At that time Jesus said, "I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.

The deep mysteries of the kingdom, of the infinite depths of God's love and mercy for us, are hidden from our own wisdom and intelligence.  God's ways are not our ways.  Our wisdom and intelligence applies notions of our own system of punishments and rewards to God.  It seeks to find evil in others for the purging of our own guilt.  This is even disguised under the cloak of righteousness as with the woman whom the crowd wanted to stone.  But sinners belong to Christ alone and so he claimed her for himself.  And we, when we sin do we think of God as one who wants to stone us?

These verses come after some powerful examples of punishment in chapter 11.  But the evil which Jesus decries is the evil of refusing to listen and respond to him even though we hear him.

We must never consider ourselves lost if we repeatedly turn to repentance when we fall.  Our own wisdom and intelligence can't make sense of God's patience and mercy for us and so we fail to extend patience, mercy and love to others.  We must return today to an attitude of total trust and dependence on Christ regardless of our own sense of unworthiness before him.  He has given us work to do, work which only a child can accomplish : complete trust as we move out to live in him, to be love in him for others.