Letter To Laodicea (part 50)

Jesus’ words about the poor, crippled, lame, and blind, as has been said, are not new.  They were there, at least by implication in Luke’s report of His messianic announcement in the synagogue in Nazareth, and they were an explicit part of Jesus’ response to the inquiry of John the Baptist, His cousin, as recorded in Luke’s seventh chapter.  If there was another person, besides Jesus, that would have been greatly concerned with issues of the kingdom of heaven, and with the promised messianic banquet that would accompany the coming of that kingdom in its glory, it would be John the Baptist.  The record of the Gospel authors is unanimous in agreement, that John came preaching the kingdom of God associated with “baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins (this goes well beyond a cultivation of personal holiness and has far more to do with Israel’s long exile being brought to an end than with the offering of a personal salvation which would allow the repentant one to spend eternity in heaven, as this was not a consideration in Jewish thought of the time---a fact of extreme importance when considering that Jesus is a Jew and operates within the worldview of second-Temple Judaism). 

That John preached the kingdom of God would have been of great significance in his day.  For our purposes at this point, John preaches the kingdom, according to Luke, with words such as “all humanity will see the salvation of God” (3:6).  Naturally, this has tremendous Abrahamic covenant overtones; and though the words in use come from the fortieth chapter of Isaiah, they are incontrovertibly informed by the messianic banquet, and its attendant expectations about God and His plans, of Isaiah’s twenty-fifth chapter.

When it comes to John’s inquiry of “Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?” (7:19b), it is imperative that we understand that just as Jesus does not speak and act in a vacuum, neither does John.  There had been several individuals, in the time immediately preceding and during the over-lapping lives of John and Jesus, that had made messianic claims and that had attempted to conduct messianic movements.  Almost without fail, all had operated within the norms of what was the common expectation of the messiah, which would be the attempt to usher in the promised kingdom of God through the means that were universally employed to establish other kingdoms---war. 

To that point, Jesus, whom John has already confessed as the Messiah, which is implied by the baptism of Jesus in the third chapter (though it does not mention John in connection with the baptism, this would have been a well-understood part of the transmitted traditions about Jesus in the days of the church), had not availed Himself of the customary means of kingdom-bringing that had been part and parcel of thoughts about the messiah from the time of John’s youth.  Indeed, it did not appear that He even had such things in mind.  This constituted a puzzle for John, not unlike the puzzling situation in which the master of the banquet found himself.  John, with the presence of the Messiah (whom he believes Jesus to be), is expecting the overthrow of the wicked (the Romans), and the vindication of the righteous (Israel), but this is not happening.  Nor does it appear that this can possibly happen, or that Jesus has this in mind at all, based on what it is that He is going about saying and doing (“Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.  To the person who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other as well, and from the person who takes away your coat, do not withhold your tunic either”(6:27b-29)).  As a matter of fact, John finds himself in prison, which must have been a dreadfully unsettling source of consternation and confusion for him, especially in light of the picture just painted. 

This then is what fosters John’s inquiry about whether or not they should be on the lookout for another messiah, a messiah unlike that which Jesus was offering, with the Greek word there employed for “another” (heteros), suggesting that of an entirely different kind.  How does Jesus respond to John (here in Luke’s narrative)?  Prefacing Jesus’ statement with “At that very time Jesus cured many people of diseases, sicknesses, and evil spirits, and granted sight to many who were blind” (7:21).  By doing this, Jesus is gathering around Himself, as the Messiah, the very ones that were being rejected as not being of value in the establishment of God’s kingdom---especially if that kingdom was to be brought in by force of military arms.  With Jesus’ answer having been sufficiently prefaced, we go on to hear Him say “Go tell John what you have seen and heard: The blind see, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news proclaimed to the” (7:22).  Essentially, in a question directed squarely at His status as Messiah, Jesus responds by mentioning those that He will later insist should be invited to a banquet (with those words, by way of reminder, offered in the context of messianic banquet considerations that have been fostered by the words and actions of Jesus that form Luke’s narrative), and then adds “Blessed is anyone who takes no offense at Me” (7:23).  With that, we shall not fail to mention the obvious Abrahamic covenant implications with Jesus’ use of the word “blessed.”   

It appears, however, that many were taking offense and Jesus knows this.  As we come to this realization, holding together the multiple threads of the tapestry that Luke is weaving, we get a sense of at least one of Jesus’ motivations to continue taking up the offers of meals at the houses of Pharisees, and of His motivations to speak in the way He does---telling parables such as that of the master and his potentially spoiled banquet.  If Jesus has a consistent motivation to participate in meals, and if those meals are highly determinative of what we can know about Him, then His offer of a meal to the church at Laodicea is highly instructive in making a determination about the what is happening there.