Jesus, aware as ever of the long stories of God’s people and the ways in which those stories were expected to come true, knew as well as any trained teacher of the law that one of the great things Israel had to do so that God would launch his great renewal movement, his new Exodus, was “to turn,” to repent, to turn back from the evil ways of the heart, and to turn instead to God in penitence and faith. That’s what Moses himself had said in Deuteronomy 30. Jeremiah and Ezekiel had made the same point. This was how it would have to be: when the Israelites had hit rock bottom, then they would
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Jesus was fulfilling the Exodus story, especially by requiring repentance among all, incl the lowly tax-collectors. The angels celebrated while the chief priests and scribes lookes down thwir noses.
