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Matthew 11:2-11; Isaiah 35:1-10
So, there’s John the Baptist, in prison, more than a wee bit disillusioned I would think. The Empire struck back at him, one could say. King Herod and his wife, Herodias, who was also his brother’s wife, often rode past where John preached there in the wilderness by the Jordan River. There were many mansions of the rich and famous in the area overlooking the Jordan Valley. John liked to hold the two of them to account for their adultery whenever they passed. So, Herodias, not liking this prophet of God meddling in her morality, got Herod to arrest him. John was not under a death sentence, but it was for sure that he would rot in prison unless Cousin Jesus, if he was the Messiah, got on with it.
I say “if” because I think that even to John the Prophet Jesus was a bit of an enigma. Jesus didn’t live up to the expectations of what the Messiah was supposed to be. Faithful Jews were expecting an overthrow of their Roman occupiers and a clean-up of their corrupted royals and temple authorities. But Jesus didn’t fit that bill. He just healed people, had some great debates with the religious authorities, cast out demons, pronounced forgiveness of sins...and he kept company with all the wrong people (whores, revenuers, and fishermen). To the powers that he was supposed to overturn, Jesus seemed to be more like a source of entertainment and a bit of a blasphemer than the One who was to bring in the Kingdom of God; though the size of the crowds was concerning.
So, John went and did what many a pastor goes and does about mid-career when ministry hasn’t gone the way you expected. He sent out a hotline to Jesus wondering what the holdup was. You see, it’s a difficult thing to come to grips with the troubling reality that God does what God does…or doesn’t do, and it seldom is what we want and expect to happen. John sent some of his own disciples to ask Jesus, “Are you the One, the Messiah who is coming, or should we wait for another?” Jesus told them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see.” And just to make sure they got it right, Jesus gave them a list of things that he was doing, things that the prophets of old and particularly Isaiah foretold that the Messiah would do.
So…what did these disciples of John hear? In my imagination John’s disciples heard the sound of people praising God with great joy, a sound so loud that it seemed to be the voice of all creation resounding in joy at the arrival of its Saviour. If you have ever heard Middle Eastern people when worship comes on them, you know what I mean. It is emotional, loud, and powerfully joyful. If you are the type who hears the sound of colours, it was like the wanton wasteland of the dry wilderness becoming lush, breaking forth and blossoming like the dry riverbeds in the Palestinian wilderness in Spring just after the end-of-winter flooding…bright purples, pinks, yellows, whites (I’ve seen that and it’s beautiful.)
So, if that’s what John’s disciples heard, what did they see? What could have caused all that loud praising? Well, Jesus doing what God himself said he would do when he himself came to deliver not only his people but more so all of his creation from oppression by sin and death. Weak hands were strengthening. Unstable knees were steadying. Jesus was opening the eyes of the blind and unstopping the ears of the deaf. He was making the lame to leap like deer and loosing the tongues of the mute so they could praise. He was cleansing lepers and even raising the dead. Jesus was sending out his own disciples ahead of him and they did these things too as if to make a highway in the desert so that God’s people could come to him. Joy was overtaking those people. Sorrow and sighing were fleeing. John’s disciples were seeing and hearing Isaiah 35 manifesting all around Jesus everywhere he went. What better news could there be for the poor in the land than these signs of “Immanuel” – God is with us!?
Jesus told John’s disciples to go report what they hear and see and also sent them back with a little kick in the pants for John. Tell John, “Blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.” If I had to paraphrase that, it would be, “John, I am who I am and I will do as I do. I may not be doing what you think ‘God’ ought to do. But I am ‘God with you’. Keep being faithful, John.”
I can relate to John. Faith in Jesus can be quite disillusioning. We want a God who does what we think God ought to do, but God does what God is going to do in what to us seems like a test of patience as God goes about working all those things to the good for those who love him. It is especially difficult when suffering is involved. As a minister, I’ve walked with many people through some very trying and undeserved illnesses praying all the way that God would act and heal them, yet God didn’t. Instead, what God more often does is come alongside the person he’s calling home and gives peace. Instead of fear there is the peace of Christ.
When I think of the present circumstance of the world today, I get really spooked. The environment of planet earth is at the tipping point. The population of species homo sapiens is reaching the point of being unsustainable on this planet. The political and economic destabilization that has been inflicted upon the world by the last American election. The economy is great for the very rich, but the day will soon come when economic disparity will catch up with us and the Recession of 2008 will seem mild to what’s coming. I want Jesus to come and be King Jesus right now. I don’t want to live in a dystopia where billions of people starve to death and there are epidemics and wars. Then there’s the state of the Church. My outlook on life has been profoundly affected by the dramatic decline of the Church. I am not seeing the Kingdom of God grow as I hoped it would through my work.
All things considered it would be quite easy to be disillusioned with the whole God/Jesus thing. If it were not for one thing, the blatant fact that God is with us. In patience and in prayer the presence of the Lord is with us and there is a joy that comes with that. These Advent themes of Hope, Joy, Peace, Love are all the effects of Jesus being with us and he has promised to be with us to the end of the age when he finally comes. To know ourselves to be the beloved children of God in Christ upon whom he has rested his Spirit is something to be joyful about this day and always. Where the presence of the Lord is, the lame leap, the blind see, the deaf hear, the mute speak, the dead are raised. Whether literally or spiritually, where Jesus is present, healing happens; and there is the silent sound of all creation joyfully worshipping. Amen.
