3/2/25 - Matthew 11: Hope for the Burdened
Matthew 11 is one of the most gracious and one of the most severe chapters in Matthew. In many ways it is reflective of Joshua, drawing a line in the sand, announcing to the people of Israel, “Choose you this day whom you will serve.” Yet while Joshua’s announcement was a general challeng to his troops to loyalty, or to otherwise turn aside and follow no more, Jesus’ heart of compassion, His grief over those who reject Him, and His rejoicing over the revelation given by the Father to the lowly of this world shows Jesus, not in the light of an austere general, but as a loving Savior. He knows well that the hope He gives is the only salvation available and yet will not placate the hard-heartedness of those who refuse to follow Him.
Jesus has just preached on the mountain, crossed the Sea of Galilee, worked signs and miracles in Capernaum, and is preparing to send out His disciples to preach the good news. Jesus then goes around the Galilean countryside teaching and preaching. We have no mention of the disciples in this passage so it is not inappropriate to assume, and not unlikely, that they have traveled on ahead of Jesus to preach the message Jesus gave them, “The kingdom of Heaven has come near.”
As He and His disciples are preaching, miracles are taking place. Signs to accompany the message are performed. Lives are being transformed, eyes are opened, paralysis is healed, the deaf hear, the mute speak, the dead are raised, the Kingdom of Heaven is invading earth… and John the Baptist is languishing in Herod’s dungeon. John has questions. He has announced Jesus as the “Lamb who comes to take away the sins of the world” and has likely seen nothing and heard little about what Jesus began to do after that. John likely knows that his time is short. So far, Herod has only kept John around because he finds him amusing to listen to. He is the last of the Old Covenant prophets, and like all the prophets before, he must know it is his lot to die in Jerusalem.
John’s disciples come and ask on his account, “Are you the one to come, or should we expect someone else?” Jesus responds compassionately, recounting the deeds that John will never see, and adds a personal note for John, “Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me.” How many times, I wonder, did John struggle with the reality of Jesus being the messiah? How many of us might be wonderstruck and perhaps at least a little skeptical to learn that our cousin is the savior of the world? Was it Divine inspiration that caused that utterance to come from John’s mouth? Did his own love and affection for Jesus give him a personal bias to want the Messiah to be Jesus? And now that John is in prison and suspects he won’t be long for this world, he might begin to wonder. So Jesus reassures him, strengthens him, and exhorts him to remain firm in his faith.
Jesus then turns to the crowd around him and recalls to their memory just who John is and what he represents. John is acclaimed by Jesus as the greatest man who has ever been born of women. As if that weren’t shocking enough coming from the revealed Messiah, Jesus makes a radical, scandalous, and gracious announcement. “Whoever is least in the Kingdom of Heaven is greater than he.” How often Jesus works the Kingdom ethic into His conversations that the first will be last, and the last will be first. Why are those who are considered least in the Kingdom of Heaven considered greater than the man Jesus calls the greatest man who ever lived?
Jesus makes a rather interesting statement that loses its meaning in English. “From John up until now the Kingdom of Heaven has been subjected to violence, and violent people have been raiding it.” A preliminary reading of this statement makes it sound like the Kingdom of Heaven has been a bit like a beaten down prisoner, pillaged and victimized at the hands of violent people. However, the Greek phrasing that’s translated “suffering violence” means something along the lines of “advancing forcefully and violently” and the Greek phrasing that’s translated “violent people have been raiding it” has the connotation of sudden deliverance, or sudden seizure. So is Jesus stating that the Kingdom of Heaven has been the victim of violence, or that the Kingdom of Heaven has been advancing rapidly, violently, and with much force?
