Matthew 11:
2-6
Here we have
John the Baptist; Prophet extraordinaire, Identified by Jesus as Elijah, the
one who has come to prepare the way of the Lord, one of the first people to who
really knows who Jesus is. He is Jesus’
cousin. He baptized him in the Jordan
River, saw the dove and heard the voice of God declare that Jesus is God’s son,
the beloved. Of all people, John should
have a very clear and unwavering opinion about who Jesus is….
And yet, we
see him now, in prison. He has spent his
whole life calling people to repentance and speaking truth to power and now he
is paying the price. He may have gotten away with calling the Pharisees a
“brood of vipers” but he can’t get away with telling Herod he is an
adulterer. This wilderness wanderer who
ate locust and wild honey and lived his life with the broad expanse of stars as
his ceiling is now chained to the wall in the damp, dark dungeon prison cell
and what he was once so sure of…. He now doubts.
This isn’t
what he expected would happen. He was
doing God’s will after all. He preached
the coming messiah, the one who would challenge the worldly powers, separate
the chaff from the wheat…. John is wheat, Herod is chaff right? So if Jesus has
come, if the messiah has come, then why is John in prison and Herod celebrating
with his new wife? It doesn’t make
sense!
So John
sends his disciples to Jesus to ask point blank: “Are you the one who is to
come, or are we to wait for another?”
Who can
blame John for doubting? Most of us have
been there, maybe we are too embarrassed to say it out loud, but we have been
there. Maybe you have always been
“good”. Following all the rules, never
questioning authority, you’re in church every week and then… the promotion you
have been praying for doesn’t come through and instead you lose your job, the
doctor calls and the test came back positive, the white picket fence life you
always dreamed of comes crashing down around you…We all have our prison
experiences… we all have our moments of doubt…. It is a natural part of the
journey of life and faith.
We have an
expectation of life that is imbedded in us from an early age. An idea of what we think life will be
like. We have a sense of fairness,
justice, right and wrong and we feel like if we keep up our end of the bargain,
God will too!
These are
our misguided expectations of what Jesus is supposed to do. Jesus is supposed to be on our side, fit in
our box, answer our prayers, bless us, make our lives easy. John had them too. He thought Jesus would fit in his box and
that the changes he was predicting would come immediately.
Jesus did
turn the world upside down, just not in the way John expected. In the narrowness of our vision we, like John
often miss the true character of Jesus.
So John
wants the same answer from Jesus that we do…. Are you really the Messiah? Are
you really the one who will save humanity?
Have I wasted all my time and prayers on a figment of my
imagination? Jesus are you really my
savior?
Jesus could
have answered with a simple Yes but, when we are in the dark, damp, lonely prisons
of our lives we need more than just words.
How many of you, during a crisis has been told- everything will be OK, It’s
part of God’s plan, Jesus loves you, it will all work out for the best?
I have to
admit I have probably been guilty of saying some of those things before. It is easy to give rote responses when we
don’t know what to say or we don’t know what it is like to be in another
person’s shoes and although it may be true, these words are just words.
As good
intentioned as they are, when someone is deep in doubt and uncertainty, they
don’t really help. What they need is to
see and experience the presence of Jesus and to remember when Jesus has been an
active force in their lives and those around them.
I know Jesus
is real. Not just because this book
tells me so but because I have seen him, I have witnessed his miracles and I
have felt his presence, both personally and through the lives of others.
Jesus is
sometimes easier to see during this season of Advent and Christmas. As many people spend this time of year
putting change in the Salvation Army kettles, packing food boxes for UCM,
singing Christmas Carols, spending time with friends and inviting those without
family to share the lonely holidays together but God also shows up in other
ways all year around.
And when
Jesus shows up it is often in ways and places we don’t expect.
One example
of this is Pearce, a little girl I used to work with. She died this week, exactly two months shy of
her third birthday. To an outsider, that
seems devastating, and it is, but this child and this family have experienced
first-hand the love of Christ. While she
lived a very short life, she is actually a miracle baby. Like most parents I am
sure her mother was full of excitement and expectation until the doctors told
her the baby she was carrying would never survive. She was diagnosed with a condition called
anencephaly, meaning she had little more than a brainstem. Before she was even born hospice had been
called. Her coming home clothes were to
be her burial clothes but at birth she chose to breath, then eat, and fill her
diaper… all things the doctors said she would never do.
She became
the love of Christ to her family.
Teaching all that met her and some that never knew her, unconditional
love, joy, what it means to believe when everyone else doubts, milestone after
milestone, adversity after adversity met repeatedly by smiles and laughter,
love, family, and faith. While the days
of darkness and doubt will come, they will be able to look back and remember
that Christ does exist in the miracle of the baby they were told they would
never get to hold.
Words are
just words. Jesus can say he is the
messiah all day long but the proof is in our experiences both the expected and
the unexpected. While John’s disciples
ask a direct question they get anything but a direct answer…. Jesus tells them-Look
around you, what do you see, feel, hear, and experience? The lame walk, the blind see, the lepers are
healed, the dead are raised, the good news of love and grace is preached to the
poor, the hungry are fed and a little girl lived. See these things then ask yourself, Is Jesus
real?Faith is not an intellectual decision we make. We can study the words in the Bible. We can tell other people what we think the words in the Bible mean. We can give them a Bible to read for themselves but what makes Jesus real and the words in this book mean something is what we feel and what we experience as we encounter Jesus in our lives. This is how we know Jesus is real.
This is how we know Jesus is who he says he is. This is where we turn when we face doubt and this is who we show others as they seek to discover who Christ is in their lives.
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