"For a child has been born for us, a son given to us." Pauline Buisch asks, why highlight the king’s infancy? Why would an oracle about a coming Davidic king feature language of birth and sonship? Why, as it were, is a baby at the center?
Perhaps we could say that what the Baptist said does not matter as much as the fact that he said it, how he said it, to whom he said it, in whose name and by what authority he said it, and at what cost he said it. Perhaps what Jesus says about his own good works and about John’s confrontation with the authorities, even if it hardly amounts to a political philosophy, is what the Church needs to sure of before it can have a political philosophy. Perhaps if we have a problem with Matthew 11 it is that it just too clear and simple to be ignored.
