed to seeing reality not as it is, but as we imagine it. Human wisdom may be an elaborate worldview, or it may be a set of very simple ideas, not always even fully thought through by those who hold them. In either case, a person becomes the child of their own wisdom, or even its slave.

It is this wisdom that shapes a person's view and experience of the world. Like a prism, it refracts the reality around them to make it conform to that ‘wisdom’. Whatever does not fit within its boundaries, it cuts away. Even John was not entirely free of this, although, as the Saviour testified, he was ‘more than a prophet’. Yet the Kingdom cannot be contained within the boundaries of any conceptual scheme. We can enter it only by renouncing human wisdom—the wisdom that enables a person to be an inhabitant of this world, but will not let them become an inhabitant of the Kingdom.

In the Gospel of Luke, we will read more than once about the various miracles performed by Jesus Christ. The time has come for the Evangelist to explain to the reader why he includes all these stories in his book. The mystery is revealed when Jesus, answering the Baptist's disciples, quotes the prophecies of Isaiah (Isa. 35:5-6; 61:1-2), which foretold the Day of the Lord and the coming of God's messianic Kingdom. The blind and the lame of this Kingdom are the people whom Jesus healed, but not only them: they are also those whose hearts gained sight, whose spirits were healed, and who saw their calling and the purpose of their lives. It is no accident that the Lord contrasts them with the Pharisees and lawyers who did not wish to gain sight or be healed, who were unable to respond to the Gospel or understand the message of the Baptist and Jesus about the approaching Kingdom. The meaning of the messianic miracles therefore extends to the lives of those who were never lame and had always seen well—to the readers of the Gospel, ancient and modern.

Many among the people consider Jesus only a prophet, not understanding that He is the Messiah. But why does the question of who He is come from John, who recognised Him at His baptism? The traditional view is that John sent his disciples so that Jesus' own answer would dispel their doubts, while John, as a prophet, already perceived the right answer. Yet we know that the truth was not revealed to the prophets at all times, and that they too were tormented by doubts. So even someone like John could have begun to reconsider what had only recently seemed self-evident, all the more so in prison, with limited access to reliable information from the outside world. On the other hand, we might also suppose that, even while spiritually perceiving the truth, John wanted to receive from Christ direct confirmation of something he did not doubt. If so, we may also recall the ‘unbelief’ of Thomas, who wanted to ascertain the Resurrection for himself.

Some readers of the Gospel have expressed perplexity: where is the answer that confirms it? Jesus asked John's disciples to report many things to their teacher, but did not say directly that He was indeed the Messiah. And yet everything Christ asked them to recount to John consists precisely of the signs of the advent of the messianic age indicated by the Old Testament prophets. For those familiar with the imagery of the prophetic utterances, all this was direct confirmation.

Then Jesus calls John not simply a prophet, but one who is more than a prophet. John's greatness and spiritual depth will be surpassed by anyone deemed worthy to enter the Kingdom of God; but for it to come, John's sacrificial preaching was necessary — one of the signs of the Messiah's coming.

John the Baptist sends his disciples to ask Jesus whether He is the Messiah. The Lord listens to the messengers but does not give a direct answer; instead, He points to the miracles that accompany His preaching. He does not hand them a ready-made, unambiguous answer, but invites them to decide the question for themselves on the basis of certain facts. “The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the dead are raised, and the poor have the Gospel preached to them”—this is what the disciples are to report to John as their own experience, the testimony that can touch his heart. We often try to seek God in theological treatises or long services. It is much harder to look freely at the things happening around us as part of divine providence. This path frightens us because it carries the possibility that we may prove blind and insensitive. But without this risk, a genuine relationship with God is impossible.

Jesus' words, "Blessed is the one who is not offended by Me!" can be understood in different ways. The most widespread understanding, already generally accepted, is also the most straightforward: Jesus must be accepted as the Son of God and as the Messiah; those who accept Him in this capacity will fare very well, they will enter the Kingdom, and salvation is guaranteed to them.

Formally such an understanding can be considered absolutely correct, but it proceeds from the realities of later Christian ages, ages when everyone in the Christian world, of course, knows from childhood all the right words written and spoken about Jesus by those who experienced everything said in their own lives. In that case, "not being offended" means merely remaining faithful to the generally accepted truths of faith known from childhood.

Jesus Himself, however, was addressing an audience for which what it had to accept was not at all obvious. Judging by His words, there had to be something in the hearts of those who were to "not be offended" that would allow them to recognize Him precisely in the capacity in which He came into the world.

