An Uncertain Prophet

Advent 3A; Isa 35:1-10; Matt 11:2-11; St. Paul’s Smithfield, NC 12/11/2016

Jim Melnyk: “An Uncertain Prophet”

John the Baptist is unsure.  John the Baptist, the person whom Matthew likens to Isaiah’s “voice crying in the wilderness,” suddenly finds himself lost.  John is one of the central figures in half of our Advent stories every year – he’s the one who baptizes Jesus, the one who sees the dove descend upon Jesus and hears the voice of God call Jesus the Beloved Son, he’s the man who calls Jesus the “lamb of God,” and suddenly he finds himself struggling with all that he has said publicly about Jesus since his cousin first came on the scene.  The one who once proclaimed Jesus Messiah now wrestles with doubt, and finds himself questioning all that he has come to believe – a first century prison cell can have that effect on a person.

It seems strange that someone so central to the season of Advent – the season that proclaims the coming of the Son of God – that this person comes to doubt Jesus.  How can this person, so full of fiery zeal for God –  so sure of his message that he challenges Pharisees, Sadducees, and soldiers – one so sure of his message that he dares to challenge King Herod – how could such a person come to doubt all that he had proclaimed? 

John had been proclaimed a prophet of the Most High at his birth.  He was proclaimed to be the one who would go before Messiah to prepare the way of his coming.  He was the one called to awaken God in the hearts and minds of all God’s people – a messenger of challenge and hope.  And yet we find him this morning assailed by doubt.

Advent is for us a season of anticipation and expectation – a season of hope rather than doubt.  Advent proclaims a time of change that will enlighten the hearts and minds of all God’s people – leading us into a deeper experience of God’s love.  Advent is a time when fear and hate are to be cast aside so that the love of God might flourish like Isaiah’s vision of flowers blossoming in the desert.  And John the Baptist is the great messenger of that hope. 

Yet today’s Gospel lesson tells us that even after all John has experienced involving Jesus, he is unsure. “Is this how the kingdom of heaven is to come?” he thinks.  “With prison bars and shackles, simply for my telling the truth?  Are you really the one to come, Jesus?  Did I make the right call at your baptism?  Is it you, or should we look for another?  Are you really the Messiah?   

John had been riding high on the expectation and hope of a coming Messiah who would cleanse the world from sin and oppression.  He had recognized Jesus as the one sent from God to usher in God’s kingdom.  John had felt sure of God’s saving action unfolding in history – saw himself as the herald of the coming reign of God – and now he’s sitting in prison and nothing even remotely resembling the final judgment has taken place.  There is not even a whisper of God’s mighty wrath at work.  Nothing has changed for John – that is, except for prison.

Jesus, the person whom John had proclaimed as Messiah, has shown no pretense of political action at all. There are no speeches about revolution – there are no armies – no new kingdom – there is no raging against Rome, or against those who have failed to remain faithful to their covenant with God.  Nothing close to his own message proclaimed by the Jordan River.

Not only that, but Jesus has been meeting with, speaking with, and breaking bread with the very Pharisees, Samaritans, tax collectors, and sinners that John had so vehemently denounced – perhaps some of the very people John had called “a brood of vipers.”  John’s world has been turned upside-down and all that he has hoped for seems lost.  “Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?”

Our lives seem to follow a similar pattern, don’t they?  We start out so sure of ourselves and how things will work out in life.  We grow up saying our prayers at bedtime, secure in our faith.  We may even start out believing in magic and wishing upon stars.  But then the bottom drops out on us and we begin to doubt.  It happened that way for John.  It happens that way for us, as well.  We have trouble at home, or at school, or at work, and we begin to doubt God’s presence in our lives.  A loved one gets seriously ill or dies, or a spouse or parent leaves us, our job implodes, and suddenly we’re in pain and unsure or afraid of the future.  We look all around us and see anger and hatred treated as if it’s supposed to be the new normal in our society, and we struggle with that reality.  We wonder, “Where has our sense of civility gone?”

We wonder where God is in the midst of our lives and the life of our world.  We wonder, “Are you the one to come, and what does that matter anyway?”  We wonder, “God, are you really there?  Did you really come among us?  Are you really with us now?”  We want to live lives of anticipation, of expectation, and of hope – but when it turns out differently than we longed for, we become unsure – maybe even a little disillusioned or afraid – and we begin to doubt. 

But doubt doesn’t mean our faith is gone – it doesn’t mean we don’t believe.  Rather, the exact opposite is true.  Theologian Paul Tillich once said, “Doubt is the beginning of faith.”  And theologian Frederick Buechner said, “Doubts are the ants in the pants of faith.  They keep it awake and moving.”  In the midst of our doubts we turn and ask God “why?” and even if all we can do is ask “why,” in risking that question we are carrying out an act of faith.

The Good News is that Jesus does not condemn John’s doubt.  Instead he asks that John answer his own question in light of the true witness of Jesus’ ministry.  Basically Jesus says to John,

“You have looked for a Messiah and you have found one – just not the Messiah you were expecting.  I have not come to proclaim God’s wrath – I have come to proclaim the unfailing mercy of God – even as the prophet Isaiah proclaimed.  See?  The blind receive their sight and the lame walk.  Lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear.  The dead are raised and the poor have Good News proclaimed to them.  John, your Messiah has come.  Your hope is being fulfilled.  God is present and the reign of God is breaking into this world.  Only it’s not as you expected.  John, you have not hoped in vain.  God is faithful.”

We, like John, are often filled with questions – yet God does not condemn our doubts.  Even in the midst of doubt, we are still the people of God – we are still called to be messengers of the living Christ – proclaimers of God’s reign on earth.  We are a people called to remain faithful even in the midst of unfulfilled hopes and expectations because God remains faithful, and God comes to us in ways we cannot always see and do not always expect.  God came to John in the person of Jesus with a message of mercy and love rather than a message of warring wrath, and that message of God’s love still remains valid for us – for this world – today.

Jesus asks us today, “What do you go out into the wilderness of your lives – what do you go into the wilderness of your questioning hearts – to see?” Along those same lines we might ask ourselves, “What do we come out into this place to behold Sunday after Sunday?”  My hope is that we come together in this place to behold a God who comes among us with power and with mercy – a God who comes to meet us in the midst of our doubts and confusion, and a God who in Word and Sacrament, offers us the healing and strength we need to continue the saving work of Jesus Christ in the world today.

God has come into this world in a way that not even the wisest of this world could have ever envisioned or understood – as one who welcomed the lost and the least as well as the strong and the faithful.  The risen Christ continues to come among us – breaking into our lives – in ways we cannot always understand, or at times even realize.  God is faithful.  God comes into our lives giving us power to change this world in the name of Love and in the promise of Belonging – giving us power to carry out the reconciling work of Christ.  “Come, thou long expected Jesus, born to set thy people free; from our doubts and fears release us, let us find our rest in thee” (The Hymnal 1982, Hymn 66, paraphrased).