“Wanting reassurance”

By Rev. Michael Stonhouse

Meditation – Sunday, December 11, 2022

Matthew 11:2-11 - (Forward, p. 43) CEV p. 995

I can hardly blame John the Baptist. Here he is, sitting forlornly in Herod’s desert prison at Machaerus, imprisoned there by the whims of the unpredictable Herod Antipas, and fearful of ever seeing the light of day again. Basically, given there can probably never be a ‘satisfactory’ resolution to his imprisonment, he has basically been left there to rot.

John, sitting there alone, and having far too much time on his hand to ponder his past and second guess his decisions, is now having second thoughts about Jesus. After all, John had given his entire life to getting people ready for the Messiah and had actually pointed out Jesus as being the one. So, what if he was wrong. What if he had been mistaken in identifying Jesus as the ‘coming one.’ His doubts were now assailing him and keeping him awake at night. He needed to know for sure.

And so, John sent some of his disciples, his emissaries you might say, to get an answer to his questions. His enquiry to Jesus could not have been any more pointed: “Are you he who is to come, or shall we expect another?”

And how does Jesus answer? As is often the case, He does not answer with a definite, outright ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ (After all, anyone could come along claiming to be the Messiah—as actually did happen on more than one occasion). No, instead, Jesus does two things. Firstly, he asks those disciples of John to simply report back to him what they have seen and heard by way of Jesus’ ministry. In other words, what is your firsthand testimony? What does this say to you?

And then, as a way of backing this up, Jesus goes back to the Scriptures, in this case, Isaiah 35:5-6 and Isaiah 61:1. So, in a sense, what Jesus is saying to them, and to John is this: “Here are generally recognized Messianic passages and I am fulfilling them, so what do you think?”

That is what these messengers are to take back to John. We never do hear what his response was but can only hope that this was sufficient.

Jesus then goes on to explain to the crowds that they have been correct in their assessment of John. “He was not some noble figure or royal courtier, not in the least. He was a prophet, the one spoken of by Malachi (Malachi 3:1), sent to prepare the way for the Messiah. Indeed, as such, there is no one greater than he that has ever lived.”

However, as we have seen, our evangelist left John’s response up in the air, unresolved, open-ended. In one sense, this open-endedness is just right, for it leaves us, each of us, with the same basic question, namely, “here is the evidence, evidence from Jesus’ own ministry and evidence from the Hebrew Scriptures, prophecies that have been fulfilled in Jesus, so how will we respond? It is a very important question for each one of us. It is a question of whether we will accept the evidence as far as it goes—it never can be absolutely definitive, absolutely conclusive—and take that risk of faith and place our faith and trust in what we do know and let God, Jesus Christ, take care of the rest.

Forward notes: “When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?’” (verses 2-3)

“The Roman ruler Herod Antipas imprisoned John the Baptist because he publicly challenged Herod’s divorce and remarriage. As John languishes in prison, his faith in the powerful predictions he has made about the one who is to come may be wavering. So, John sends messengers to ask Jesus if he is the one.

“Jesus says: Yes, John was right. The blind now see, the lame walk, and good news is proclaimed to the poor. These are all signs of how God’s kingdom would come into the world. But John was expecting a bigger splash. He assumed the Messiah would seize power and trounce the enemies of God. Blinded by his own expectations, he almost missed the significance of Jesus’s ministry.

“I wonder when my expectations are viewed through the lens of my own desires. When might I have missed the point?”

Moving Forward: “How can you manage your expectations?”