Matthew 11:2-11
Advent 3
December 15, 2019
When
John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by
his disciples and said to him, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or
are we to wait for another?’ Jesus answered them, ‘Go and tell John what
you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the
lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have
good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offence at
me.’
As they
went away, Jesus began to speak to the crowds about John: ‘What did you go out
into the wilderness to look at? A reed shaken by the wind? What then did
you go out to see? Someone dressed in soft robes? Look, those who wear
soft robes are in royal palaces. What then did you go out to see? A
prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is the one
about whom it is written, “See, I am sending my messenger ahead of
you, who will prepare your way before you.” Truly I tell you, among
those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist; yet the
least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.
Advent is a journey of hope. We
are three weeks into the season and there is a clash between hope and
expectation. They are not the same thing. One of the Advent hymns speaks of
Jesus as “our hope and expectation,”[1]
but one is not the same as the other.
We expect what we have experienced
before. If you are here on Christmas Eve, you can expect to sing “O Come, All
Ye Faithful,” “Joy to the World,” and “Silent Night,” what we affectionately
call “The Big Three.” We have heard them before. We expect to hear them again.
If you are the kind of person who takes
a pro-active approach to getting Christmas gifts, you have every reason to
expect no surprises. Just make a list of size, color, and website address of every
preferred item, then distribute the list to family members. That’s how
expectations work. No surprises.
In our household, we expect to
sleep in on the morning of December 25th, especially now that the
kids are grown and gone. We expect them to show up around 11 for brunch, open
some gifts, maybe catch catnaps on the couch. Sometime around 3pm, I will slice
chicken, peel shrimp, cut up vegetables, and make a feast of Thai food. Our family
has done this a dozen times. They expect it and it will happen.
How different this is from hope!
Hope is greater than expectation. The range is deeper, wider. Christians hope
for the world to be saved, even if we’re still waiting for it to happen conclusively.
We hope for Christ to appear again, even if we cannot expect how or when he
will come. Some Christians hope in what they cannot yet see.
There is hope, and there is
expectation. John the Baptist sits in a prison cell and hears what the Messiah
has been doing. He has been preaching the hope of the Messiah. What he hears is
not what he expects. He said the Messiah would chop down every unproductive tree
and throw it into the fire. But Jesus doesn’t even have an axe. He must have
given that up when he left the wood shop.
John said the Messiah would come
with the burning fire of justice. He would baptize with the purging flames of
God. But so far, John hasn’t seen so much as a flicker or caught a whiff of
smoke. When is the fire coming? Or the winnowing fork? Jesus is not at all what
he expected.
Now, if he had been paying attention,
perhaps he would have noticed some clues. John took an ascetic approach,
fasting from fat foods and living with discipline. He expected the same of
anyone who followed him and waited for the kingdom of God. By contrast, the
disciples of Jesus lived unconstrained lives. They ate and drank like everybody
else.
So John’s followers went to Jesus
and said, “How come we fast all the time, but you and your followers do not?” Jesus
smiled and said, “There’s a party going on. Don’t you see?” No, they didn’t
see. John had taught them to turn their back on the world, and Jesus was
embracing it. (9:14-17)
Another time, John got in trouble
for denouncing Herod Antipas, the local ruler and son of Herod the Great. He
was an unsavory character who got rid of his wife and married his half-brother’s
wife. John was furious. He bellowed so loudly in the wilderness that Herod’s
new wife said, “You have to shut him up or shut him down.” So Herod put him in
prison, which is where today’s story takes place.
By contrast, Jesus didn’t preach
against a public official. Not directly, and not like that. Given John’s
pursuit of purity as a precondition for God’s Kingdom, no doubt he wondered why
Jesus didn’t speak up about such things. So he wanted to know: are you the One
who is to come, or should we look for another?
There is evidence that John
influenced Jesus. When Jesus started preaching, he began by using John’s same
sermon: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” But while John remained
in the desert, Jesus left the desert behind and traveled among the villages.
John Dominic Crossan, the
historian, suggests this might have been a significant difference between the
two. He says, “John the Baptist had a monopoly, while Jesus created franchises.”
Now what does that mean?
Well, John took a cue from Jerusalem,
where the one and only temple was established. In that time, if you wanted to
purify your sins or offer a sacrifice, you went to the Jerusalem Temple. It was
the only show in town, the one place where you could interact with the Lord of
Heaven. It was the monopoly.
John appears in the wilderness and
preaches the kingdom is near. Get ready. Scrub your soul. Get your sins washed
away. And if you heard the message and wanted to do that, you had to leave
where you were and go where John was located. He was the prophet, the
forerunner of the kingdom, the monopoly of expectation. You went out to the
Jordan River. That’s where he was.
Meanwhile, Jesus didn’t sit still.
He moved around. He went to this village and cured a man who couldn’t see. He
went to a synagogue in another town and cured a man with a withered arm. Then
he went to the seashore and fed five thousand people. Then he rode in a boat to
another town, cured a wild man and let the demons kill some pigs, and then said,
“Don’t tell anybody,” which is precisely the way the word spread.
Everywhere he went, Jesus started
another outpost of grace, one small kingdom franchise after another. John didn’t
understand. How could he? He expected a big, dramatic event – a large scale Day
of the Lord. What Jesus created was a movement, one soul at a time. How are you
going to usher in the Kingdom of Heaven if it’s one person at a time?