What, then, is at issue? If we look closely at the situations describing Jesus' acceptance by those seeking His help, and on the other hand look at those who reject Him, much becomes clear. It is no accident that those who accept Him most often are those who have found themselves in a hopeless situation.

The point is not that all these people were broken by the misfortune that befell them, but that a critical situation by itself quickly and easily washes from a person's heart and soul everything superficial and artificial, so that only the main thing remains. Therefore, in order "not to be offended," one must first of all leave behind all artificial intellectual constructions, all pre-invented concepts, all a priori notions of the Messiah and of the Kingdom, and indeed of spiritual life in general, leaving only the main thing: the Torah, the commandments, the path of righteousness.

If we look at those who do not accept Jesus, it becomes clear that they reject Him either for the same "ideological" reasons, preferring their own theological concepts, within which "such a thing is impossible," to obvious reality, or because of ordinary human fear, not so much fear of persecution as fear of losing what has become a familiar and integral part of life, whether property, social status, or simply the established and much-loved way of life. The fear of losing familiar religiosity belongs here too: the very appearance of Jesus as He came into the world destroyed many familiar religious notions.

Therefore, in order "not to be offended," one must decisively get rid of two things: familiar and beloved opinions and concepts, often turning into convenient cliches, and those fears of losing familiar forms of life with which fallen man is permeated from head to foot. This is not easy, but the reward will be the Kingdom and salvation.

Jesus persistently draws the disciples' attention to the essence of John's ministry, to his calling: to prepare the ways of the Lord. What, then, is the meaning of this preparation? It would seem that we can never be finally ready for His coming. And elsewhere Christ says (Matt. 24:36-39) that we cannot know the day and hour of the coming of the Son of Man. Indeed, however much we work on ourselves, our sinful nature is overcome by us only with difficulty. And Christ, through John, points us to the one and only way to be ready to meet Him: repentance, the awareness of our sins. And repentance does not at all mean putting on black clothes forever and endlessly weeping over our unworthiness. Repentance is a meeting with the reality of our sin, our disfigurement, for which we ourselves are most often to blame. And awareness of this is the beginning of our path to God, the "making straight" of this path.

But the next meeting that must happen to us is the awareness of God's mercy, His forgiveness, which surpasses any depth of our fall. In each of our lives there are situations when it seems that we have hopelessly fallen away from God, when we think that our sin has finally separated us from salvation. But however much we turn away from God, however much we sin, He waits for us and for our repentance. For "the mountains may move and the hills may shake, but My mercy shall not depart from you, and My covenant of peace shall not be shaken, says the Lord, who has mercy on you" (Isa. 54:10). And the first step toward Him is the baptism of John, that is, repentance.

It is worth paying attention to three different translations of the words the Lord says to us today. “And Wisdom is justified by all her children” (Synodal). “And all her children were the justification of wisdom” (Bishop Cassian's translation). “But all her children acknowledged that God's Wisdom is right” (Good News). In fact, they all convey different meanings, something easily grasped in the third version and with considerable difficulty in the first two, which seem very close. Since not all of us are philologists and not all of us know Greek, if we want to penetrate the essence of what is being said, we have no choice but to reflect on all three—though perhaps someone knows other translations that differ substantially.

The first translation, very close in meaning to all the English versions known to us, points to something important. We, the children of Wisdom, come into this world to prove by our deeds that God's Wisdom is a true reality, not a myth we have created, but something Living that participates in our labor. Yet before whom must she be justified? Certainly not before God, and therefore before the world. But why? The Lord does not need to be justified before the world. Why, then, does Wisdom need it? Perhaps an answer can be found to some extent in the eighth chapter of Proverbs. Recalling the creation of the world, Wisdom says of herself: “then I was beside Him as a master craftsman” (Prov. 8:30). She is the “agent,” if one may put it that way—from the Latin agentis, “acting”—who is in some sense responsible for the world. Here is the answer to why she appears before the world's judgment.

Bishop Cassian's translation somewhat removes the active role from the children and transfers it to Wisdom. These are the children she has brought forth, and in themselves they already constitute her justification. Finally, the quite different Good News translation undoubtedly has a truth of its own. Why are we children of Wisdom? Simply because we acknowledge that she is right without any justifications or proofs. This is precisely the nuance carried by the word “vindicate” in one English translation, where the Russian has “justification.” We simply accept that Wisdom is right, and we need nothing else.

