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The Questions for Advent
Matthew 11: 2 – 11 |
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Summary
Four Questions for Advent “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” Now why would none other than John the Baptist ask such a question? Isn’t this the same John who in Matthew 3:11 said that Jesus is the “one who is more powerful than I,” the one whose sandals he is not worthy to carry? Isn’t this the very same John the Baptist who said of Jesus, in John 1:32-34 “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on Him ... this is the Son of God”? “Are you the one who is to come,” he asks now, “or are we to wait for another?” Is this the same John? Well, hard as it may be to think it, it would appear that John was beginning to have some doubts. That would have been understandable enough. He is the one who bore witness to the coming Messiah, and what did it get him? Now he’s in prison, with no rescue in sight. According to Israel’s understanding, the coming Messiah was supposed to be a fierce warrior who — in the very words of John the Baptist — would “baptize ... with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will ... gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” In Matthew 3:11-12. If Jesus is “the one who is to come,” John may have been thinking, what am I doing in prison? “Are you the one who is to come,” he asks, “or are we to wait for another?” And what is Jesus’ answer to that question? Jesus does not answer the question directly. The followers of John the Baptist ask Jesus, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” And Jesus’ answer is: You are going to have to figure that out for yourselves. What is it you’ve been hearing and seeing? Look! Listen! And then go and give John your answer! Looking for something else Jesus then turns to the crowd surrounding him and starts asking more questions. What did you go out into the wilderness to look at? What was it you were looking for? What was it about the life that you were leading that was so inadequate that it drove you out into the wilderness to look for something else? What was that something else that you were looking for? Did you find it? And this brings us to our questions for today. I believe that there are at least four questions to consider during Advent. Those questions are: 1. What do you hear? 2. What do you see? 3. What was it you were looking for? 4. Have you found what you’re looking for? But the main question, the question that forms the other four, is Why are you here? What did you come here, to this church of Jesus Christ, to see? What brought you out of your comfortable home, out of your warm bed, early in the morning of what for many of you may be your only real day off? Why are you here? What did you come here to hear and see? What is it that you are looking for? Are you looking for a political leader? Are you looking for a great general? Are you looking for someone who will turn stones into bread? Are you looking for someone who can leap off tall buildings and float safely to the ground, uninjured? Are you looking for a conquering hero that you can get behind, on a roll to take over the world? Jesus himself says that you’re out of luck if that is what you’re looking for. That is not what he came here to do. That was what people were looking for at the time, and that is what many are looking for today — a conquering hero, a warrior, a general. What many people of Jesus’ time wanted was someone who would gather a revolutionary guerrilla army — as David did — and kick the Romans out of the Holy Land. That was what the Messiah was generally expected to be. And with his divine gifts and graces, Jesus could have done that. He could very well have taken to the hills of Judea with a hardy band of loyal retainers and started a guerrilla campaign, as David did against King Saul. He could have started out small, with hard-hitting, small-scale raids and ambushes against Roman targets. He could have lived off the land and taken advantage of the sympathies of the people, as Lenin and Stalin and Mao and Ché and Castro and so many others since have done successfully. He could have slowly grown a revolution that would have evicted the Romans from the Holy Land. He could have been king by the time he reached 40. That is what many of the people wanted. Jesus chose not to conform to that expectation. He chose to be a different kind of Messiah, bringing in a different kind of kingdom. A different kind of kingdom At that time there were a lot of desperately poor people, a lot of hungry people, a lot of oppressed and angry people who felt beaten down and deprived by the government. They wanted a hero who could turn stones into bread, who could dazzle and awe with great deeds of power. Jesus said, “Sorry. That’s not what you’re going to get from me.” Jesus had learned early on in his career that that kind of power comes from Satan. Jesus just wasn’t going to give the people what they wanted. He knew it. He knew that many would turn away from him because of that. That is why he says, in verse 6 of our passage for today, “Blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.” Jesus chose not to be the kind of Messiah most people wanted. He chose not to be the conquering hero who could, zap, make things happen with the flick of his hand. His power was the kind of power that works slowly over time, healing the sick, bringing sight to the blind, making the deaf hear and the lame walk, and raising the dead — slowly changing hearts and changing minds, nonviolently. His power was not the kind of power that catered to the rich. His was the power that reached out first to the poor, the despised, the rejected, those whom society regards as of no account. Jesus brought them Good News: They were just as good as anybody else. People were expecting a kingdom of God that was like David’s or Solomon’s in all their glory, a kingdom that would elevate Israel to the place of Rome. As Matthew relates it, what Jesus actually came to bring was a kingdom of heaven, a community of people who put God at the center, and that shook out to be a different kind of kingdom. “What did you go out into the wilderness to look at?” Jesus asks the crowds. You didn’t go out into the wilderness to look at the reeds blowing in the wind, or to see royal robes and courtly splendor. John was no political reed blowing with the wind; nor was he a court lackey dressed up in finery. John was a prophet, a prophet of God. Indeed, Jesus says, he was more than a prophet. He was Elijah, for those who have eyes to see. John was indeed the one who came to prepare the way for the coming king, the Messiah of God, the one who would bring the kingdom of God that will have no end. Finding Jesus Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another? What is the answer to that question that the Good News according to Matthew gives us? That answer is — Yes! Jesus is indeed the one, and, for those who can see it, the proof lies in the actions reported to John: Those who were blind, now see; those who were deaf, now hear. The lame walk, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news — good news! — brought to them. What are you looking for? What is it that you came here to see? Did you come to see the word of God made flesh? Did you come to see God at work in this ho-hum world of ours? The world does not have good news for the poor. The world tells the poor that they are nothing if they don’t have money, the finest clothes, the latest in state-of-the-art everything. What does Jesus have to say to them? Where are the sick being healed, the afflicted being comforted? That is where you will find the Messiah. Go and tell John, and anyone else who will listen, that God is with us, not in spectacular acts of generalship and magic, not in mighty works, but in simple gestures of healing and hope. Go and tell that to the world — and you may suddenly find Jesus right there beside you! |
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