07/25/2022 – Day 148 – Luke 7 – 8 / 7:20: “Why did John ask Jesus if he really was the Messiah?”
The Faith of the Centurion – 7:1 – 7:10
John Gill’s commentary on the Centurion that “loved the Jeiwsh nation and built them a synagogue”. So, as much,
as this Centurion stood out as loved and respected amongst the Jews, it could not compare with his extraodinary faith in Jesus.
Jesus Raises a Widow’s Son: 7: 11- 7:17: Jesus raises the Widow’s Son from the dead. The people proclaim him as a great prophet noting God has come to help his people. But yet, when Jesus raised Jairus’ daughter from the dead, he ordered his parents but he ordered them not to tell anyone what had happened. (See 8: 40 -56 at the end of our reading today) Compare these two events, why do you think Jesus give different instructions after these two kids were raised from the dead?
Jairus showed amazing patience, can you imagine having a daughter dying at that very moment, yet he did not raise a peep when the sick woman interupted Jesus trek back to Jairus’ home to care for his dying daughter. If the father is shaken when the messenger relays the tragic news of his daughter’s death , he doesn’t show it. Jesus tells him: “just believe” and it appears he does so.
Jesus and John the Baptist: 7:18 – 7:50
I will share William Barclay’s commentary:
“John sent emissaries to Jesus to ask if he really was the Messiah or if they must look for someone else.
(i) This incident has worried many because they have been surprised at the apparent doubt in the mind of John. …
(c) The simplest explnation is the best…. John, the child of the desert and of the wide-open spaces, was confined in a dungeon cell in the castle of Machaerius. .. Shut in his cell, choked by the narrow walls, John asked his question because his cruel captivity had put tremors in his heart.
‘(ii) Note the proof that Jesus offered. He pointed at the facts. The sick and suffering and the humble poor were experiencing the power and hearing the word of the Good News. Here is a point which is seldom realized — this is not the anser John expected. If Jesus was God’s anointed one, John would have expected him to say, ‘My armies are massing. Caesarea, the heaquarters of the Roman government, is about to fall. The sinners are being obliterated. And judgment has begun.’ He would have expected Jesus to say, ‘The wrath of God is on the march.’ but Jesus said, ‘The mercy of God is here.’ Let us remember that were pain is soothed and sorrow turned to joy, where suffering and death are vanquished , there is the kingdom of God. Jesus’s answer was, ‘God back and tell John that the love of God is here.”
Soli Deo Gloria!