Are you the One who is to
come, or should we look for another?
That is John’s question.
When he reflects on this passage, scholar
Dale Bruner focuses on the work Jesus was doing while John was in prison. The
miracles happened in the outlying areas of Galilee, out in the sticks, what
Bruner likes to call “northern Idaho.” You might expect the Messiah to go to the
city, to do something big, to make a lot of noise, to set up golden flares and get
some attention. That’s not the way he works.
As Bruner notes, Jesus has not yet
attacked the evil forces of the reigning political or economic powers; he
simply picks up the pieces left by those evil forces. Some would deride this as
“an ambulance ministry, picking up the crushed victims of evil structures but
failing to combat those evil structures themselves.”[2]
The Christ simply drives around in his
ambulance, healing this person, restoring that one, lifting up this one. For now,
it seems that is the work he does.
John expects something bigger.
Something grander. Something louder. He wishes his hands were unshackled, because
he’d really like to scratch his head. Are you the One who is to come, or
should we look for another? The question is still a live one.
It lies at the heart of our Gospel expectations.
Back when I was new in pastoral
ministry, I found myself surrounded by religious prophets like John. These
zealots were fired up on the great issues of the day. They were going to
eliminate nuclear weapons, to the glory of God. They were going to create enormous
programs to eliminate hunger in the world. These friends would create rallies,
go to the Capital, preside over an exorcism of a tank, preach in the words of
the prophet Amos, denounce global greed and international indebtedness. Their
passion was stirring.
That was thirty-five years ago.
These days, most of those friends have left the Gospel ministry. A good number burned
out. They couldn’t sustain the large-scale passion. They tossed in the towel.
Or like John, they lost their heads.
And do you know who is still
staying at it? The pastor of an 80-member church in a town nobody can find,
preaching every week, making hospital calls, and taking casseroles to the
homebound. He isn’t trying to change the world. No, but he’s part of a movement
to give sight to the sightless, open ears of those who haven’t been listening,
lift up those on weary legs, welcome home the leper, and preach Good News to
people who would otherwise not get any good news. People like him offer hope through expressions of mercy.
I used to read this story and
think, “Why is John the Baptist missing the point?” I’d kick him for a while
and say, “Why don’t you get it?” Then it struck me one day that few of us
really get it – and the reason why we don’t get it is that it’s so easy to
miss.
Hundreds of years before Jesus, a
prophet named Zechariah foretold a future savior: “Rejoice greatly, O daughter
Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Look, your king is coming… He will cut
off the chariot from Ephraim. He will cut off the war-horse from Jerusalem. He
will cut off the bow and arrow, and command peace to the nations.” Now, listen
– that’s the kind of king we need. Nobody is going to push him around. He has a
lot of power. He has a lot of authority.
And Zechariah says, “Look again!”
Here comes your triumphant king: he is humble and riding on a donkey. He is not
riding the white horse of battle. The victorious king rides on the foal of a
farm animal.[3]
It’s no wonder that people trickle away when Jesus rides into the holy city. They want power and
military might; instead they get Jesus.
In my devotional reading last
week, I found a few lines from J.B. Phillips. He gets right to the heart of why
it’s so easy to miss that what we’re looking for is already here. He writes:
What we
are in fact celebrating is the awe-inspiring humility of God, and no amount of
familiarity with the trappings of Christmas should ever blind us to its quiet
but explosive significance. For Christians believe that so great is God’s love
and concern from humanity that [God] himself became a [human being]. Amid the
sparkle and the color and music of the day’s celebration we do well to remember
that God’s insertion of himself into human history was achieved with an almost
frightening quietness and humility. There was no advertisement, no publicity,
no special privilege; in fact the entry of God into his own world was almost
heartbreakingly humble.[4]
No wonder John doubted. God’s
entry into the world was so quiet that even Jesus’ favorite preacher wasn’t
sure it had happened. Before we criticize John for that, take note that this is
how Messiah comes to us: not among the high and mighty, although he is
certainly capable of it. No, he shows up among the disappointed, the misfit,
the infirmed, the poor, and those who limp. This is where the good news in
announced. This is where the Christ breaks in.
And if that is so, maybe we can
look at Christmas differently. Maybe we thought Christmas is God’s gift to us. What
if we could make Christmas a gift for somebody else?
In some quiet way, in the name of
the Quiet Christ, go out of your way for somebody else. Invite into your home
someone that you would rarely think to invite. Build into your family
celebration somebody who isn’t related to you. Go down to the hospital or the
nursing home and visit somebody. Make a generous gift to people who have far
less than you. Put on a funny hat and sing joyful songs at the dreary shopping
mall. Take some joy to somebody unexpected. Let hope be born through your works
of mercy.
In the quietest of ways, God
entered his own world in the birth of Jesus. Jesus grew up to continue the
quiet workings of grace. In the power of his resurrection, he continues hie
work, though largely unrecognized. What the world needs most is already here. Hope
is already among us. And hope is best received by those who see what others
overlook.
(c) William G Carter. All rights reserved.
[1] “Rejoice,
Rejoice, Believers,” 4th stanza
[2] Frederick
Dale Bruner, The Christbook: Matthew 1-12 (Waco: Word, 1987) 409-410.
[3]
Zechariah 9:9-10
[4] J.B.
Phillips, “The Dangers of Advent” in Waiting
for the Light (Farmington
PA
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