Third Sunday in Advent, 12/16/2007

Sermon on Matthew 11:2-11, by Hubert Beck

Now when John heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, "Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?" And Jesus answered them, "Go and tell John what you hear and see: the 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. And blessed is the one who is not offended by me."

As 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? What then did you go out to see? A man dressed in soft clothing? Behold, those who wear soft clothing are in kings' houses. What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is he of whom it is written:

"Behold I send my messenger before your face;

who will prepare your way before you."

Truly, 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." (English Standard Version)

Have you ever considered what it must be like to be thrown into a cell of solitary confinement? On a tour of Alcatraz one is shown cells such as these. Not only were they places of isolation from others, but they were places devoid of light, of any convenience whatever. Food passed through an opening and basic toilet facilities are all that the inhabitant of such a cell can expect. I try on occasion to imagine what it would be like to live in such a cell for weeks or even months at a time.

What an impact it must make on a person's psyche! It is to return to a mother's womb without any of the life-preserving surroundings that lead to birth. Solitary confinement in its extremity is enough to destroy a person's life before it ends in a tomb-like atmosphere. Never must a person "live with one's own self" in quite the same way that this kind of an experience requires. It can drive one mad.

The Confinement of John the Baptizer - and All Others Like Him

Perhaps John's confinement was not quite as severe as that. After all, he could and did speak with at least some of those who claimed to be his disciples. So he must at least have had visitors on occasion. But his imprisonment weighed heavily upon him. Cut off from "the land of the living," as it were, he could only live in his past. There seemed little likelihood of a future for him - and, as it turned out and as you know, there was, indeed, no future for him other than the executioner's block.

So what did he live on? There was nothing but memories to live on.

Memories of parents who had placed great hope in him, e.g. Although he did not understand his father's words over him at his birth, the same words must surely have reverberated through his "growing-up years." "And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace." (Luke 1:70-79 ESV)

Did they send him out into the wilderness where he was to perform that which his father had foreseen? Or did he leave home on his own to live in the wilderness? While we cannot answer those questions, he surely knew - and he must have mulled over those wilderness days in his mind day after day in that cell.

He must have rehearsed his message over and over also. "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,' for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire." (Matthew 3:7b-10 ESV) When asked for the new directions to which he was pointing them, he did not hesitate to instruct them. (Luke 3:10-14) He had "told it like it was" to all who came out. He had even "told it like it was" to Herod, who had not come out, but who needed to hear the word of warning anyway. It was for that word of warning, in fact, that he was sitting there in the isolation of his cell. Surely he must have gone over the message day after day. Perhaps he wondered on occasion if he had overstated his case. But I doubt it. He knew what God wanted him to say, and he said it with a passion that people recognized as a godly fervor. His had been a zeal born of divine origin, and the people by and large understood that. They recognized the coming of a prophet after four hundred years of prophetic silence. They had come out in swarms to hear him. He had surely borne the voice of the Lord to all those people. But where was the Lord now as he sat in that lonely isolation of a cell because he had done his duty?

Above all, he not only had recognized but he had openly acknowledged the one in whom the people of Israel should place their hope and their trust. "He who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry," he said of the man who had appeared at the River Jordan one day, asking to be baptized. Then he added, "He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire." (Matthew 3:11, 12 ESV) He was certain that God was about to "make his move" on the earth, and he saw clearly that he was the one to announce the imminence of that move.

When Jesus came to be baptized, John insisted that he, himself, was the one who ought to be baptized, Jesus, however, prevailed upon him to merge his identity with that of all those who had come out to hear John's message, joining himself to the sins of humanity in that baptism. One of the most unforgettable moments to John followed that baptism when "the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; and behold, a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my beloved Son; with whom I am well pleased.'" (Matthew 3:16b, 17 ESV) This most assuredly was the one who would bring to bear "God's move" upon the earth with winnowing fork in hand while gathering the wheat into the barn of the Lord.

Sitting in his prison cell, however, John began to wonder whether he needed to re-examine his former expectations. Although reports were scanty and hard to come by, he never really heard anything of consequence about winnowing forks or a clearing of the threshing floor much less burning the chaff with unquenchable fire. Had he misunderstood? Was the cloud of terror still just beyond the horizon? It certainly did not seem to be hovering over the scene being reported to him. Had his message been wrong? Had he misunderstood his mission? Had he pointed to the wrong man? Had he given such passionate expression to an entirely wrong version of what God had impressed upon his mind and heart? The doubts must have mounted and overwhelmed him there in the silence of his isolated cell.

Before we go further with these ruminations, however, we do well to ask if you recognize a confinement of a similar sort in your own life - not a cell marked by iron bars or prison locks, but an occasional feeling that you are trapped by a sense of meaninglessness, of loneliness, of being cut off from everything that seems alive, of an inability to truly live in the midst of all the living that is going on around you? Do questions haunt your quiet hours - questions about past decisions, past actions, past speech - or questions concerning how to get free from a burdensome present or a misspent past in the interests of making a better future? These cells of solitary confinement are felt occasionally in every life in one form or another. Dietrich Bonhoeffer made the profound observation that sin (and all its companions) loves to have us to itself, to keep this oppressive sense of inability to be what we ought to be secret and hidden from anybody other than ourselves. Sin loves to insist that nobody else could ever understand those deep inner, hidden parts of our lives where doubts and questions concerning the possibility of ever ridding ourselves of an unwanted past trouble our very soul; where things of which we are deeply ashamed fester within us until they create a sickness that borders on - or, in fact is - a living death, a miserable cell of solitary confinement. In that cell our future seems bleak because our past has created such an impossible maze of blind alleys.

