Jesus’ Testimony to John

Today's Reflections

                                                                   

Jesus’ Testimony to John

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Lk 7:31-35

[Jesus said to the crowds,] ³¹“Then to what shall I compare the people of this generation? What are they like? ³²They are like children who sit in the marketplace and call to one another,/ ‘We played the flute for you, but you did not dance./ We sang a dirge, but you did not weep.’/ ³³For John the Baptist came neither eating food nor drinking wine, and you said, ‘He is possessed by a demon.’ ³⁴The Son of Man came eating and drinking and you said, ‘Look, he is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ ³⁵But wisdom is vindicated by all her children.”

Reflection:

What are they like? Jesus reproaches his contemporaries for being hard to please. They like neither John the Baptist who was an ascetic nor Jesus who eats and drinks like an ordinary normal man. But Jesus claims in his enigmatic saying, “But wisdom is vindicated by her children,” that both he and John are children of wisdom. Wisdom is manifested by the two of them in quite different ways, complementary but not contradictory.

That is true even today. God’s ways are manifold. Some people are introvert, and some are extroverts. We have cardinals like Jaime Cardinal Sin and cardinals like Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales, and popes like John Paul II and others like Benedict XVI. We have contemplative holy people and active saints, and holy people who unite very well action and contemplation.

Let us praise God for his many-splendored ways

with people.