Luke 10:21-24

The Joy of Jesus.

We reach a point in the life of the Saviour, the exceptional character of which is expressly indicated by the first words of the narrative, in that same hour. Jesus has traced to their goal the lines of which His disciples discern as yet only the beginning. He has seen in spirit the work of Satan destroyed, the structure of the kingdom of God raised on the earth. But by what hands? By the hands of those ignorant fishermen, those simple rustics whom the powerful and learned of Jerusalem call accursed rabble (John 7:49), “the vermin of the earth” (a rabbinical expression). Perhaps Jesus had often meditated on the problem: How shall a work be able to succeed which does not obtain the assistance of any of the men of knowledge and authority in Israel? The success of the mission of the seventy has just brought Him the answer of God: it is by the meanest instruments that He is to accomplish the greatest of His works. In this arrangement, so contrary to human anticipations, Jesus recognises and adores with an overflowing heart the wisdom of His Father.