This passage from the Gospel of Luke usually needs some explanation. To whom does Jesus compare ‘the people of this generation’? Whom does He mean in verse 32? He may be referring to a children’s game familiar to His listeners. Children enjoy games that run counter to ordinary logic: such games show that they have mastered that logic. ‘Do not say yes or no, and do not name black or white…’ Children love absurdities and tall tales. The aim of this game, apparently, is to agree to nothing. Quite an amusing children’s game.

But when adults begin playing such games, it is no longer so harmless. It means that people are pursuing some interest of their own: they disagree with something not because it is untrue, but because it does not suit their interests. They then shut themselves off from God and His message. For this message from God (‘wisdom’ in verse 35) to be accepted as truth (‘justified’), people need to be open-minded, to expect this message, to seek it, to be ‘her children’.

Deep bitterness sounds in the Savior's words about our ability to reject any message from God if it does not suit us. He compares the human race to foolish children who do not know how truly to distinguish joy from sorrow and do not know how to empathize or take part in them. So John the Baptist came, striking everyone by his ascetic feat, undertaken for the sake of our salvation, and we say: no, that is not acceptable; he is possessed.

So today many things to which Christ's disciples bear witness, from the call to worship the one God to the prohibition against stealing, provoke rejection because they seem excessive. Such a God is too strict, we say. Then the Son of Man came, and He is called a man who loves to eat and drink wine. He is too close to us; He cannot be God's messenger. In the same way, witness to Christ's presence in the present-day life of real people creates the impression of something "unchurchly," something improper. No, such a God is too close!

How little we have changed over thousands of years. But Christ's word is priceless: and Wisdom is justified, literally recognized as right and righteous, by her children. The Lord says that the rightness of God's call to us can be known and acknowledged by us if we are children of Wisdom. And the beginning of this, as it is said, is the fear of the Lord, a reverent love for God.

The words of Jesus, addressed by Him to the Pharisees listening to Him, briefly and precisely describe the real reasons His listeners rejected both Jesus Himself and His testimony. Their meaning is simple: "wisdom" is justified by her children, that is, by those who invented this wisdom, as well as by those who support and defend it, relying on it and building their worldview on it. The Savior compares such "wise men" to children playing in the street, whose game consists of guessing what melody will sound next: a cheerful one or a sad one. The one who guessed won, and the one who guessed wrong lost.

It is completely obvious that such games had no relation to music as a high art. And the "wisdom" of the Pharisees who were always objecting to Jesus, judging by the example He gave, had no more relation to wisdom than the children's games He mentioned had to musical art. A serious, thoughtful search for truth often leads to mistakes, and not everyone who meets Jesus can easily see the Messiah in Him. But in this case there was no search at all. There was only a game of words, of quotations from the Torah and from theological writings widespread in rabbinic circles at that time.

The game was by no means harmless: the Pharisees arguing with Jesus were not playing it for the sake of intellectual exercise, but in order to preserve intact their native and familiar worldview, so that the religiosity so dear to them would not collapse. They needed "wisdom" so as not to accept what was unacceptable to their theological concepts. And they were ready to accept Jesus only on their own terms, if He agreed to correspond to their ideas about what the Messiah should be and what He should do.

They were also ready to enter the Kingdom, but on their own terms. Jesus, as can be seen, refuses them this with complete decisiveness. Not because there is no place for religion in the Kingdom, but because, when entering the Kingdom, one will have to change, to become another, new person. To do what many leaders of the Pharisaic movement feared so much. They feared it so much that they preferred to refuse the Kingdom, if only they could remain as they were.

Our whole trouble is that we cling too tightly to our imperfect knowledge of the world. We get used to something ordinary, and everything that does not fit within those bounds is perceived by us as false, unnecessary, or even outrageous. We get used to the idea that if cheerful songs are played, people sing, and if sad ones are played, they weep. We have some set of standard reactions to the world, and often we reject everything beyond that. But the Lord will never fit into any of our mental schemes or any of our habitual reactions. He is living, and He depends on nothing in this world; on the contrary, everything in this world depends on Him.

Let us pay attention to the expression "wisdom is justified by all her children." Questions often arise about these words. They seem strange to us, because wisdom, as something higher and self-sufficient, would appear to need no justifications. Here there is a purely linguistic subtlety. We all remember well the words of prayer: "Blessed are You, O Lord; teach me Your justifications," taken into worship from Psalm 118. The word "justification" here certainly does not have the meaning most common in modern Russian, the removal of guilt from oneself, which everyone understands. Its sense is rather truth or righteousness: teach me Your truth. Likewise, the Gospel text should be understood rather as saying that in the children of wisdom, that is, in people who live according to the laws of divine wisdom, according to the laws of Holy Scripture, God's truth reaches its fullness.

