In this chapter - a snapshot of moments in Jesus’ later ministry - Jesus confronts doubt and weariness from a people oppressed by guilt, hard work, political occupation - name it! He offers a prescription for doubt and weariness from an unexpected place.
Doubt.
This is a passage about doubt, part of a larger chapter which is, in large measure, about doubt. Is Jesus, after all, the Messiah we’ve been waiting for? Or will the wait go on, after this fiery young rabbi with the compelling ideas fades from the scene — as the past ones all did — and his followers, like so many others, are just absorbed back into whatever they were doing before? This text is the culmination of a chapter which raises those very questions.
This chapter of Jesus’ story begins with the doubt of John the Baptist, no less! The chapter begins with doubt. Where does it end? While the chapter begins with the doubt of the venerable baptizer, its energy moves forward to an antidote, of sorts — to hidden things, mysteriously possessed only by infants, something greater than doubt, greater even than belief. What goes beyond doubt is, apparently, a whole new way of being which brings relief and rest — a complete rest from the weariness of a day-to-day trudge through a life without meaning.
So this snapshot of Jesus’ life and ministry follows a progression that begins with the doubts of the last and greatest of Israel’s prophets, the one who proclaimed, “Prepare the way of the Lord,”1 and who, in the midst of demanding changes of heart and life, proclaimed, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming ....”2
The progression continues with the all-but blind groping of a wise and intelligent elite after “hidden things,” and ends by offering its promise of “rest” to those who are weary and carrying heavy burdens.
Beyond certainty to faith
This 11th chapter in Matthew’s Gospel runs quite a gamut. There is a plaintive, doubtful cry, from an imprisoned John the Baptist: “Are you the one who is to come ... or are we to wait for another?”
We move to whiny children fussing back and forth, saying “We want to play weddings!” “No! No! We want to play funerals!”3
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