I’m personally inclined to the latter because Jesus specifically says, “from the day of John the Baptism until now.” The followers of Jesus have not suffered persecution. The blood of martyrs has not yet been shed, and even John is still alive. So it cannot be that it is the Kingdom of Heaven that is the victim of violence. Rather, the Kingdom of Heaven has been advancing violently, suddenly, and with rapid force, and people from all over have been rushing to Jesus to take hold of the Kingdom by whatever means they can. The disciples have sacrificed everything to follow Jesus. The crowds who follow Jesus around deprive him of privacy, keep him from sleep, disregard his personal space, bring their desperate needs to Him without regard for His own needs, accost the disciples, all to experience the Kingdom of Heaven invading earth. Truly the attitude, expectancy, zeal, and seizing nature of those clamoring to the Kingdom has been nothing short of forceful.
But it’s not just those coming to experience the Kingdom that have been foreceful. Amid Israel’s occupation by Rome, after 400 years of Divine silence, a lone prophet arises, announces that Jesus is the messiah, and suddenly, quickly, and violently, the Kingdom of Heaven has advanced. The chains of the enemy are loosed, captives are set free, demons cast out. The ails and ills of the people are driven off, and the 12 Apostles are sent throughout the land as heralds of the King of kings to announce the conquest of the land. Similarly, how Joshua entering the Promised Land was violent and sudden, so also Jesus arrives on the scene and in the span of 3 years completely turns the systems of this world upside down. Paul describes Jesus’ activity this way, that he “disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.” Jesus said it this way, “I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.”
The heralds of the Kingdom have been sent to prepare the people and give them a great hope. The Kingdom of Heaven has come near! The Great King Himself has come to draw a line in the sand. The kingdoms of this world have been conquered and put to shame, and all that belongs to them will be swept away. Come out of them therefore and be separate! Repent! For the Kingdom of Heaven has come! He has come to set the people free from their captivity and offer them the chance of salvation. But the response of the people has not always been great. Jesus, speaking of the people of that generation, calls them out for being unresponsive. Even more than unresponsive, they have been dismissive with imagined faults to justify their excuses. John fasts and abstains from alcohol, and he does so because he has a demon. Jesus doesn’t fast and he drinks, so he must be a sinner, a gluttonous alcoholic, after all, look look at the company he keeps. And so Jesus mourns the towns where he preached and worked miracles, whose overall response was not repentance but dismissal.
What does this have to do with the least in the Kingdom being greater than John? Because the Kingdom of Heaven has come suddenly with great force and people have come far and wide to force their way in. Even before John the foundations of the Kingdom had been dug in forcefully. “For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John.” The Prophets were sent to testify against the sinfulness of an erring Israel and, in some cases, forcefully compel the people to obedience to the Law which was demanding and austere. From the time of the giving of the Law until John, the price to follow God was costly. Righteousness was obtained by obedience and at the cost of the blood of uncounted lambs. One could only approach God if he were holy and pure.
But now the One who was the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets has come. The perfect lamb who takes away the sin of the world, slain once and for all, sufficient for all time. He has established the Kingdom of Heaven in the midst of the gathered Church. We can approach God not based on holiness from adherence to the Law but on the holiness that comes by faith, provided by the blood of Christ, shed for us. Our faith in Him usheres us completely in. What the prophets had seen from afar, we hold with our hands. The righteousness that comes by faith, the hoped-for promise, has arrived. The suffering Servant who’s suffering would result in countless offspring has seen His generation and is satisfied.
Jesus glories in the will of the Father. That the mysteries of Heaven have been hidden from the wise and revealed to children. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses. And who does He choose? The wise? The pius? The strong and the mighty? The righteous and self-sufficient? No. Rather, He chooses the weary, the burdened, and the broken. And what people had been doing for all time up until that point, Jesus puts a stop to: though it had been the violent who had taken the Kingdom by force, it is freely given to those who have no strength. This is why the least in the Kingdom is greater than John. John was the last prophet of the Old Covenant, a covenant that demanded much. But Jesus ushers in a New Covenant, a Covenant that only requires faith. A Covenant written in blood shed on the Cross, sealed by the Holy Spirit living within us, and kept in heaven where no thief can steal, no murderer can kill, no device can destroy. A Covenant that required much from God and ushers the weary and the broken to come and find their rest.