For this Third Sunday of Advent in RCL Year A, the gospel text is Matthew 11:2-11. Here’s the sermon for December 14/15, 2019.
“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near!” Many of you were here last week when we heard John the Baptist proclaim that message in the wilderness, boldly calling people to get ready, to change their ways, to re-orient their lives toward God, because the Messiah is coming!
If you weren’t here last week, or you don’t remember, let me catch you up. John the Baptist is a religious radical, a sort of fire and brimstone preacher, a strange man wearing clothes made of camel’s hair and eating locusts and wild honey. This is his life’s work, to be a prophet proclaiming God’s kingdom, preparing the way for Jesus.
Some of you were here on Wednesday, when we went deeper into John’s story and talked about the miracles around his birth, when his father Zechariah was serving in the temple and got a visit from an angel who told him his son John would be a great man who would turn many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God.
Nine months later when John was born, there was this prophecy spoken over him that he would be the one to prepare the way for the Lord, to give the people of God the knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins.
John is a man on a mission from God, boldly preaching and baptizing crowds of people. And by today’s reading, eight chapters later, he’s in prison.
What happened?
Well, being a prophet is a hazardous occupation. Calling people to repent and turn from their sin is great, except sometimes they don’t want to stop what they’re doing. And if you call someone with power to repent and they don’t like it, you can find yourself in trouble.
King Herod, the Roman puppet king who’s ruling Israel, had married his brother Philip’s wife, and when John publicly criticized him for it, Herod had him arrested and put in prison.
So now, in today’s story, Jesus is going around teaching, healing people, and beginning to attract a following, and John is languishing in prison, and he’s wondering what happened.
He’d been so certain Jesus was the one sent from God, the Messiah, the one who was going to save the world, and now he’s wondering if he misunderstood, if maybe Jesus isn’t the answer. Maybe Jesus isn’t who he thought. What if he was wrong?
I wonder if you’ve ever had similar questions or doubts? What if the atheists are right, and there is no god and we’re just deluding ourselves? What if when we’re praying we’re just talking to ourselves, just making ourselves feel better?
For some people, those questions are big enough for them to abandon church, abandon being Christian. These are real questions.
Or maybe the questions aren’t about whether or not God is real, but about whether God is good, or loving? What if you don’t believe in God hard enough? What if you aren’t good enough to get to heaven? What if you mess up one too many times?
Or, and here’s the hardest one for me, if God is good and powerful, why doesn’t God act to stop suffering? Where is God when people have strokes and die, or lose their memories and keep living? Where is God when people are shot at work, or bombed in their homes? We keep saying the light is breaking into this dark world, so why is it taking so long?
If we’re honest, I believe all of us wrestle with these kinds of questions. Faith is hard. Waiting is hard.
John’s in prison, wondering if he’s wasted his life. He called people to repent, and sure, some of them did, but look where it got him. No wonder he has doubts.
He sends his disciples to ask Jesus the question that’s at the heart of Advent, maybe even at the heart of our faith. Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another? Is Jesus really God? Does this guy who lived and died two thousand years ago have anything to do with you and me?
Sometimes, we act like doubt is the opposite of faith. We worry that asking questions means we don’t believe. But the reality is the opposite. Doubt is part of faith, because doubt means you’re wrestling with faith. Doubt is a sign faith matters.
John’s questions don’t mean he’s lost faith; they mean he’s seeking someone to trust. He’s seeking hope. His blind faith and optimism may have shifted, and in prison, who can blame him, but he still wants to believe. He’s still looking for hope. He’s still looking for God’s kingdom to come.
Look at how Jesus responds to John’s questions. He tells the messengers to go back to John and instead of criticizing him for doubting, instead of accusing him of losing faith, he says “Go back to John, and give him some hope. Tell him what you’ve seen, what you’ve witnessed.”
The blind are receiving sigh. The lame are walking. The lepers are being cleansed. The poor are receiving good news. God is moving in the world. He doesn’t say it explicitly, but John and his disciples know: This is the fulfillment of what Isaiah prophesied.
It’s true, it doesn’t look like what John expected. God’s activity rarely fits our human expectations. How often do we pray for something, and God answers our prayers, but we don’t see it until later looking back? How often do we simply miss seeing what God is doing in the world and in our lives?
We might not get as clear of an answer when we bring our questions to Jesus—in fact, we might have trouble telling if our concerns and doubts are even heard—but we have the same evidence John had.
Actually, we have even more proof, because in addition to all the other miracles John got to hear about, we have the witness of the resurrection. We have the testimony of each other, the witness of the church throughout history.
There are times when the promises of the Christian faith seem too good to be true. It sounds like a fairy tale, a dream, to talk about a world of peace. Streams in the desert, lions and lambs together, no more suffering, no more pain, no more death.
In a world where the news is full of division and fear, where we know the present realities of suffering and death, it’s hard to picture.
Are you the one who is to come? Can we believe in a God big enough, loving enough, powerful enough to bring in a kingdom of justice and peace? Can we believe this baby to be born is the Son of God? Can we believe God’s promise of salvation includes sinful people like you and me?
We wait with John for the new reality to be revealed, for God’s glory to be made plain and visible. We see glimpses of hope, flashes of God’s light breaking in, yet we wait for the fulfillment of God’s promises.
But our waiting is different than John’s, because we know how the story ends, even if we sometimes have trouble believing it. We know who Jesus truly was and is, because we know the truth not just of Christmas, but of Easter.
We know Jesus died, and we know he rose again. We know the forces of evil have been defeated, and the power of death has been broken.
No matter how dark it gets, trust that the light is coming. Come to the table and taste and see God’s grace and forgiveness. Cling to the promise of being claimed by God in the waters of baptism. Wait, watch, and listen, for the Savior is coming.
Come quickly, Lord Jesus. Amen.