Blessed are those who are willing to wait

Sermon for Advent 3 – Gaudete

1 Corinthians 4:1-5  +  Matthew 11:2-10

The last two Sundays in Advent introduce us to the preacher of Advent, John the Baptist. In today’s Gospel, Jesus calls him a prophet, and more than a prophet. A prophet, because John prepared the people of Israel for the Advent of Christ, preparing the way of the Lord by turning men’s hearts to the things of God, to the readiness of repentance and faith. A prophet, because he foretold the coming of the Christ. More than a prophet, because John himself was prophesied by the Old Testament prophets. More than a prophet, because when Jesus was ready to begin His ministry, John proclaimed, not as a prophet, but as a herald, “The Christ is here!”

Next week we’ll look deeper into John’s ministry and preaching. But this week, the Gospel turns our attention to the final days of John’s life, after his preaching and baptizing were done. It shows us a minister of God who has done exactly what he was sent to do, who willingly set aside the comforts of life and society because he was thoroughly devoted to the mission God had given him. But now he sits in prison for doing what was right, for doing the very thing God had sent him to do, for preaching the truth to King Herod. He’s facing the end of his life, and he’s confused, because he spent his short ministry zealously pointing people to Jesus as the Christ, as the One who was to come, and yet to this day, Jesus has not done a single thing John said he would do, at least, not that John can see. But, again, he does exactly the right thing. Instead of trying to figure it all out on his own, or worse, giving up on Jesus, he sends two of his own disciples to Jesus, to ask Him for clarity and for help.

Through his disciples, John asked Jesus the question that was pressing on his heart and mind, Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect another? Since the days of Adam and Eve, God had been announcing, through the Old Testament prophets, the coming of a Messiah, a one-of-a-kind Savior, a Man who would also be God, a Christ who would do a whole list of things: He would teach the people of Israel with divine authority. He would speak to them in parables. He would perform miracles of healing. He would preach good news to the poor. He would institute a New Covenant (or Testament). He would be rejected by the people. He would suffer and be put to death, as the Lamb of God, for the sins of the world. He would be raised from the dead. He would reign as a King and bring justice to the world and righteousness to Israel. He would gather people from all nations into His kingdom. He would pour out His Spirit on His Church. He would raise all the dead. He would create new heavens and a new earth. He would get rid of pain and suffering and sickness and death. He would gather His people Israel together to dwell in safety, and He would destroy the wicked forever. All of those things were prophesied about the coming Christ in the Old Testament, and many of those things were also preached by John the Baptist as things that Jesus, the Christ, would do.

But how much of it had Jesus actually done since He was baptized by John in the Jordan River? Not very much. And from Jesus’ words and actions, it didn’t seem like most of it was even part of the plan. Jesus was intentionally not running a political campaign, was not overthrowing the wicked, was not releasing His people, like John, from prison or from suffering at the hands of sinners. John had said about the Christ, He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and gather His wheat into the barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. But where was the fire? Where was the winnowing fan, or the cleaning out, or the gathering of the wheat, or the burning up of the chaff? John expected all of those things from Jesus, not only because he had proclaimed it, but because the Old Testament Scriptures had proclaimed it. How could Jesus be the One who was to come if He wasn’t doing what He was supposed to do?

Here was Jesus’ answer that He gave John’s disciples to bring back to their teacher: Go and tell John what you hear and see. The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk; the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear; the dead are raised, and the poor have the gospel preached to them. You see, Jesus was doing some of the things that the coming Christ was supposed to do, and they weren’t little things. The miracles He was performing were unprecedented, and He performed them easily, usually with nothing more than a word. He performed them with grace and mercy—the grace and mercy that were so characteristic of God Himself. Even His preaching to the poor was in fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy about the Anointed One: The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon Me, because the LORD has anointed Me to preach good tidings to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn.

But what were the good tidings Jesus was preaching to the poor? That they’re going to become less poor? No, Jesus never raised anyone out of poverty. The good news was for the rich and the poor who were poor in spirit, for those who admitted that they were poor, miserable sinners, that they had nothing to offer to God. To them Jesus gave the handout of the free forgiveness of sins, to all who believed in Him. And what about this “proclaiming liberty to the captives” and “opening the prison to those who are bound”? Even as John was sitting in prison! Ah, but that’s the thing. Many of the things that the Coming One was supposed to do were to be done in a figurative way, in a spiritual way. Those who had turned away from God had become captives of sin, slaves of sin, as Jesus puts it elsewhere. But the Son of God had come to set them free through the forgiveness of their sins, because having your sins forgiven by God is like having the prison doors thrown open, no longer held captive by guilt or condemnation, no longer destined to rot in hell, but made a child of heaven.

So some of the things the Christ was supposed to do, He was doing, either literally or figuratively or both. He was literally giving sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf, cleansing to the lepers and life to the dead. But He was also doing those things for people on the inside, spiritually, removing spiritual blindness and deafness. He was preaching good news to the spiritually poor and freeing the spiritual captives from their slavery to the devil. These are the things Jesus wanted John’s disciples to witness for themselves and to go and tell John what they saw and what they heard.

And then He spoke a word of encouragement and of warning, Blessed is he who does not stumble over me. In other words, “I know I haven’t done all that you expected, all that I’m supposed to do. But I will, when the time is right and in the way that I intend. So don’t allow your expectations to dictate what I must do or when I must do it or how I must do it. The Scriptures will all be fulfilled wonderfully, perfectly. Don’t stumble over Me just because you don’t understand everything yet. You will be blessed if you don’t stumble, if you have patience. Because all will be fulfilled in due time.”

And more of it has been fulfilled since then. John proclaimed Jesus the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Jesus hadn’t yet been offered up as that sacrificial Lamb when John sent his disciples. But within a year or two, He would be, at just the right time and in just the right way. He hadn’t yet been raised from the dead, but He would be. He hadn’t yet instituted the New Testament in His blood, but He would, soon. He hadn’t yet poured out the Holy Spirit, but He would. He hadn’t yet gathered the Gentiles into His kingdom, but He was about to begin that lengthy task.

As for the rest, the other things we are to expect in the Coming One, in the Christ—for those things we still wait, for the judgment of the wicked, for justice for the righteous, for the removal of pain and suffering and sickness and death, for the creation of the new heavens and the new earth. Jesus will do those things, too, just as He has already done all the other things that were rightly expected of Him. He’ll do it at His Second Advent, when He comes again at the end of the age.

What do you expect from Jesus? Be careful not to lump together all the good things He has promised to those who love Him, as if He had to give it all at once, and make everything better all at once, and do everything He has promised to do all at once, or else He won’t do it at all. He has done enough, hasn’t He?, to prove that He is the Christ, and that He’s faithful and trustworthy and good? Blessed are those who are willing to wait. Blessed are those who patiently wait for Jesus to do the rest of the things Scripture says He will do. Blessed are those who see all that He has already done and who take comfort in His promise to come again, as He said He would, to accomplish all that remains to be done for the good of His Church, for the good of each baptized believer. Amen.