NOTES for Luk 7:33-35

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.