What a difference eight chapters makes! Just a week ago we were in Matthew 3, standing on the banks of the Jordan. John the Baptist was in the desert, calling out for people to prepare for their coming Saviour, by turning to him to receive the forgiveness of their sins. Today, in chapter 11, John is not dining on locusts and wild honey, but bread and water. He’s not in the wide-open wilderness but confined to a jail cell. He is not powerfully proclaiming, but longing and questioning. When John, who was in prison, heard about what Christ was doing, he sent his disciples to ask him “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?”
It might be worthwhile at this point to press pause and look at why John was in prison. Had he stolen from someone, been drunk and disorderly, or assaulted anyone?
No.
The reason John had been imprisoned was because of what he had said. He had come to prepare the way for the coming Saviour, Jesus, by calling the people to repent. John had called the Roman ruler Herod Antipas to repent too; calling him out for marrying his own sister-in-law Herodias; his brother Philip’s wife. Herod actually feared John, knowing him to be a righteous and holy man, but his wife, Herodias, held a grudge against John and wanted to kill him. As events unfolded, John the Baptist would later be beheaded. (Mark 6:17-29).
Perhaps John already knows what will befall him as he waits there, bound in his cell. It wasn’t meant to be like this, was it? He had given it everything. He had gone out to the harsh, inhospitable wilderness, proclaimed a very unpopular message, and existed on the barest of essentials. He trusted God and obeyed him. He never wavered…and having faithfully done what he was called to do, ends up in a prison cell. He had stuck his neck out on the chopping block, and that would soon come to pass, literally. Had the time of God’s salvation for his people really arrived? If Jesus was the Christ, why didn’t he destroy the power of the Romans and of Herod? If he was the one to set prisoners free, why wouldn’t he release John from prison?
So John asks of Jesus: “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”—a question of deep longing, from the depths of his heart.
This Gospel reading is an unusual reading to have for the third Sunday of Advent, with its focus of joy. There doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of joy here. The first reading, from Isaiah 35, is a much more joyful picture; one of vibrant new life bursting forth from the wilderness; a new era of salvation and life and freedom…and joy. Even the wilderness will shout out in gladness as the glory of the Lord comes and they are themselves transformed by it, in this new era of salvation:
The desert and the parched land will be glad;
the wilderness will rejoice and blossom.
Like the crocus, it will burst into bloom;
it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy.
The glory of Lebanon will be given to it,
the splendour of Carmel and Sharon;
they will see the glory of the Lord,
the splendour of our God” (Isaiah 35:1-2)
The imagery of the parched land is synonymous with the spiritual wilderness of the people’s hearts—a dry, parched wasteland, devoid of any true life, righteousness, and love. It has been this way since the beginning, when God’s people were placed in a lush, vibrant, flourishing garden with abundant fare. But they turned away from God, following the devil’s temptation to become like God, knowing good and evil. Since that time, people have not known the difference between good and evil in their own hearts, calling that which is good, evil, and that which is evil, good (Isaiah 5:20).
God loves all people in the world, even though they do not love him. He revealed his good will for his people by giving them his commandments. The commandments are good, but they do not bring us any good news. They are impossible for us to keep. Just like Adam and Eve of old, we choose our way, rather than God’s way.
Today we hang symbol of commandments on the Jesse tree, pointing us to remember just how much we need a Saviour outside of ourselves; a righteous Saviour to take away our sins and give us his new life every day. In the Old Testament reading, Isaiah says:
Strengthen the feeble hands,
steady the knees that give way;
say to those with fearful hearts,
“Be strong, do not fear;
your God will come,
he will come with vengeance;
with divine retribution
he will come to save you.” (Isaiah 35:1-4)
Isaiah prophesies that it will be God himself who will come to save his people. The spiritual wasteland will burst into bloom—a picture of the Saviour bringing a great reversal of the brokenness and decay to which the creation is bound, with his transformative power and grace. Isaiah continues:
Then will the eyes of the blind be opened
and the ears of the deaf unstopped.
Then will the lame leap like a deer,
and the mute tongue shout for joy.” (verses 5-6)
Jesus is the fulfilment of this passage! In Jesus, God’s Kingdom reigns and comes to save his people. The works that Jesus does shows that God’s new era of salvation has begun. And so Jesus said to John’s disciples: “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor.”
Through Jesus, the righteous God has come to save us. He has done what is impossible for us to do for ourselves—to perfectly love God and live his way. He has fulfilled the commandments for us. He has come to give sight to the blind, make the lame walk, cleanse those with leprosy, open the ears of the deaf to hear, and raise the dead, and proclaim the Good News to the poor.
These works of healing foretold in Isaiah point to—and find their culmination in—Jesus’ greatest work of healing of bringing spiritual wholeness: life, salvation and rescue from the imprisonment of sin, death and Satan. The works of healing spoken of are all little analogies for restoring spiritual wholeness: Jesus has come to bring saving help to the people so that they shall be able to see the way of salvation in him and walk in the way of righteousness. They shall not just have their skin cleansed of leprosy, but they will have their hearts made clean and holy. Their ears will be opened to hear the Good News, and as they do they shall be raised to life in Jesus.
As John’s disciples were leaving to go back to tell John this good news, Jesus began to speak to the crowd about him: “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed swayed by the wind? If not, what did you go out to see? A man dressed in fine clothes? No, those who wear fine clothes are in kings’ palaces.”
What would be so unusual about seeing a reed swayed by the wind? The banks of the Jordan are full of them. And who would go out to a desert to see someone dressed in regal attire? They went out to see a prophet—indeed, the last in the line of the prophets; the forerunner to the Christ. Like Jesus to whom he pointed, John was not dressed in the clothing of the social elite. He proclaimed the message of a true prophet, without being swayed by the latest fads or bending to social pressure like a reed in the wind. Rather than proclaiming a popular message of peace where there was none, John prepared the people to greet their Saviour, by calling them to repentance. Jesus gives this little segue to proclaim that he is indeed the Saviour to whom John pointed to: “This is the one about whom it is written: ‘I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.’”
Perhaps at one point or another on our faith journey we can all relate to John the Baptist’s longing as he waited in prison. We aren’t in solitary confinement behind bars, like many of our brothers and sisters overseas. Rather, it’s our own bodies that confine us, trapping us with their frailty and illness. Our own sinful nature imprisons us, so that in our natural state we looking inwardly, rather than outward to God and others with love. Perhaps the Apostle Paul’s cry is one we utter too: “Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:24-25). We might feel trapped and isolated by our circumstances, longing for God’s promises to come true when it seems as though everything is stacked against us. We might feel bound by burdens nobody else could understand. Perhaps we are imprisoned by fear, isolated by anxiety.
Last week it was John preaching. This week it is Jesus. He proclaims himself to be the Saviour. He finishes his time of teaching with the promise: “Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me.” That is his promise in response to John’s question—a question that, I think, is not one of doubt, but really one of trust, expecting confirmation and verification for what he already knows.
And that is his promise to you. Your longing for Jesus to come again soon is a sign that you have indeed already been blessed—a sure sign that Christ himself has transformed your hearts to blossom with faith, like crocuses blooming in the wilderness. That is why this Gospel reading for the third Sunday of Advent connects so well with the theme of joy. We light the pink candle on our Advent wreath now, the candle for joy, as a proclamation and reminder that even in the midst of our longing, everything John pointed to has been fulfilled in Jesus, and is fulfilled for you. God himself will come and save you and has already given you the life that can only be found in Christ, so that in even the darkest places of human experience you may have true joy in him. Amen.