Or, if it is not our own past that haunts us (although it is hard to imagine anyone who is not so haunted at least on occasion), it may be the present that imprisons us, creating our doubts and fears and concerns. No more than a casual reading of the newspapers or a momentary ear to the radio or an eye on the TV brings to mind the questions about how God can claim to be good and upright and noble while the misery of the world seemingly goes unnoticed and unattended by him. Where is he in the midst of the refugees, the oppressed, the homeless, the orphans, the lonely, the victims of war, all the innocents who are caught in the cross-hairs of the world's terrors? If God is who he says he is - and as we want him to be, for that matter - why does he not do something? Is this, perhaps, the cell of your questions and doubts from which you send out disciples asking, "Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?" Surely we recognize John's question, do we not? If Jesus is who John said he was, then things should turn out more like John (and we) thought (or think) it should be. It is our own question spoken from the dark inside of John's cell - and the cell within which our lives are lived today.

Jesus' response

Jesus responds with what he seems to have considered a clear answer to John's question. "Go and tell John what you hear and see: the 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. And blessed is the one who is not offended by me." His response has its origin in words such as those spoken by the prophet Isaiah in the First Lesson we heard today. John knew those words and others like them, but somehow they had been twisted in the passionate will of John to bring the Kingdom of God into fruition in his own way through the ministry entrusted to him . . . by being sure that tax collectors acted justly, that soldiers should act with an understanding that their power does not give them the right to pursue their own personal interests, and that those who have plenty recognize that the privilege granted them was the occasion for charity. John's vision was that he and the one who came after him were to be Enforcers of Worldly Change. He had lost the vision of Isaiah and the prophets who pointed to a one coming through whom people would be able to see through and beyond the horrors of this world . . . to see into the world where God's grace and mercy ran deep and wide, where "they shall see the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God," to use the words of today's First Lesson. "Tell John what you hear and see."

John, however, would not live to see what lay at the root of the words he had cried out when Jesus had approached him to be baptized: "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!" (John 1:29 ESV) These same words caused two of his disciples to leave John and follow Jesus as they recognized in this "Lamb of God" the very one for whom they had been waiting. (John 1:35) Those two along with others who eventually followed Jesus saw this Lamb sacrificed on the cross of Calvary. That of which John had spoken was truly fulfilled when this one who gave sight to the blind and made the lame walk and cleansed the lepers and made the deaf to hear became, as John had rightly spoken, "the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." John expected the kingdom to come with the violence of God wrestling it away from the humans who had usurped it, with the winnowing fork and the burning of the chaff in order to gather the wheat into God's barn. Little did he expect, however, that the violence of which he spoke would be a winnowing fork in the shape of a cross and the chaff of sin would be devoured in the burning fire of blood coming from the wounds of the man to whom John sent his disciples to get clarification about what was going on in this messianic mission.

Again we must pause to address those doubts and questions that arise within the secret dungeons of our own souls. When we send our questions to Jesus of Nazareth he speaks to us as he did to John: "The 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. And blessed is the one who is not offended by me." But when, we ask, do we see these things in our day? Were we present in your day we would undoubtedly say, ‘Yes, Lord.' But where are you in our day? Where are you in the midst of our present misery? Where are the blind receiving their sight and the lame walking today?"

He might say in reply, "Where are your eyes and ears, my dear children? My body is still present among you in the church where you listen to my word, receive the pouring of cleansing waters, eat and drink the bread and wine within which I am regularly present. Though you do not see me in the same fashion that those who were with me centuries ago saw me, I am every bit as present among you today. And through this body of mine called the church eyes and ears are opened, not just spiritually, true though that is, but also very really through the many works of my children in many areas of life. Through those who serve in my name the lame do walk, lepers are cleansed and the poor have good news preached to them. Those who have lived in the death of sin are raised to a life they never thought possible. And, for that matter, I am not bound to the confines of the church, even though it is there where you discover my body in a unique way. Yet I am also in the science labs and the courts of justice and the various works of healing and sustaining life in the world itself. Even among those who make wars and send refugees scurrying and manufacture oppression beyond imagination I am present, silently and quietly changing the various courses of the world. Have you not read of the demise of that monolith known as Communism? Have you not read of the resistance in Venezuela to a life-long dictatorship? Do you see only those things that would turn your eyes and hearts to doubt and questions without also seeing the many ways I, to this day, ‘give sight to the blind and make the lame to walk'?" All this he may well say.