When we read in Luke's Gospel how John the Baptist, imprisoned, sends his disciples to ask the Lord Jesus, “Are You the One who is to come, or should we expect another?”, we usually respond with a question of our own: why does John doubt? This question has become a commonplace, regularly asked by all sorts of people. Perhaps it also occurred to the disciples accompanying Jesus Christ, some of whom had previously been the Baptist's disciples and had been directed to Jesus by John himself. This partly explains why, after answering John's messengers, the Lord turns to the people and says these astonishing words about the Baptist: “Among those born of women there is no prophet greater than John.” In any case, this passage, and particularly the answer to the messengers, contains none of the reproach for little faith that the Lord sometimes addresses to His disciples and to the people.

Apparently, John the Baptist's question goes deeper than we think. Moreover, it is asked by someone who, unlike us, has not read the Gospel and knows nothing of the resurrection. We can try to reconstruct the question's meaning from Christ's answer, as we often have to do when reading the Gospel. Most likely, John, who knows both the spirit and the letter of the Old Testament well, is asking about something connected with the prophecies of the Messiah's Kingdom, in which God's Light will transfigure the whole world, every evil will be defeated, and God Himself will wipe away every human tear. The Old Testament prophets proclaimed the spiritual meaning of what God would grant through Christ, but the mystery of His first and second comings had not been revealed to them. They did not distinguish what would take place in the New Covenant from what would happen at the end of time. John the Baptist is probably asking precisely whether the fulfillment of these prophecies should be expected and how it will take place. Nor should we forget that a theory of two Messiahs—a King and a Priest, whose ministries would differ—was popular among Jewish theologians at the time. This theory arose from interpretations of certain prophecies when the mystery of the Son of God's Incarnation was still inaccessible to human beings. Finally, judging by the evangelists' testimony, the Lord Jesus had not yet spoken of the New Covenant at that point. The evangelists unanimously testify that the New Covenant is established only at the Last Supper, but this still remains hidden from the Baptist.

The point, then, is not that John doubts whether Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah. As the herald of God's Kingdom, he needs to see what is happening in the context of the prophecies. That is precisely why the Lord answers his question by pointing to prophecies already being fulfilled in what is happening at that moment, and this answer apparently satisfies John. It is also clear why Christ adds: “Blessed is the one who does not stumble because of Me.” The Lord thus directs John's attention to the fact that the prophecies go deeper than their literal understanding and that not everything in their common interpretations is correct.

Finally, the evangelist Luke tells us that, on hearing Christ, all the people gave glory to God, having received John's baptism. This means that by His words the Lord confirmed John the Baptist's ministry as the last herald of the New Covenant. Perhaps this was, in fact, the underlying meaning of John's question: he addresses the Son of God Himself with a question about his own ministry. John's whole life had been devoted to preaching repentance and preparation for Christ's coming, and now he brings that ministry before the judgment of the Son of God. The Lord answers that, in the Kingdom of Heaven proclaimed by John the Baptist, God's gift to humanity incomparably surpasses anything we can conceive. The least in the Kingdom will possess more than John possesses now. In this connection, we recall the apostle Paul's words that now we see God as through dim glass, indistinctly, whereas in the Kingdom God's Light will reach our eyes unhindered.

When we reflect on today’s passage, everything in it seems strange. It is strange that John the Baptist sends to question Jesus when he has already been given a sign from Heaven. It is impossible to imagine that this sign was not understood and accepted by him, the greatest of the prophets born of women.

Jesus’ reply is not easy to understand either. Why could He not answer directly? He is dealing not with Pharisees eager to catch Him out in His words, but with a man who, as we learn from the other Gospels, is expecting death soon, wholly devoted yet for some reason temporarily bereft of faith.

John needs the Saviour’s support. Yet He says nothing new, only what everyone already knows: ‘The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have the good news preached to them.’ And finally, why does John not come himself, but merely send his disciples? Perhaps this is where the answer lies.

Perhaps the reason is that John is asking more for his disciples’ sake, while his own faith remains strong. And Jesus understands this, which is why He does not give a direct answer. Yet although this answer is indirect, it is utterly complete. We need to learn to see the miracle. This is not easy, but only then will we understand that we need not wait for anyone else: we have our beloved Lord Jesus Christ.