Matthew 11:2–15

Advent 3

Theme: Rejoice; the gospel is preached to the poor.

²Now when John heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, he sent word by his disciples

³and said to him, "Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?"

⁴And Jesus answered them, "Go and tell John what you hear and see:

⁵the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them.

⁶And blessed is the one who is not offended by me."

⁷As they went away, Jesus began to speak to the crowds concerning John: "What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind?

⁸What then did you go out to see? A man dressed in soft clothing? Behold, those who wear soft clothing are in kings' houses.

⁹What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet.

¹⁰This is he of whom it is written, "' Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way before you.'

¹¹Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.

¹²From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force.

¹³For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John,

¹⁴and if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come.

¹⁵He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

Garrison Keillor ends his radio program by saying that all the children of Lake Wobegon are above average. Fictitious or not, there is some truth in this. Every parent’s child has hidden talents waiting to be discovered. Our job as parents is to recognize their abilities and help them to perfect them. Without a sense of who they are and what they can do, they will not have the confidence to reach the goals they have set for themselves. Many people lead nonproductive lives because they do not have a goal. Very few of us achieve all our goals, but by accomplishing some we have the satisfaction that we have done something with our lives.

One interesting experiment was telling children with ordinary abilities that they were quite intelligent, and soon these children outperformed what was expected of them. If there was ever a man who could have a sense of himself from the time he was born, it had to be John the Baptist. His birth was announced by an angel. Then when Zechariah learns that he and his wife were going to be parents, he falls into unbelief. As a sign to Zechariah, God took away his ability to speak. Not until he named his son “John” did he regain the ability to speak. John’s birth was a miracle. His mother was in her seventies when she conceived. Today, fertility experts can make it possible for a sixty-year-old to carry another woman’s child, but she cannot conceive her own child. The miracle of a woman giving birth long past the childbearing age was God’s way of saying that the child was going to be special. God did the same thing with Abraham’s wife Sarah when Isaac was born. God also performed a miracle so that Hannah could conceive and give birth to Samuel. And has there ever been a more miraculous conception than that of Jesus himself? Great people in the Bible are often conceived in a miraculous way as a sign that this person is destined to play a special role in God’s kingdom.

When Zechariah regained his ability to speak, he sang a hymn that even today we still use in the order of Matins, the Benedictus: “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people.” In this song, Zechariah spoke of how their child would prepare for the way of God on earth. From his childhood, John knew that he would go before the face of the Lord to prepare his way. He would begin to lead the people out of darkness by bringing them to Christ. John’s life was shaped by the stories of his birth. He knew who he was and what he was going to do. John had a sense about himself. He knew he was not simply another child, but the one whom the prophet Isaiah called the “voice crying in the wilderness.” Valleys would be lifted up and mountains lowered to prepare a level road for the promised Messiah. Jesus said that John was that Elijah whom Malachi foretold would return. John would stand on the edge of darkness pointing the people to the dawn coming from Christ, the Sun of Righteousness. God chose John as the watchman on Zion’s walls to signal the coming of a new day.

John’s sense of himself as a child was confirmed by his success as a preacher. He was so eloquent that some thought he was the promised Messiah. Even though he made it clear that he was not Christ, he was the last prophet that God would send, the one who would identify Jesus as the Christ. It was John who pointed to Jesus as the fulfillment of the Old Testament. God used John to bring the old era to an end.

As it often happens, though, children who grow up without life’s ordinary disappointments often have a difficult time dealing with setbacks later in life. It can become a crisis when we are not chosen for the team or the band in high school. We might be unprepared to deal with the disillusionment of not getting the job we want. Healthy people often cannot come to grips with old age. Setbacks can be devastating for those who have traveled a smooth road through life. This might have been true of John as well. This man had such a miraculous birth, he was foretold of by the prophets, he was God’s last prophet, and an eloquent preacher. Now, in his mid-thirties, his success had been exchanged for a prison cell. Not because he had done anything wrong, but because he had done everything right. The man who preached that the Christ would release captives from prison was now in prison himself. The man who pointed to Christ as the light of the world was now sitting in a dark prison cell. It is not difficult to understand why John started to have his doubts about Jesus.

We know that even for us believers life can become so miserable that, like Job, we begin to doubt if God really cares for us. We may even go to the extreme of doubting that God even exists. In John’s case, the question was if Jesus really was the right person. “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?” John, who had pointed to Jesus as the Messiah, now toyed with the idea that he may have made a mistake. If Jesus was not the Christ predicted by the prophets, then John’s ministry was a total waste.

John was having a crisis of faith. We too sometimes suffer from such a crisis in faith and doubts. Satan never leaves us Christians alone, but each day he works harder to take us away from Christ. John was no exception. A large segment of conservative Protestantism holds that believers will never lose their faith. They claim that those who lose their faith never had faith. The cliché is “once saved, always saved.” Wrong! For us Christians, there is never a time when our faith is not on the edge of unbelief. It is only the Holy Spirit through the Word of God that preserves our faith.

