Luke 10:21-24 – 7/4/2026
Luke 10:21 (NRSVue)
At that very hour Jesus rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.
Jesus has sent out the disciples to heal and minister to the towns of Israel, and they have returned ecstatic that “even the demons submit” to them. Jesus too is thankful for the disciples ministry and return. He begins by thanking the Father for hiding the message from the “wise and the intelligent” and revealing it to “infants.” Jesus’s point is that the message of the Gospel is not something that one comes to by great learning or through the wisdom won by the experience of a long life. The gospel is revealed to infants in that it is something one grasps intuitively, independent of learning or intellect.
This makes intuitive sense when attuned to the basic core of the gospel message that Jesus offers. Love God and others, and follow me. Loving others and following, these are things that children are good at, loving comes naturally, and they need someone to follow since they cannot take care of themselves. The wise and the learned are a different story. Love comes with more difficulty the more one knows of the world, at least initially. What came like second nature to the child, to be fare and to help those in need gets diluted with other considerations for those who are “wise.” The same goes for following; while the child must follow, the more “wisdom” one has, the more it feels like it is necessary to go one’s own way.
The key to following Jesus for those who are not children is to remember and take on some of those traits of a child that make following Jesus a simple matter for them. Give up pretension to knowing what is best in all situations and do not ignore that impulse to love that remains from childhood. One of the foundational tenets of Lutheran theology is that the intuition that we know how to make our own way in the world is an illusion. We need others to do so, we need to follow the example of love when our own love falls short.
Revised Common Lectionary Readings for 7/4/2026:
Zechariah 4:1-7
Luke 10:21-24
Psalm 145:8-14
Reflections of a Dionysian Lutheran, comments on the daily readings of the Revised Common Lectionary by Justin Marquis
Dionysus on a Bike 
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