✠ Psalmody: Isaiah 30:30a, 29a, c;Psalm 80:1a;50:2-3a, 5;85:6-7; Baruch 5:5a;4:36b
✠ Lection: Malachi 3:1-5;4:1-6a;St. Matthew 11:11-15
In the Name of the Father and of the ✠ Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
If you hear what Scripture, what Jesus Himself, says about John the Baptist and believe it, then you have ears to hear Christ and the salvation that He brings, for it is in John’s voice in the wilderness that every valley is exalted and every mountain and hill made low; the crooked straight and the rough places plain. We hear Jesus’ assured words telling us that among those born of women there has not risen one greater than John the Baptist; but he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. Let us discern what Jesus is saying, then examine our hearts as to whether we believe or disbelieve, for just as the Ethiopian eunuch desired from Philip, let us seek to understand what is written about the Christ.
Up until just yesterday morning, my modern mind zipped right over many of the words of this pericope confident in my pride that I understood what was being said. But thanks be to God for the humility that His word, and that of faithful theologians throughout the Church’s history, stirs up within us when we spend time seeking to understand. Let us embrace such humility, take our time with the precious Holy Text, and discover the bountiful treasure within. The specific error of mine of which I speak was in reading the words among those born of women there has not risen one greater than John the Baptist I had long understood, assumed rather, these words to mean that John is the greatest among those born of women, when that is not what they say. It says that none of them are greater than he, not that he is greater than they.
Among those born of women are a select group of which we are to take note when considering the whole story of Creation, Redemption, and Sanctification that Genesis through Revelation reveals. All the Scriptures are about the Lord Jesus Christ, including the words of old from the select group among those born of women by whose writings we have the fullness of the Law and the Prophets. All the Old Testament writers were men just like us, yet inspired by the Holy Spirit to communicate to us God’s Word. These were men often despised and rejected in their day, but were honored by the righteous both then and later. Even in their error, the Scribes and Pharisees held a respectable amount of reverence for all that Moses and the Prophets had written. Those by whose hands we have been given the Old Testament were great men as God made them to be by the utterance of His Word by their hands and mouths.
So, being that there is no higher privilege of man than to be given the Word of God to proclaim, Jesus would have been invoking the “greatness” of all the well-known godly authors of the Old Testament and not kings, princes, or rulers who weren’t as privileged as them, understanding that worldly greatness pales in comparison to ministering the eternal word of the kingdom of heaven. Thus, the phrase there has not one risen greater than John the Baptist isn’t said so that we exalt John above all those understood great ones, but that we are to make sure that we, the hearers, understand that he is not to be considered any less than alike one of the great prophets of old. Not one has risen greater than he, meaning his words, his ministry, his life and death of preparing the way of the Lord, is to be given equal standing in our hearts as that of all the stellar ones of old even though there was a 400-year silence between the old group and John. Neither his contemporaries nor we are to see him any less than the promised Elijah who was to come, regardless of his appearance, diet, or abrupt end a long while before Jesus finally ascended the cross.
After this, Jesus said, “but he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.” There are two aspects by which we are to consider this phrase. First, who it is who is in the kingdom of heaven. We may take this as a reference to the Holy Christian Church, the body of believers who have life eternal secured by faith for them in Christ Jesus our Lord. Among us all, if we were to rank us from greatest in faith to least, Jesus is hereby saying that even the least are greater than this equally-as-great-as-the-OT-prophets John the Baptist. We are greater, not because of a greatness we possess, but because of one we behold. We are greater, because John’s evil death prevented him from seeing the kingdom come in the full glory of the cross, resurrection, and ascension, the culmination of all for which he was preparing the way. We have the complete Good News, the great story now proclaimed to us in its fullness, a fullness of which the great prophet was denied, at least in some part. Do not doubt that John’s faith held firm through his gruesome death and that we shall rejoice with him in the eternal presence of His Savior and ours for all eternity. It’s just that all those who now receive repentance and faith, who now receive the kingdom of heaven, do so by the sweet, plump details of the Gospel in its fullness.
Yet, he who is least in the kingdom of heaven isn’t restricted in understanding to being just redeemed sinners who have been graciously ushered into the kingdom by the grace of God. Consider the extreme condescension that the Son of God took upon Himself to become the Son of Man. Consider how the plan of salvation had Him despised and rejected by men, had Him spit upon as the very least among us. No one has descended lower than the Son. Indeed, He had to become the least among us in order to bear our deepest, darkest sins. Least He has become. And in so doing, He brought forth the glorious reign of God unto us all. He, in being least in the kingdom of heaven on our behalf, brought the kingdom of heaven to all who believe.
Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace, Good will toward men. Good will toward us, that we might be called children of God; that we might be called citizens of the kingdom of heaven, ruled and loved by the greatest, the One most High, Who became the least of His own accord. This Lamb of God, the least in the kingdom by His great humiliation and sacrifice, is greater than John, because it was the equally great prophet John who pointed to Him and proclaimed, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” He pointed to the One Who walked among us as least in the form of a Servant. He pointed to the One Who walked among us as greatest, as highest, never ceasing to be also in the form of God, for it is the Incarnate Lord in Whom the kingdom of heaven is present. Thus, we shall sing and rejoice that by faith in Him we hear, believe, and inherit the greatness of the eternal kingdom; testified by John, given by Christ.
In ✠ Jesus’ Name. Amen.
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