WOE TO YOU CHORAZIN ! WOE TO YOU BETHSAIDA !

Mt 11:20-24

The eleventh chapter of Matthew’s Gospel is the Lord’s address of the Jew’s rejection of His kingdom. Representing the rest of mankind, the Jews demonstrated the lengths to which people will go in order to deny the truth. And Jesus has explained their wholesale rejection of both Himself and His servant John the Baptist. And now He condemns them for their blatant unbelief.

“He began to rebuke the cities in which most of His mighty works had been done, because they did not repent” (v. 20). The word “rebuke” (Gr. - oneidizo) speaks of pointing out someone’s shame over their sin. Jesus was calling their attention to the shame they should have felt for rejecting Him, for sadly, they not only failed to turn from their sins to Christ (“repent”), but they obviously felt no shame over it.

Let us try to catch the accent in Jesus’ voice when he says “Woe to you.” This is not an accent of one who is in temper because his self-esteem has been touched; it is not a voice of one blazingly angry because he has been insulted. It is a voice of sorrow, the voice of one who offered people the most precious thing in the world and saw it disregarded. It is a voice of broken heart.

What then was the sin of these towns, the sin which was worse than the sin of Sodom? It was the sin of indifference. These cities did not attack Jesus, they did not drive him from their towns, they did not seek to crucify him, they simply disregarded him. If an author writes a book and nobody noticed it for an appreciation, this book is dead. Here is why the sins of Capernaum, Korazin, and Bethsaida are worse than Sodom, and also worse than the sins found among the modern Gentile cities of Tyre and Sidon: the town rejected the greatest of all gifts. Over the course of centuries, the long awaited Messiah was considered to be the greatest promise.

And the Messiah had not just come to Israel in their lifetimes; he had come to their part of Israel. And he had not just come to their part of Israel, but he worked miracles before their eyes.   The hatred that the cities of Capernaum, Korazin, and Bethsaida  had expressed was a special kind of hatred towards God.  They had doubted their own eyes and had shut their ears to the wisdom of God that flowed freely from the lips of Jesus.

It was the sin of people who forgot their responsibility. After the privileges of so many wonders, the people showed no responsibility. The greater our privileges have been, the greater our work is and the greater will be our condemnation if we fail in our responsibility.

It was a sin of doing nothing; a sin of inaction and absence of deeds. The sin of these cities was a passive behavior. According to Jesus, even the ungodly people of Tyre and Sidon would have responded with repentance at the His works and words. They would have shown the sincerity of their repentance by putting on “sackcloth and ashes” like the Ninevites did at the preaching of Jonah the prophet (Jonah 3:5-10).

Jesus statement was a blow to the Jews. To even be compared to Gentiles was degrading, but to suggest that the Gentiles in some way had more perception than the Jews was unthinkable to them. Jesus goes even further when He says, “But I say to you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you” (v. 22). Jesus is clear. Ungodly pagans will be in hell, but the worst judgment is reserved for religious hypocrites who have had the full light of God’s revelation in Jesus Christ.

This is somehow the modern situation of the Church today. There might not be hostility to Christianity. But blank indifference is worse. In many situations, Christ is relegated to the ranks of those who do not matter. This is how Christianity is killed now. Plenty of people have rejected the light of God’s truth, and many more will do the same.

Many people reject the light of God’s truth. The full revelation of that truth was seen in Jesus Christ and is now recorded in its entirety in both the Old and New Testament Scriptures. All who sit under its preaching have the light of truth shined on their life. And unless they respond with repentance to the message of Christ, then they will be judged in hell based on the extent of their rejection of Him.

While the Word of God brings light and life to those who respond to Jesus Christ in faith, it is also the basis of judgment for those who reject Him (John 3:16-21). Therefore, it is a damning thing to sit in church or in a Jewish synagogue week after week pretending to be religious. It is dangerous to read the Bible and neglect its clear message in favor of your own personal theology.

You heap guilt on yourself when you read the Word of God or hear it communicated plainly and yet turn a deaf ear to it. This is also true when you see testimony of a godly life in a true believer and write it off as fanaticism. Pagan ungodliness is terrible, but religious hypocrisy is the worst. It is for certain that there will be varying degrees of punishment in hell as this passage and others indicate (i.e. Luke 12:47-48), but everyone who suffers eternal punishment will suffer because they did not respond to the light of God’s truth with repentance.

The gospel challenges us to make a proactive response to God’s presence in our lives. Let us not waste such blessing and opportunity. Let us be vigilant in identifying concrete manifestations of His presence! A good opportunity to ask ourselves: How do I react to God’s message in my life? How do I live my baptismal engagement? How do I appreciate God’s work in my life and in the life of my brothers and sisters?