Revelation 14:6-7; Romans 3:19-28; Matthew 11:12-19
When Jesus wanted to compare the generation of people who lived during His time to something, He chose a familiar image to use for the comparison. Although it is obscure to us, His reference to “children sitting in the marketplace calling to their playmates ‘We played the flute for you, and you id not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn’” struck a chord — and a nerve — with His audience. He was telling them that they were impossible to please and that they used double standards. He was calling them judgmental and unreasonable. In other words, Jesus was telling them that they were the ones who were forcefully resisting the Kingdom of Heaven.
Forceful resistance to the Kingdom makes up a significant part of the human story. It isn’t unique to the generation of Jesus’ time, but does characterize it. The Jewish people who lived as Jesus ushered in the New Covenant were particularly opposed to the Kingdom, because they were entrenched in a religious system that was based on good works and self-righteousness. The people who felt as though they had earned God’s favor through their efforts didn’t want to hear that “by works of the law no human being will be justified in His sight” (Rom. 3:20). And they especially wouldn’t accept Jesus’ teaching that He had come to do what they could not do under the Law.
The generations that have followed that of Jesus’ time haven’t fared much better. By the 16th Century, God’s grace was so obscured that the church had become a heartless institution. But God used that generation to restore the Gospel through the Reformation — a restoration of the Kingdom that was met with great violence. Faithfulness to Christ, even in the face of death, characterized that generation of believers. But what best describes our generation? To what shall we be compared? We’re a selfish, self-centered, and cynical people who have done great violence to the Gospel. We could be compared to a hurricane or tsunami because of our heartless, destructive ways; or to farm animals because we have become so crude as a society; or even to barbarians because of how we have trampled on the sanctity of human life. But Jesus compares us who have been washed in His blood and adopted into His family through Baptism to something altogether different — something altogether undeserved: We are His Bride, pure, spotless, and deeply loved by the God who has given us His Kingdom.
Click here to listen to the sermon "Compared to What?" (or right-click to download the MP3 file).
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