Still, John’s doubts do not detract from his importance or his greatness. Jesus calls him the greatest man born of woman. So how did Jesus answer John? Instead of giving a direct answer, simply saying yes or no, he points to his miracles. A miracle is always a good solution for unbelief—or so we think. Nearly every pastor has heard people say they would believe if only Jesus did a miracle. But for those caught between faith and unbelief, there are no miracles. There are only suffering and trials in life, just as John only had a prison cell and an execution to look forward to.

For John there was no miraculous escape from jail. Jesus didn’t send an angel to spring him. He had only the words of Jesus: the blind see again, those who are paralyzed walk around, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are brought back to life, and the poor hear the Gospel. John is like us. His faith could not be based on miracles that Jesus did in his life, not on some theology of glory, but on the words of Jesus, just as our faith is based on the Apostles words about Jesus’ death and resurrection. Jesus is not found in spectacular deeds, but in the suffering of a cross. Jesus is not found in miraculously giving us a life of ease and comfort, but in our suffering and our trials.

Let’s take a look at what Jesus said. Consider the order of the things he says. The first things Jesus mentioned were restoring sight and hearing, straightening out crooked bones, and curing leprosy. These are certainly difficult things to do. But the next item in the sequence, raising the dead, is impossible. These signs fulfill the prophecy of Isaiah 35 to demonstrate the Jesus is indeed the promised one. But most important of all, more important than all these physical miracles, is that the poor have the gospel preached to them.

No miracle will release John from prison or save him from execution. He wil find his joy in that his sins are forgiven in Christ—this is what it means that the poor have the Gospel preached to them. Faith feeds not on miracles but on the Gospel. Faith is in the forgiveness of sins. Faith is based on the one miracle of Jesus that far exceeds all others: that by dying on the cross he washes away all our sins. In spite of how glamorous any other miracle might be, even his resurrection, there is no miracle harder to perform than to wash away my sins. It is the gospel, the good news, that proclaims to us the forgiveness of sins and inspires and creates faith in us. Faith that overcomes all other obstacles in life. Faith that finds a sure foundation in Jesus Christ when life’s storms toss and pummel us. Faith that keeps us afloat when the waves of life rise up and come crashing over our heads. Faith that gives us joy in times of sorrow and grief.

Of the entire list of miracles, it is this last one, that good news is preached to us, that prevails over all afflictions. It is this one that procures salvation and eternal life for us. It is this one that fills our hearts with joy because the “good news” that is proclaimed is “the power of God unto salvation to all who believe it.” It is this hope and this joy that sustains us through the trials of life. Faith is not just some warm, fuzzy feeling, it is the assurance of things not seen. It is the assurance of forgiveness and salvation even during times when we cannot see salvation. Even in times of suffering, times of hardship, times of grief and times of pain, faith is the assurance of God’s love and protection and care. Faith rests on the word of God, the good news, the historical fact that Jesus died on the cross and poured out his blood to wash away our sins forever.

This is what Jesus meant when he said that there is no one greater than John the Baptist, yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. This seems a contradiction. How can he be both? What Jesus says about John is also true of Jesus himself. For Jesus made himself the least. He had no place to rest his head, even though birds had nests and foxes had holes. Jesus made no claims on God. In the sight of God he was the poorest of men. He was the lowest in heaven because he took our sin upon himself; he became guilty of our sin; he suffered in every way that we suffer; he was abandoned by his own Father on the cross; he died and was buried. But Jesus was also the greatest of all. He was also raised from the dead and exalted. He ascended into heaven and sits on the throne. He was both the least of all men and the greatest.

Then are we not also both? Are not all who believe in Jesus the poor, who by faith are joined to Jesus and his poverty? Are we not in our baptism slain and put to death? Do we not all drink the cup of human suffering? Yet at the same time we are also the greatest of those born of women. For in our baptism we are also joined to Jesus in his resurrection and exaltation. We are raised to eternal life. Therefore, Rejoice in the Lord always! And again I say rejoice! And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy that will be for all the people.” What was that good news of joy? It was that unto you is born this day, in the city of David, a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. A Savior who will save us from sin and death. A Savior who will die for us so that we might live forever.

Jesus ends his answer to John with this cryptic message: “Blessed is the one who is not offended by me.” Only the one who takes Christ at his word regardless of life’s circumstances will receive the blessedness God has promised in Christ. in God’s plan of salvation, we, like John, have our purpose as Christians in bringing others to Christ, but, like him, the only promise we receive is that our sins are forgiven. God calls us to himself, and we fulfill the purpose God gives.

Amen.