JEFF TURNER

Jesus compared the religious leaders of his day to quarrelsome children who refuse to join in, no matter what game is offered to them. It didn’t matter whether a joyful song that invites dancing or a mournful tune that calls for sadness.

This picture reveals a stubborn resistance to every approach God placed before them. When Jesus came with joy, eating and associating with sinners, they rejected him. When John the Baptist came with a serious call to repentance, they rejected him as well. Their problem was not the style or method of the messenger; it was their refusal to respond to the message itself. Neither the celebration of the Messiah’s arrival nor the warning about the seriousness of sin could move them toward genuine repentance and faith.

This is a picture of spiritual indifference. I’m speaking of the kind of attitude still seen today when people look for reasons to dismiss the truth rather than honestly consider and respond to it.

For John the Baptist has come neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and you say, ‘He has a demon!’ The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Behold, a gluttonous man and a heavy drinker, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’

Luke 7:33-34