The scriptures say, “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for.” Really? Just how does that work again?
Do you ever have doubts? Do you ever wonder what its all about? What’s the use? Why bother? When I was in my last year of seminary, a dear friend of mine, Tony - a dear friend of all of ours - died very suddenly from lung cancer, which had only been diagnosed four days earlier. Ironically, I found myself in Pastoral Care class that day, and the professor sat us all in a circle and sort of burst out, saying, “If I didn’t believe in the resurrection, I would just pack up my bags and go home right now.”
So much for professional detachment, I guess, but her words spoke more than what she actually intended to say. She doubted. Just like Job doubted when his life fell apart, just like we all doubt when one bad thing after another falls on top of us. Is there really a God out there watching out for me?
John the Baptist’s question was no less of a doubt than that. The same John, who cried out to the people who had come to be baptized by him in the River Jordan, “I baptize you with water, but there is one coming who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”
I don’t know about you, but I always picture Billy Graham when I read things that John the Baptist says. John boldly preached the coming Messiah. He went out into the wilderness and did all his weird and crazy things because he knew that only a radical life would attract the attention of the people, which is what Jesus did as well.
This same John the Baptist, who reminds me of Billy Graham, is now in prison, awaiting his own execution for crimes of heresy committed against the Jewish culture. While he’s there, he manages to get a message out to Jesus, “Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?”
I stood up for you, Jesus; I took a fall for you, and now I want to know that it was all worth it. You really are the Messiah, right? This wasn’t all for nothing? I’m not going to be put to death by my enemies for nothing?
You know, I looked through my files the other day to see if I had ever preached on this passage before. As it turns out, I have not, and I think I know why. This is not an easy question to ask, or to admit to asking. To admit that we have doubts is one thing, but to bare our vulnerability to one another is extremely uncomfortable.
John was desperate. According to Israel’s understanding, the coming Messiah was supposed to be a fierce warrior who would cleanse the land and drive out the infidel Romans. Jesus didn’t seem to be doing that. In fact, it appears, upon my own reading of the gospels, that John is more evangelical than Jesus - at least in the early days.
“Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?”
What are we waiting for, this Advent, this Christmas? What are we expecting? Who do we want in Jesus Christ? And how will we react when Jesus doesn’t live up to our expectations? It’s a terrible thing when someone has to die three months before they graduate from seminary, after struggling to overcome chronic depression, after working so hard to achieve a goal that, as Tony believed, God himself called him to?
The year before I entered the seminary, another tragedy struck, which shook everyone to their core. I only met the fellow once, but he was one that everyone respected, everyone turned to and thought very highly of. One day, however, he sent his family back to Dubuque ahead of him from the church where he preached on Sundays, a couple of hours away. Later that afternoon, a ruptured gas line ignited in the basement of that house that completely blew it apart. There was almost no doubt about it - he committed suicide in that parsonage.
Doubt can lead to despair, and despair can lead us to make some powerfully unfortunate decisions. I don’t know what was going on in this person’s life, but all was not well with his soul.
I sense a little of this desperation in John’s plea to Christ: “Are you the one who was to come?” He’s at the end of his life, and he knows it. But Jesus does not answer him directly. Instead he says to John’s disciples, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor.”
In a very gentle, positive way, Jesus is saying to him, “Take a look around you. What do you see? There are signs everywhere pointing to the work that I am doing among the people, work that give the people hope.”
Now hope is what Advent is all about. Expectation is what it is all about. But what is it that we hope for? What do we expect? If we expect Jesus to make all of our dreams come true, then we are looking to the wrong Messiah. Jesus didn’t come here to save our bank accounts, he came to save our souls.
When my friend Tony died, I wasn’t able to see him, it happened so quickly. But when I met with him before he went into the hospital, I knew that he had found what he was hoping for. Tony didn’t have to ask John the Baptist’s question, because the Messiah that he knew and loved was one who had given him hope, and courage, and love. Great miracles had happened in Tony’s life and Tony recognized them for what they were, signs of Jesus Christ.
Life gets tough sometimes, and at those times we can feel so alone, so vulnerable. But we are not alone, not ever, and Christ remains with us to strengthen us in our vulnerabilities. “My grace is sufficient for you, my power is made perfect in weakness (2 Cor. 12:9),” says the Lord.
John needed to know that he was not alone, and Jesus responded to that need with compassion and understanding, but also with truth. Sometimes we need a change of attitude, and at some of those times we need others to help us to change our attitude. But sometimes that’s all we need to be able to regain that sense of hope and expectancy that we had somehow lost ahold of.
Our lives are full of bad things, evil things happen to us everyday. But our lives are full of good things too. They are filled with the signs of the presence of God.
Jesus then turns to the crowd surrounding him and returns questions with questions. “What did you go out into the wilderness to look 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?”
The thing about Jesus is that he is not what we expect. Jesus is not what we are looking for. Jesus is not even what we want. He is what we need. He is here for us, and he is also coming for us. Amen.
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