Advent
3
Mt
11:2-10
12/17/23
Last
Sunday’s Gospel lesson talked about Christ’s return on the Last Day. We learned that it will be a dramatic event
that no one can miss. From other texts
in Scripture we know what will accompany our Lord’s return. He will raise the dead. He will pronounce the final judgment, and
those who have rejected him will be consigned to eternity in hell. He will transform creation and make it very
good once again.
So
what if the One who brings the Last Day arrived … and things still looked like
this? What if you thought the One had
arrived and things didn’t look any different?
Worse yet, what if you personally experienced a great injustice that
brought suffering?
That
is the situation that John the Baptist finds himself in this morning. He believes the One who brings the Last Day
has arrived. Yet nothing seems to have
changed. And in fact, his own situation has gotten much worse.
John
the Baptist burst onto the scene and was instantly the object of
attention. John came preaching in the wilderness of Judea. He wore a garment of camel's hair and a
leather belt around his waist – he dressed in a way that recalled the prophet
Elijah.
John had a clear and direct
message. He proclaimed: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at
hand.” John announced that God’s reign
was about to arrive. In order to prepare
for this, people needed to repent.
John called
people to repentance, and he did something very unusual. He baptized people. Now ritual washings were very common in first
century Judaism. But John’s was unique
because it was not self-administered.
Instead, he applied it to others.
People submitted to his baptism in an action that demonstrated their
repentance in preparation for the arrival of God’s reign. Matthew tells us, “Then Jerusalem and all
Judea and all the region about the Jordan were going out to him,
and they were baptized by
him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.”
John proclaimed that God’s reign –
his kingdom – was about to arrive. And
he left little doubt what this meant. He
declared that an individual was coming.
He said, “I baptize you
with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier
than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with
the Holy Spirit and fire.” John
proclaimed the coming One, and announced that he would bring the final
judgment. He declared: “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.”
The coming One showed up in a surprising way. He came to be baptized by John. Jesus received John’s baptism and then began
his ministry. Matthew summarizes this by
saying, “And he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues
and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease
and every affliction among the people.”
Jesus began his ministry as he worked miracles by healing
the sick. Meanwhile, John continued his
ministry. John was a prophet, and like
the prophets of the Old Testament he spoke the truth of God’s word to everyone
– including the powerful. King Herod
Antipas had divorced his wife in order to marry Herodias. Herodias had been married to Herod’s brother
Phillip, but she divorced him. John
condemned the sin by Herod. Herod Antipas was king. So he decided to show John who was boss. He had John thrown in prison.
John sat in prison.
He heard reports about Jesus’ miracles.
And he was deeply confused. This
wasn’t what was supposed to happen. If
Jesus was the coming One he had proclaimed, why wasn’t he bringing God’s
judgment? Why hadn’t the Last Day arrived?
Why was someone like Herod Antipas still in power? Why was John, God’s
prophet, in prison?
John didn’t understand.
So from prison he sent disciples to Jesus with the
question, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for
another?” Jesus replied: “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.”
Jesus’ words summarized his miracles. But they did so by drawing upon language from
the prophet Isaiah about the end time salvation of God. Our Lord’s answer was that yes, he was the
One. His miracles bore witness to the
salvation that had arrived in him. Yet
then Jesus acknowledged that things did not look like John expected. He said, “And blessed is the one who is
not offended by me.”
During Advent we prepare to celebrate the birth of Jesus
Christ. We are getting ready to remember
that the Son of God entered into our world.
But when he did so, it was not as a powerful king. He did not come bringing fiery judgment. Instead, he was born as a helpless baby and
placed in a manger. He entered in humility
because he had not come to bring God’s judgment. Instead, he had come to be judged by God.
When Jesus was baptized by John, the Holy Spirit descended
upon him in the form of a dove and God the Father said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom
I am well pleased.” These words from
Isaiah chapter 42 identified Jesus as the Servant of the Lord. At his baptism Jesus took on the role of the
suffering Servant. Christ took his place
with sinners in order to suffer and die for us. He received God’s
judgment against our sin as he died on the cross. He did this to rescue us from God’s judgment
on the Last Day.
Jesus’ death looked like defeat. It looked like failure. It appeared that God had abandoned him. But Jesus passed through death because God
was working in him to defeat it. On the
third day God raised up Jesus. He raised
Jesus as the second Adam in whom the resurrection of the Last Day has
started. Because Jesus has been raised,
death cannot hold onto our bodies. They
will be raised and transformed to be like our Lord.
Jesus told John the Baptist that he was the coming
One. His miracles demonstrated that he
was the presence of God’s reign that was overcoming Satan and sin. But Jesus added: “And blessed is the one
who is not offended by me.” Our
Lord acknowledged that things did not look like John expected. He told John to have faith that God was at
work in him.
Our Lord’s words speak to the situations that are present
in our lives. The world describes this
time leading up to Christmas as the “season of joy.” But maybe you aren’t feeling so joyful right now. Maybe there are real problems in life. Perhaps you are dealing with chronic or even
life threatening health problems.
Perhaps you need to find a job, or are not happy in your current
employment. Perhaps there are tensions and problems in your family.
These things can make us wonder: “Is this what it is
supposed to look like when the kingdom of God has arrived?” They can make us
doubt that God really is at work in our life.
They make us want to ask Jesus, “Are you the coming One, or should we
look for another?”
Jesus brought God’s
reign in a way that John the Baptist did not expect. He did it through the
humiliation and suffering of the cross.
He did it by working in the midst of a sinful world, not by destroying
it.
But the truth
of his saving work has been demonstrated by his resurrection from the dead. Jesus brought God’s reign by freeing us from
sin and defeating death. We know this
because of his resurrection. Christ’s
resurrection is the great “Yes!” that God has spoken in answer to his promises.
Because of the resurrection we now know that God’s saving reign has arrived and
that the final victory will be ours.
We now see
everything in light of Jesus’ resurrection.
His resurrection is the guarantee that we are saved. His resurrection tells us that God’s love for
us is certain and sure. His resurrection
gives us hope because we know that the final victory will be ours. His resurrection enables us to live by faith,
trusting in the love God has given us in Christ Jesus.
We live by
faith in the risen Lord. To sustain us
in faith, Christ has given us his gifts.
He gives us the proclamation of his word as the Holy Spirit uses these
words to strengthen us. He gives us Holy
Baptism for there we have shared in the saving death of the risen Lord. He gives us the Sacrament of the Altar where
Jesus offers us his true body and blood as food for the new man.
Our Lord
sustains faith so that we do not take offense at the present
circumstances. Instead, we recognize
that we are the dearly loved children of God.
We live with confidence knowing that we already have eternal life now
and that the final victory of resurrection on the Last Day will be ours.
This faith moves us then to look beyond ourselves and our own situation. We have received God’s love in Jesus Christ. Now, that love moves us to help and assist others. Who in your life needs support, encouragement, and care? How can you assist your family members, friends and co-workers? God has called you to faith so that this faith may be active in serving others. God has blessed you so that you can be a blessing to others.
In our text,
John the Baptist faces a situation that does not match his expectations about
how God is going to work. He asks, “Are you the one who is to come,
or shall we look for another?” Jesus answers that, yes, he is the
presence of God’s reign bringing salvation. And he adds, “Blessed is the one
who is not offended by me.”
Our experience
in a fallen world is often one of hardships and difficulty. But Jesus’ death and resurrection is the
demonstration of God’s love for us. His
resurrection gives us hope in the midst of all circumstances. We know that our sins are forgiven. We know that God loves and cares for us in
the present. And we know that we will
share in the final victory on the Last Day.
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