Friday in the Second Week of Advent, December 15, 2023

Matthew 11, 16-19

Jesus said to the crowds: “To what shall I compare this generation? It is like children who sit in marketplaces and call to one another, ‘We played the flute for you, but you did not dance, we sang a dirge but you did not mourn.’ For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they said, ‘He is possessed by a demon.’ The Son of Man came eating and drinking and they said, ‘Look, he is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ But wisdom is vindicated by her works.”

“To what shall I compare this generation?”  The Lord Jesus has just spoken to the crowd about John the Baptist and taught them that he was sent to announce the arrival of the Savior.  Jesus himself is the Savior, which the people at least tacitly acknowledge by their coming out to listen to him.  Many had seen his miracles and all have at least heard about them, and they know that no one has done the things he has done.  And yet, all the people do is stand and listen.  They do not act — they do not repent of their sins, which they should do even if they did not believe Jesus was the Savior who was to come into the world.  And so the Lord looks around him at the crowd and through all the rest of time including ours, and he says, “To what shall I compare this generation?”  That is, this final age which began with his Incarnation.  For the ages before his coming there might be some excuse, but not for this age which includes men and women who saw, heard, and touched him, as well as all the people in history instructed by his Holy Church.  “We played the flute for you, but you did not dance, we sang a dirge but you did not mourn.”  We shake our heads at him and say, “You did not play the game.”  It is as though he had come among us as one of us but instead of speaking like any of us and reassuring us that we were not such bad folks after all he spoke to us as God, and we were certainly not going to put up with that.  And no matter what he did or said, we would change the requirements for our belief in him.  

“For John came neither eating nor drinking.”  John the Baptist fasted and abstained from strong drink in the manner of a prophet.  He attracted many followers and large crowds through his humble life and powerful message, but many, including most of the Jewish leadership, dismissed him.  By and large he was reckoned as a madman or as one possessed.  It was certainly easier to do this than to upend one’s life and repent of one’s sins.  “The Son of Man came eating and drinking.”  Any yet when the Messiah came, he ate and drank like everyone else and the people would reject him for that.  The purely physical acts of eating and drinking were surely beneath the Son of Man as described in the words of the Prophet Daniel and by the teachings of the Pharisees.  And besides this, he was “a friend of tax collectors and sinners.”  Rather than learn of the Messiah on his own terms they expected him to act on theirs for him.  Not only did this supposed Son of Man eat and drink like everyone else but he ate and drank with the worst people.  They fail to keep in mind his miracles and the various proofs of his divinity in their reckoning.  They fail to tell the tree by its fruit, and the plainly evident fruit was the conversion of sinners, an accomplishment far greater than conquering fortified cities.  

“But wisdom is vindicated by her works.”  The Fathers taught that here Jesus is speaking of himself.  He is the Word of God, the wisdom of God.  His works prove him to be divine, for only God could do what he did.

The life of every Christian is a life of conversion in which we struggle against the world, the flesh — our fallen human nature — and the devil to give ourselves entirely to God.  May his grace conquer us and break down whatever walls of resistance that remain so that we can.