As John’s disciples were leaving, Jesus began to speak to the crowd about John: “What did you go out into the desert to see? A reed swayed by the wind?” – Matthew 11:7

So, Jesus is talking about his cousin, John the Baptist, whose disciples have come to Jesus to ask a question, and as I’ve read this before, I’ve wondered:

What’s the point of this phrase, “a reed swayed by the wind”?

I was pretty sure it was a 1st century Hebrew idiom of some sort, kind of like me saying that Jack bit the dust to someone who didn’t know that to “bite the dust” is an idiom for dying and not literally supplementing one’s diet with dirt.

Well, with thanks to Dr. Ron Moseley’s Yeshua: A Guide to the Real Jesus and the Original Church, I now understand the point of Jesus’ comment.

The reference to a “reed blown in the wind” is taken from a popular first century parable, still recorded in Jewish literature, of the Reed and the Oak:

A reed and an oak tree were both planted by a river. When a storm would come and winds would blow, the strong roots of the oak tree would hold it fast and keep it from blowing over. The reed, on the other hand, would twist and bend with the wind to keep from being blown over, even in a light breeze. However, if the wind was sufficiently strong, the oak tree could be blown over, whereas the reed would still be protected by its bending in the wind.

“OK,” you say, “that’s nice, Chris, but what’s the point?”

The oak tree is like a man who is firm in his faith (well rooted), and unwilling to forsake his roots to bend to the cultural pressures to conform, even if it will cost him his life. Conversely, the reed is like a man who is wishy-washy and conforms to every cultural whim, even when the cultural forces are not very strong.

Jesus’ point is “Did you expect a strong-rooted prophet like John to be a wishy-washy compromiser?”

And so, from knowing the Hebrew roots of this simple passage, my own life has been enriched, as I can now ask myself:

Am I an oak or a reed…?