Woe To You
- Deacon Dan DeLuca
- Sep 30, 2022
- 4 min read
Woe To You! Could there be any more frightening words uttered by Jesus than woe to you? These words should give us all pause. They should force us to stop and really listen to what our Lord is saying in these passages: what he is saying to us. On this feast of St. Jerome, a man who devoted his life to the scriptures, let us unpack what the Lord is saying in today’s Gospel.
Woes to Unrepentant Cities
“Woe to you, Chorazin! woe to you, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. But it shall be more tolerable in the judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you. And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? You shall be brought down to Hades. “He who hears you hears me, and he who rejects you rejects me, and he who rejects me rejects him who sent me.” Luke 10 : 13-16
Scriptural Analysis
To understand today’s passage, it is important to place it in its context. At the start of tenth chapter of Luke, Jesus appoints 70 disciples and sends them out two by two. He instructs them on how they are to carry out their ministry. At the conclusion of those instructions he tells them what they are supposed to do if a town refuses to receive them. Jesus also warns those town what would befall them if the rejected his message:
But whenever you enter a town and they do not receive you, go into its streets and say, ‘Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off against you; nevertheless know this, that the kingdom of God has come near.’ I tell you, it shall be more tolerable on that day for Sodom than for that town. Luke 10 : 10-12
Chorazin and Bethsaida are two towns that did not receive Jesus’s message and thus, at the start of the Gospel for today, we see Jesus pronounce judgment upon them. These towns have not repented in response to his ministry. Jesus goes a step further in his pronouncement and compares Chorazin and Bethsaida to Tyre and Sidon. These are Phoenician cities from which people had come from to hear Jesus speak. In the past, these towns had oppressed the people of Israel:
“What are you to me, O Tyre and Sidon, and all the regions of Philistia? Are you paying me back for something? If you are paying me back, I will requite your deed upon your own head swiftly and speedily. For you have taken my silver and my gold, and have carried my rich treasures into your temples. You have sold the people of Judah and Jerusalem to the Greeks, removing them far from their own border. Joel 3 : 4-6
They said that against them had gathered together men of Ptolemais and Tyre and Sidon, and all Galilee of the Gentiles, “to annihilate us.” 1 Maccabees 5 : 15
Jesus states that, under the same circumstances, receiving the same message that Chorazin and Bethsaida had received, Tyre and Sidon would have responded. They would have put on sackcloth and covered themselves with ashes. Sackcloth and ashes are traditional signs of repentance seen in the Old Testament, “Then tidings reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, and covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.” (Jonah 3:6) Because of their openness to the message of Christ, their judgement will be less.
Jesus then turns his attention to Capernaum. The people there were amazed by the works of Jesus and tired to keep Jesus from leaving. Yet, they must have also not repented and shown true faith. That will cause them also to receive judgement. Jesus’s response to them parallels the Prophet Isaiah:
You said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; above the stars of God I will set my throne on high; I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will make myself like the Most High.’ But you are brought down to Sheol, to the depths of the Pit. Isaiah 14 : 13-15
These three woes show just how high the stakes are. Rejection of Jesus is not a decision free of consequences. He clearly tells these three towns what awaits them.
Daily Application
Jesus pronounces three Woes in today’s Gospel passage. These woes should cause us all to stop and consider, could we be the 4th? Jesus brings his message to all of us. He offers the free gift of himself to all of us. He offers it: he never forces it upon us. It is up to us to decide if we are going to accept his message or not. However, he also lets us know what awaits us if we don’t. It is very much like a doctor telling a patient how to get healthy and warning them of the consequences if they fail to follow their instructions. The patient has a free choice to listen or continue in their unhealthy ways. We have a free choice to listen to Jesus or continue in our sin knowing full well, what the consequence of our choice is.
Additionally, we need to consider even if we have not outright rejected Jesus, have we truly accepted his message? Note the imagery that Jesus uses, sackcloth and ashes. This is the image of one who has received the Lord’s message and is truly repentant. They have taken the message of Jesus to heart. Have we done the same? That can be a hard question to answer. One possible way of determining that is to look at our life. Does it resemble the life the world tells us we need to live? If so, then perhaps we have not truly taken Jesus’s message to heart. The life of a disciple should look different: our lives should look different.
Today’s Gospel is clear. We can either follow Jesus or we can reject him knowing what that rejection leads to. We have a free choice to make. If we make the right one, Jesus will welcome us into the kingdom. If we make the wrong one, then we shall hear woe to you!
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