Jesus did not predict a happy or blissful future for his disciples. With the world on fire, they could expect to get burned. Jesus described coming events as one world crisis after another. Then, in a matter-of-fact way, he added, “[They] will kill you” (v. 9). Had I been there, I probably would have interrupted him and said, “Excuse me, Lord. What did You just say?”

Jesus never runs out of surprises. In particular, the verses quoted above run counter to what good Evangelical Christians would expect him to say. They would expect something from Jesus like, “Put your trust in Me and you have nothing to fear. Disaster may come to the world, God’s judgment will fall on the nations, and he will bring history to a close, but you will be protected.” In other words, we expect Jesus to say, “The one who is saved will endure to the end” rather than the other way around.

We will probably never understand why God has not make life easy for his children. Jesus did not seem overly concerned that his disciples would go through hard times, but he was very concerned that they remained anchored in him. It was not that Jesus wanted his followers to suffer, he just wanted them to love him more than life.

We confess, O Lord, that we have a small view of life. To us, life means this brief span of mortality. You, however, see a horizon that recedes into infinity. In Your eyes, we are more than the sum total of what we can achieve or acquire in our lifetime. Help us to be less attached to, and enamored with the temporal things of this world and more anchored in the eternal–more anchored in You.

We can hear sorrow in Jesus’ voice as he looks to the horizon of Jerusalem’s future and predicts disaster (v. 36). Even though he was persecuted and rejected by Israel’s religious leaders, the Lord did not relish the brutal fate that was going to catch up to them. He did not denounce Jerusalem with the fiery vengeance of an angry prophet, but grieved over them as a brokenhearted father who wanted all of his children to run to his home for shelter.

We are more resistant to God than we realize. If he comes to us in an unfamiliar form, if he says things we do not want to hear, if he challenges our cherished dogma, or wants to teach us something new, we dig in our heels and push against him. Only we do not realize we are pushing against God. We think we are driving away that annoying, crazy prophet. We may not kill and stone those who try to awaken us to God’s message for today, but we do reject, malign, and blackball them.

How sad for Jerusalem! They would effectively run Jesus out of the temple and then have all to themselves an empty shell. “Behold, your house is being left to you desolate!” In winning this battle, they would lose everything.

Forgive us, Lord, for our smug criticism of the Pharisees and scribes because in their determination to preserve a religious tradition they lost sight of the God they claimed to serve. We have followed in their footsteps. We have drifted toward peripheral concerns rather than the “weightier provisions” of Your will. We have put more energy into defending what we believe than becoming the kind of people whose good works glorify You. We have learned so much and understood so little. Forgive us, and, for the sake of our Savior’s tears, draw us under Your wings.

The role of the media in our culture has resulted in a blurring of image and identity, of surface and substance. Public personalities who have created scandals do not try to live with greater integrity, they work on improving their image. How much can we learn about a product in fifteen seconds or analyze a political debate in one hour of television time? We know only the surface of things and that is all we want to know. It is also all we want to know about ourselves.

Jesus raised a bold and courageous protest against superficiality–notice the number of times he used the word hypocrites in this chapter! “Go to work on the inside,” he told his audience, “and the outside will take care of itself.”

Jesus had not given up on the Pharisees, but made an appeal to them to wake up to what they had missed, yet was so obvious. At least four times in this speech Jesus accused the Pharisees of being blind (vv. 16, 17, 19, 26). Their blindness was a typical trait of human nature: We cannot learn what we think we already know–our prejudice gets in the way. Unfortunately, what they had not seen would cost them everything (vv. 32-33).

O Lord, may You ever find us open to seeing new things and learning new ideas. May we be teachable. We are wrong about many things, but we cannot see how we are wrong. Patiently show us, enlighten us, and disciple us into Your truth. May we always remember that what God sees is different from what humans see, because we look only on the appearance whereas God looks into the heart. Lord, Jesus, make our hearts beautiful for Him.

Remarkably, Jesus told the crowds and disciples to do as the Pharisees taught when they took the teacher’s chair in the synagogue, yet the point of Jesus’ conflict with the Pharisees was precisely their interpretation of the Law of Moses–for example, Sabbath-keeping, purification rituals, fasting, and so on. On a positive note, however, the scribes and Pharisees did demonstrate a great devotion to the Scriptures.

The first of Jesus’ criticism of the scribes and Pharisees was that they did not live up to what they taught and, furthermore, they placed heavy burdens on people they themselves were unwilling to help carry. Religion will always have its people who say the right words, but do not live the truth, people who play for a human audience and love positions and official titles, people who are more image than substance.

Is living for God a heavy burden? Is a righteous life a heavy burden? Is it not sin and guilt that are the heavy burdens? But there is a way that some people define Christian duties and obligations that make it a burden–a bundle of rules.

We give You thanks, Lord God, for what this teaching tells us about the Teacher. There are times when we are bent over with a great burden that we must carry–and we have enough of them without the added load that religious people would place on us. Jesus, who invites those who are “heavy laden” to come to Him, gets under our burdens with us and carries them as if they belonged to Him. Yoked with Him, Jesus is forever with us, our closest Companion, our Savior.

Until now, Jesus had been answering questions put to him in the temple, but in this passage he asked the Pharisees a question. Reading this episode, we sense that Jesus enjoyed presenting a riddle they could not solve. His question seems to take them by surprise, as though they had never considered the logical problem entailed in David referring to the Messiah as his son (Ps. 110:1).

The way Jesus stated the problem, it sounds as if either they were wrong or David was wrong. In their culture, where the ancestor was always considered to be greater than the descendant and honor moved only one direction generationally, it was impossible for the Messiah to be both David’s son and David’s Lord.

The book of Matthew opens with an introduction to “Jesus the Messiah, the son of David” (1:1). But once we get through Jesus’ genealogy “according to the flesh” (Ro. 1:3), we discover he was conceived of the Holy Spirit (Mt. 1:20). Therefore, he is also “the Son of God” (Ro. 1:4). Jesus’ riddle brings to the surface a secret regarding the Messiah. Jesus led them into this quagmire because there was only one road  out–a new understanding of the Messiah.

We cannot answer all of Your questions, Lord Jesus, but still we enjoy the opportunity to learn more about You. For the same reason we are not afraid to ask You questions. We consider it unfortunate that the Pharisees used questions like weapons rather than \a means of receiving the best theological education in the history of humankind. Lord, we respect You, admire You, revere You, and love You.