Wow! I am blown away by Ellicott’s Commentary on Luke 7:18-22
Are you the Messiah?
Had mists of doubt crept over John’s clear conviction that Jesus was the Messiah?
John wanted the lightning; Christ told him that the silent sunshine exerts energy, to which the fiercest flash is weak.
We need the lesson, for we are tempted to exalt force above love, if not in our thoughts of God, yet in looking at and dealing with men; and we are slow to apprehend the teaching of Bethlehem and Calvary, that the divinest thing in God, and the strongest power among men, is gentle, pitying, self-sacrificing love.
The deepest meaning of the answer is that love, pity, healing, are the true signs, not judicial, retributive, destructive energy.