Still we say, "All that is well and good, and it is as you say, that there are many signs of your continuing beneficence in the world. Yet we cannot hold our tongue. We continue to point to the immense misery of the world. It is hard for us to believe that you are who you say you are, that you do what you say you do, that you will for us the good that you say you will for us. Why is it not all made right?"

"Ah, yes, my child," comes the gentle rejoinder. "Do you think that all of Galilee and Judea was healed or that all the dead were raised or that the whole of the land in which I walked was freed of its bondage to human ailments and distresses when I spoke thus to John, that ‘greatest of the prophets,' whom I affirmed to those around me when I sent those disciples back to him? I did feed five thousand one day, but fifty thousand were still hungry elsewhere. While I reassured John with signs of which the prophets had spoken, I never asked him to quell his doubts simply because of what he saw and heard, as though I had imposed upon him a certainty that would give him unquestioned confidence that I was who I said I was. What I did ask of him, however, was merely to consider that which I was doing, recognizing in those signs the fulfillment of prophetic anticipation concerning the Messiah, and then to continue faithfully being what the Spirit had made him to be - a man of God who stood by the word that the Spirit had given him. I gave him my word as the word in and through which his word, even in confinement, could be anchored. That is what I gave him. Nothing more. Through it his questions and doubts received a renewed base from which to continue his journey toward death. I did not, however, open the gates of his prison as he may have wished, nor did I press for a Herodian amnesty in his behalf, as many may have thought I should do. I stood quietly by, in fact, while his head was handed over to Salome. Do you expect more of me than that which I gave to John through his disciples? It is in the midst of death that I bring life! The shadows of death remain, but I bring life to those who would come out of those shadows.

Jesus For Us

We cannot deny that we still would like to see all the deaf healed, all the lame walk, all the sick healed, all the injustice dealt with, all the poverty overcome, all the refugees housed, all the misery of the world laid to rest. In short, we would like the Kingdom of God to come now, in this place, in this time, in an unmistakable way so that we can truly say "yes" to all this, to believe that God is totally for us. We cannot deny it. John's question remains our question: "Are you the one to come, or shall we look for another?"

If the Kingdom of God were to come in that fashion, though, we would no longer have to believe that God is totally for us. Then we would see that God is for us. Trust is not an issue when we see that for which we long. There is no need for faith when sight is that evident. "For we know in part . . . but when the perfect comes the partial will pass away. . . . For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known," Paul wrote. (I Corinthians 13:9-12 ESV) Peculiarly enough (from our point of view) the one thing God wants of us is to believe in and trust him in the very face of all those things that would create doubt and confusion and questions. From his point of view, he gives us his word and that is enough. As James puts it in today's Second Lesson, "Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains. You also, be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand." (James 5:7, 8 ESV) That is another way of speaking about faith. As the farmer trusts that God will so govern the sowing of the seed and its growth out of the ground, so we are to trust that God's mercy and grace govern the course of even the desolations around us.

To that end he directs our gaze time and time again to that cross raised up on Calvary. Surely the question raged among those who loved the one who hung there, "Where is God while this travesty of justice, this terrible outrage is taking place right before our eyes? How can he be the one who was to come? Must we now look for another?" At the moment nobody could see through that time any more than John could see past his prison cell and the reports he heard about Jesus. The death of the one who healed the sick, caused the lame to walk, and preached peace to the poor was unthinkable. Yet it was precisely there, beyond their sight, to be sure, but very really there, where the chaff of sin was being burned away and where the winnowing fork was preparing the grain for the Father's house. The moment was not even entirely clarified three days later when the risen Christ appeared among them. Their confusion was immense, although it was becoming more and more clear that God had, indeed, worked a marvelous thing among them through this man, crucified and risen from the dead, who now made himself known in the breaking of the bread.

It was another fifty days before the Spirit came with power at Pentecost and Peter could speak with a mighty voice concerning this Jesus whose life, suffering, death and resurrection was "for us." In and through him the deaf heard and the lame walked, for he who had died had been raised up and seen among them. John would have leaped for joy, would he not, had he lived to see this day? From that time on, though, all the energies of the Holy Spirit raced through the world. And the doubting John the Baptizers were told to hear and see what God was doing among them. The questioning John the Baptizers received the word that the cells of their lives were being opened and that the isolating wretchedness of lives separated from God had been given a new hold on life. A new world had opened. A new path on the journey of life had been formed.

Do you recognize that word as being "for you"? It is the word of redemption, of freedom from the imprisonment of sin, of life made possible by the one who makes the lame walk, gives hearing to the deaf and raises the dead . . . even and especially for those who have been hurled into the cells of their incarcerating failures where they languish in what seems to be hopeless despair! The dead are raised! The prisoners are indeed released! As great as John the Baptizer was, Jesus says, "Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he." Why are we even greater than he? Because we have seen in its fullness that which John the Baptizer saw only dimly from the shadows of his cell. It is given to us to carry John's passionate message to the world: "The wheat is being gathered into the barns, for the chaff of sin has been burned and the winnowing fork has completed its task! Come to the banquet table of everlasting life! Blessed is the one who is not offended by me."

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Retired Lutheran Pastor Hubert Beck
Austin, TX
E-Mail: hbeck@austin.rr.com

(top)