John the Baptist had been thrown into prison.
John’s disciples kept him updated on what Jesus was teaching and the miracles that he was working.
John sent two of his disciples to ask Jesus:
Are you the Messiah we have been expecting or should we be looking for someone else?
John’s disciples found Jesus, and as they waited for an answer to take back to John the Baptist, Jesus cured many diseases, healed those with the plague, cast out demons and restored sight to the blind.
Jesus then answered the disciples of John by saying:
Go and tell John the things you have seen and heard, the blind receive sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, and the poor have good news preached to them. Tell John that blessed is the person who finds no reason to disbelieve in me
When John’s messengers left, Jesus began to teach the crowds regarding John the Baptist:
What did you go out in the wilderness to look at? A reed shaken by the wind? A man dressed in expensive clothes? Those who are finely dressed are in kings’ houses. What did you expect to see? A prophet?
Yes, I tell you that John the Baptist was much more than a prophet.
He was the one the prophets wrote about when they said:
Behold, I send my messenger before your face, and he will prepare the way ahead of you.
The truth that you need to understand is that of all born of women there has never been a prophet greater than John the Baptist, and yet the most humble and least important person in the coming kingdom is greater than he.
All the common people who heard this agreed with God’s wisdom in sending John to baptize in order that men might repent and get ready for the kingdom.
But the Pharisees and lawyers rejected the whole idea that John’s baptism was necessary or important.
Then Jesus taught them and said:
This generation is like two groups of children sitting in the marketplace. One group called to the other to play with them, but the other group was sullen and stubborn and would not play.
The one group said to the other, we played music but you would not dance: We wailed but you would not weep.
Jesus continued teaching:
John the Baptist came neither eating or drinking and they say his has a demon. The Son of man has come eating and drinking, and you say, Look, a gluttonous man and a drinker, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!
Jesus then spoke about the cities in which he did most of his miracles:
Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you Bethsaida! If the mighty works that were done in your city had been done in Tyre and Sidon they would have repented in sack cloth and ashes long ago. When the day of judgment comes, Tyre and Sidon will be judged more lightly than you.
And will Capernaum be exalted to heaven? No, it will be cast down to hell. If the mighty works that had been done in Capernaum, had been done in Sodom, they would have repented and the city would be standing today. It will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom at the day of judgment than for you.
Jesus then stopped and prayed out loud to his heavenly Father and said:
I thank you, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and the educated and that you revealed them to the pure and childlike. Yes Father, for this is what pleases you.
Jesus continued:
All things have been given to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father; and no one knows the Father but the Son, and those to whom the Son decides to reveal him.
Come to me, all of you whose souls labor and are burdened down, and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you, and learn about me: for I am gentle and lowly in heart; and you will find rest for your souls.
My yoke is easy and my burden is light.
