December 12, 2007 at Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK
For anyone who has ever entertained even the slightest doubt about their faith in Jesus Christ or God’s promises, this Gospel story is very important, and John the Baptist suddenly becomes very, very real. He is sitting there in Herod’s jail. It is the price he paid for speaking up when something was wrong. He has done what was right, and the consequence was prison, and it will eventually mean his execution. He has proclaimed the Messiah, identified him, and heard the divine affirmation at the Baptism of Jesus. He has called everyone who would listen to repentance and prompted them to be ready for the Kingdom of God. Now he sits in Herod’s prison. What’s wrong with this picture? He has grown up with the prophet’s promise that when the messiah comes, he will set captives free. Yet, he’s in Herod’s jail. We know his confusion. We understand his question and the question of his followers.
Parents know how it goes. You give birth and with dreams and hopes you raise a child as best you can, and suddenly you look at that child and say: “Where did you come from?” “Who is this?” Nothing goes as you planned, and that young adult is nothing like you hoped. Couples look at each other with the same wonder. The dreams of a life together go awry. An infidelity breaks trust, an addiction seizes a beautiful life, a disease strikes at the most happy of moments, and suddenly nothing is the way you thought it was going to be.
Anyone who dares face life with hope and dreams and expectations knows exactly why John sent those disciples to Jesus. Tragedies, disappointments, disasters, and even little things can make us turn to God and wonder: “What’s going on here?” “It’s not supposed to be this way.” If the pain is bad enough people we know give up all together and turn to other gods: drugs materialism, alcohol, sex, gambling, anything to find a fix or make things go the way they want them to go. In the wisdom of Matthew’s Gospel as we hear it today, Jesus only speaks briefly to the disciples of John, then he suddenly turns to speak to us, “the crowd.” To the disciples, he simply lists the work of the messiah as the ancient prophets had foretold in comparison to his own work. “This is what I have come to do. If this is what you have been waiting for, then, yes, I am the one who has come to do it. But if you have been waiting for something else, then perhaps you will have to go on waiting.”
Then he turns to us and asks one of the most important questions: “What is it you expect here?” or “What are you waiting for?” It is a caution not to expect salvation on our terms. We ask for salvation
and God responds in the cry of newborn child. We ask for justice and God speaks of mercy. We ask for forgiveness and God responds as a teacher who refuses to condemn a sinner. We ask for reconciliation and God responds in the conversation of two men on a cross. We ask for life and God responds with an empty tomb. We ask for sustaining strength and comfort, and God responds with tongues of flame. We ask for God’s kingdom to come, and God calls forth the church.
John wanted a political messiah who was going to run Romans out of town, restore Israel to its glory and power. What he got was a lamb. Like John we sometimes want a God who is going to ride in on a white horse and run off all the bad guys and fix everything that is broken. Instead, if we get this season right, God would rather restore us to our original greatness, and using one of our own, fulfill the plan God had long ago for how we might live together in trust, in mercy, and in love.
Isaiah in today’s readings saw this restoration already beginning. Expecting it to continue would be wise. James proposes patience and an informed expectation so that we might wait for what is right and what is in God’s plan. Losing heart or getting discouraged might happen, but only because we had the wrong expectation, not because God failed to act, to love, to be present, and to be with us.