How to Rejoice in the Prophetic Promise of Jesus
Advent 3A  |  Matthew 11:2-11

Last week, we met John the Baptist in the wilderness, proclaiming repentance. Now we jump forward; John is in prison and Jesus is out proclaiming the Good News. And when word of this work comes to John’s cell, he’s . . . surprised, isn’t he?

So what exactly has Jesus been up to?

Well, mostly preaching and healing. Chapters five through seven are one long sermon, called the Sermon on the Mount. Chapters eight and nine are mostly healing stories and exorcisms involving all kinds of people. And chapter ten has Jesus bringing the Twelve together and naming them apostles. He grants them remarkable authority and power to heal and proclaim the Good News themselves. Then he predicts the coming persecution and division.

What of this confounds John the Baptist, exactly? Makes him skeptical? He is, afterall, the one who spoke of the Messiah’s purifying and winnowing. 

If I had to hazard a guess it is the trust in the apostles. And perhaps a preoccupation with healing and restoring and not nearly enough army-building and springing friends from prison.

Division

Of course, John was the one who, last week, snapped at those Pharisees and Sadducees who joined the masses in repenting of sin. So I doubt he’s opposed to division within the mission of God. Or maybe he expected the Messiah would beat them into submission or win them over. But instead, Jesus is too busy healing people, including gentiles. Maybe Jesus is too soft.

Soft like royalty. Like those leaders in the Temple. Not like John, the wild-eyed prophet, who stalked the riverbanks and drew the people from their safe homes out to the middle of nowhere on a promise. Salvation. God’s love.

Jesus assures them there is much he has in common with John. This is the straight line from prophet to Messiah that they all had thought. Not by saying “trust me” and then explaining it. Laying it out in a theological argument. But he invites them to see it themselves. To open their eyes to the fruit that God has brought forth through him. In his work. See it for themselves. Report that back. He draws them in as witnesses. They can see. And share. Like apostles.

Offense

Then it comes as a throwaway — a most important claim: 

“And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.”

These are the stakes of listening to him. Blessing. And dare we say, Joy? Blessed in hearing him, believing him, knowing him. In sharing the Good News. Blessing and joy and love.

Who would take offense? Those quick to abandon relationship. Or demand comfort for themselves. 

Who is offended today? And what do they do? Do we name the problem and seek resolution? Sue for libel? Use power to silence? What are we saying when we are offended? Or implying? Do we lose touch — end the relationship? 

Or is it that Jesus is speaking to something more significant than mere offense? Consider the direction Jesus goes next: he asks what the crowds expected to see when they went out to see John in the wilderness. Did they expect him to be shaken by the wind, moved by the pressure of the powerful to be silent? Did they expect him to look like the Temple authority in the soft royal dress of the powerful? Jesus is pushing on their expectations. 

Jesus has already told them to witness what they have seen. He is calling them to be witness to something even greater.

Stumbling

The NIV translates that same line as:

“Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me.”

That hits way different, doesn’t it? Offense is too easy for us, I think. Our culture has a pedantic relationship to being offended. Too easy to slip into partisanship.  But the voice these different translations offer is something more connected to this discipleship moment that Jesus offers to these followers of John. Blessing is about seeing the signal through the disorienting noise. It is about carrying on in the midst of deep struggle. In short, it’s about John’s perseverance. And his disciples doing the same.

What is noticeably absent from Jesus’s list of blessing from the Messiah: a statement that the imprisoned shall be set free. Jesus isn’t sending John a promise to bring a righteous army or that he’ll be taking the crown from Herod and using his commutation power.

John is going to have to tough it out.

What a strange message of joy, huh? Hey, friend, sorry I can’t help! Just keep on keeping on! Thoughts and prayers, my guy!

The Reed in the Wind

Like John, Jesus is a reed facing the wind. We don’t blame the dead leaf ripped from the tree for its own being carried by the wind. It’s the wind. How could it not be taken from the tree and blown onto the grass?

And yet we expect the Messiah to not only stop the wind from blowing, but make it blow at our neighbor’s leaves. As if this is the nature of wind. Or messiahs.

The message to the crowds isn’t about the wind, but the resistance to it. The image of standing up to the pressure rather than embracing the safety of the powerful.

And we might hear this the way John’s disciples would, with disappointment, or, hopefully, with grace and comfort. That we, too, can open our eyes to see the grace that is around us. That God is at work in our world. That we, too, are witnesses to it. 

Just in case we’re missing the point: Jesus assures the crowd that none of this ought to diminish John’s place in the story. He was the herald of joy. The greatest to grace the earth. That means he is amazing! And that makes him nothing compared to what the Kin-dom offers. The Kin-dom is that much better than this. Where he marks the greatest among us. We should be excited by this prospect. That the lowest bar in God’s Dream for creation is the greatest among us now.

You know, those expectations of the wind? That Dream is how it moves in the other direction. Not because the Messiah tells it to — though it seems he could — but because, in God’s Kin-dom, that dream for creation, we will build a windtunnel that blows our oppression away.

Perseverance and Joy

We get these difficult messages now because this is the season when we face them in the church. When the church gets its most prophetic. It names the challenge of the world and says Yeah, this — this isn’t the best we can do. And it sure doesn’t reflect our love or our faith in God.

And yet, we also get the message of perseverance. A message of sticking with it. Being full of the love of Jesus here, in spite of the challenges we face. Because the work isn’t much work when it’s easy. We need to be at it when we and the world most need us to be at it.

There is joy and security in this. In following Jesus’s Way of Love during times of turmoil. To be needed. Loving the unloved and rejoicing at the grace of God. 

There is joy here. Like when things are rough and I call my parents, hoping for a good word, something. They’re hundreds of miles away now. They can’t snap their fingers and fix a thing, no matter how much they might want to. But I call and I enjoy my time with them and feel their love, and their delight fills and renews my heart. Let God do that for you. Like we can do the same for each other.