Sermon, December 16, 2001
Third Sunday of Advent, Year A 
The Rev. Lowell E. Grisham
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas

Gospel – Matthew 11:2-11 Jesus’ message to John the Baptist in prison

John the Baptist had remarkable insight. It was he who first recognized the significance of Jesus of Nazareth. "I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. ...The one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God."

That was some time ago for John. Now John languishes in Herod’s prison. But he had seen and recognized the Messiah. And with that vision came the breathtaking hope that all of the promises of the prophets would soon be fulfilled. John had preached like a prophet about the one who was to come. "He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire." John preached to those who were to receive judgement from the coming Messiah. "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? ...Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire."

But that was some time ago for John. And now he languishes in Herod’s prison and wonders. Was I right? Did I really see the Messiah, or must our tired people wait even longer for another to come? From the dark questionings of his prison cell he sends his disciples to ask: "Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?"

Jesus’ answer. "Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me."

I believe that answer caused John an incredible crisis of faith. In his last confined days, John had to reexamine his whole understanding of God, his lifetime of interpretation of scripture, and even his own message that he was now imprisoned for proclaiming. Jesus’ response must have shaken John to his core.

John believed the conventional teachings about the Messiah. He knew the scriptures; he knew the expectations of his people. The Messiah, the scriptures told him, will come with might and power. The Messiah will liberate Israel from her oppressors, and he longed for freedom from the cruel occupation of Rome. The Messiah will cleanse his people from their corruption and apostasy. Those who have not followed God’s laws rightly will be punished. The morally vile will be exterminated, the religiously compromised and indifferent removed and the nations judged. Mount Zion will be raised above all kingdoms and the nations of the world will do homage there. Finally, Israel’s enemies, God’s enemies, John’s enemies will be punished. Then will come an era of peace. The desert will bloom, the broken will be healed, the lion and lamb will lie down together, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away. Jesus’ answer does not fulfill John’s expectations. Where is the judgement? Where is the vengeance?

When Jesus sent his answer to John, he went to the Messianic prophecies of Isaiah. These are prophecies that John knows well. Isaiah 29 tells how the blind will receive sight and the neediest shall exult. Isaiah 26 declares that the dead shall live, their corpses shall rise. Isaiah 35 prophesies that the lame will leap the blind see and the deaf will hear. And Isaiah 61 brings good news to the oppressed. But as Jesus affirms each of these ancient Messianic dreams, there is a deafening silence around what he does not say. From each of these revered passages of scripture, Jesus begins or stops his recitation just one verse away from a prophecy of punishment.

The next verse in Isaiah 29 is about eliminating tyrants and scoffers and evildoers. The next two verses in Isaiah 26 tell the good people to hide from the wrath and punishment of God. The verse right before where Jesus begins in Isaiah 35 cries, "Here is your God. He will come with vengeance, with terrible recompense." And the next verse in Isaiah 61 proclaims the "day of the vengeance of our God." Jesus has picked through the Messianic words of Isaiah to raise up the hopes of healing, but he totally ignores the expectations of judgement and punishment.

Now there is a dilemma for John. Where is fire and the chaff? Where is the winnowing fork and ax? He has seen the Messiah with his own eyes. He has taken the ancient prophecies of scripture and proclaimed them over this man Jesus. And now, only part of what he has been taught; only part of what he has believed; only part of what he has read in scripture is being offered to him as evidence for his hopes. What is he to think?

If he stays attached to his thoughts about the Messiah, he will die without really seeing Jesus as the Christ. But if he surrenders his thoughts about the Messiah, a new hope can be born in him, a hope for a Messiah who comes with healing and peaceful power, without vengeance and judgement. His dilemma is made even more personal for what else Jesus has passed over from the tradition. John heard in Jesus’ words the echoes from Isaiah 61. He heard what was said, and what was not said. "The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the broken hearted." And that’s where Jesus stopped. The next unspoken word of Isaiah’s prophecy would have meant so much to John. "[He has sent me] to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners." That’s what Jesus didn’t say.

No vengeance. No judgement and punishment. No fire and winnowing and ax. And no escape from this prison. Can this be the message from the Messiah? And yet John remembers the vision from long ago. Oh, so long ago it seems. And there is still much to be thankful for – the blind, the lame, the leper, the deaf, the dead, and the poor. What is John to think?

His condition is not unlike ours. Many of us grew up with images of God, expectations of scripture, and conventional teachings that no longer seem persuasive. Will we cling to old thoughts about God or will we open our hearts to grow beyond the limits of our inheritance?

Also, I believe every person has had an experience of the reality of God at some moment in our lives. The face of a child, the sound of a song, an intuition of truth, a moment of deep love, a sense of profound peace. All of us have known at one moment or another the transcendent reality of the presence of the divine. But our thoughts and expectations can confuse us. And sometimes the church and what it teaches only adds to the confusion.

Like John, at sometime in our life, most of us will have to renounce some thoughts about God in order to embrace a deeper and greater reality of God. God is ineffable. God is mysterious. Maybe God is more wonderful than our imagination, or the imagination of the prophets can even endure.

So that’s where we are left this third Sunday of Advent. John must face with courage his life in this prison without promise of release. And, he must decide whether his experience of intuition was really true. Did he really see the Messiah at the Jordan River? And, if he did, he must give up his hopes for his nation’s vindication, for retributive justice, for a God of punishing wrath. He’ll have to re-think what he’s been taught, what he’s learned from scripture. But, in the darkness of that lonesome cell, don’t you imagine there was some fire after all? Don’t you imagine a spark of light truly flamed in his heart? Don’t you imagine he felt something self authenticating in those remarkable words? "Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me." Don’t you imagine something deep inside of him said, "Yes!"

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