A ROMAN centurion, a Gentile, seeks the Lord for blessing. He engages the elders of Israel, “to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants,” &c. (Rom. 9:44Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; (Romans 9:4)), to be the ministers of Christ to him; for in the full sense of it, as a branch of the olive tree, which is wild by nature, he had no right to be grafted into the root and fatness of the olive tree. He presumes not to seek blessing from Christ but through the Jew. And what does Jesus find here? “I have not found,” saith the rejected of Israel, “so great faith; no, not in Israel;” and where did He find it? In a Gentile. Let not the Lord of glory despond, though His own will not receive Him; yet through His grace, the heart of many a stranger will bid Him a true and an eternal welcome.
Yet Israel must learn the fullness of His mercy, and therefore the next day He raises from the dead the last hope of the widowed heart. He comforts the widow and restores her last hope, though she had endured the withering pang that death had for ever extinguished it. Oh that the widow of Israel who desolate sits on the ground could but understand these things! At least the conviction steals over them, and they reiterate the words of the prophet, that God had visited His people; “and this rumor of Him went forth throughout all Judea, and throughout all the region round about. Surely they were left without excuse! Yet there was a veil on their hearts—the desperate reluctance that is in man to give credit to the unselfish love of Christ, and of this even John the Baptist seems to partake. He who had gone before Jesus in the spirit and power of Elias, now needs to be confirmed himself. The unsuccessfulness of his own testimony, the apparent un-profitableness of all his labors, no doubt did lead his soul to waver as to the Lord’s identity. He himself in prison, so contrary to the expectations of one who came to fill the place of Elias, was doubtless assured that in a little time Jesus would so increase as to counteract all opposition. But now, disheartened, he sends two disciples to learn and gather fresh evidence, and confirm his heart touching the nature and object of the mission of Jesus of Nazareth. In reply to this enquiry, Jesus enumerates the nature and extent of His works, adding this warning: “And blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in me.” Let none of your preconceived notions as to my service, and the effects of it, divert you from recognizing and acknowledging me; let not my rejection at the hands of Israel lead you to question my claims, or from the effects of it on my position, to be found assenting with them in their evil deeds. John was not to waver from his first happy thoughts, as the friend of the Bridegroom. True, true, men said “he hath a devil;” and of Jesus, “on whom he had seen the Holy Ghost descending and remaining on Him,” they say, “Behold a gluttonous man and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners.” To the men of this generation every service proved ineffectual. Of them it could be said, “We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned to you, and ye have not wept.” What then? “Wisdom is justified of all her children,” and of one of them we have an example in the following scene: The Pharisee here represents the better sort of public acceptance accorded to our Lord, acknowledging Him as a remarkable character; and though unconvinced of His pro-eminent station, yet not ready to appear hostile to Him, nor join in his rejection. As such, he receives Him as his guest, but so as to exhibit how little his heart honored Him as a distinguished one; and though, perhaps at personal sacrifice, he is the host of the Son of God, yet he loses the blessing obtained by one of wisdom’s children, because he “knew Him not.” Israel’s acceptance of Christ did not exceed the Pharisees. The woman that was a sinner represents the Church; she sought to Christ because of her sins, not because of other and temporal expectations. She served Him because she was forgiven, not that she might be honored by Him: her love taught her a service which the learned self-righteous Jew either neglected or was ignorant of. In the house of the Jew, at his very table, the unwelcome sinner is saved, and bid “go in peace.” The Church of God, despised and unwelcome, sprung into life and blessing in the very precincts of Jewish hospitalities, and I believe is here darkly shadowed. It is a scene which does not occur in the other gospel narratives.