I had the privilege this past Sunday (December 11, 2022) to preach at my home church St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Lubbock, TX. When will Jesus return? Watch here and find out: https://www.facebook.com/StSLubbock/videos/1971063253098197/
My sermon starts at 17:40 and continues until approximately the 27:30 mark.
If you would prefer a text version of the sermon, then you can just keep reading —
Third Sunday of Advent
December 11, 2022
St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, Lubbock, Texas
Readings: Isaiah 35:1-10; James 5:7-10; Matthew 11:2-11; Psalm 146:4-9
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.
Advent is a time of expectation – but we are in the third week, as you can see, the pink or rose candle is lit today – not blue, not like we might expect. The pattern is different. Changed. Also, I’m talking to you today, not like you might expect. How else might our expectations be challenged today?
One of the characters we meet every Advent is John the Baptist – the last of the Old Testament prophets, the fore runner of the Messiah, the voice crying in the wilderness.
While it would definitely be appropriate to focus on John as a person today, I actually want to focus more on what he is saying – the questions that he is asking, specifically, “Are you [meaning Jesus] the one we’ve been waiting for?” and “Should we look for another?”
John’s questions and Jesus’ answer brought up in my mind another set of questions and answers:
Perhaps, some of you have read Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, but if you haven’t, this story follows the last human, Arthur Dent, after the earth has been destroyed for the “cosmically important” reason that our planet happened to be in the way of an intergalactic highway that the bureaucratic Vogons wanted to construct. Too bad for us.
Well, in the course of Arthur’s misadventures throughout the galaxy in this book, we are told the tale of an ancient and wise alien race that decided to build the ultimate computer to solve the question: “What is the meaning of life, the universe, and everything?”
Well, the computer takes a few million years to figure the matter out and then check its answer quite thoroughly. Then, with mechanistic certainty, the computer declares that the answer to the meaning of life…the universe…and everything…is —-
42. Yes, that’s right, the number 42.
Now, the obvious sarcasm of this answer is not lost in the book, but I’ve loved this question and answer for a long time because it reminds me that so often the answers we seek to the big questions – the questions that really matter – that those answers just might tell us that we’ve been asking the wrong questions.
With that in mind, let’s take another look at John.
John the Baptist, when we meet him in this text, has already had quite a mission from God – he went to seek God in the desert; he lived an ascetic lifestyle, wearing camel’s hair clothes and eating locusts and wild hone; he’s called the people to repentance; he’s baptized countless people who have come to him – including Jesus – and remember when Jesus was baptized, in the text: the heavens opened, the Holy Spirit as a dove descended, the voice of God claimed Jesus as Son.
If you’re John, wouldn’t you think the time has come? The Messiah is here! And, John, like most Jews in his time, expected the Messiah to be a political and military leader. He thought:
“God will now set things right in thunder and blood and glory – Israel will rise again to conquer its conquerors – and the Messiah will lead them to victory!”
And then…John was arrested.
And in prison he awaited execution —
and he waited,
and waited,
and waited
Wasn’t Jesus the Messiah?
Wasn’t this the time to rise up? Against Herod? Against Rome? Against the powers of evil?
All of these expectations lie behind John’s question, “Are you the one?”…and then Jesus answered: “the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.”
If you’re John, you might think, “Huh?”
What kind of an answer is that? Shouldn’t “Are you the one?” be a question that gets a “yes” or a “no” answer?
Jesus’ answer probably sounded to John a lot like being told that the meaning of life was 42.
To get the full context of Jesus’ meaning, we actually need to go one more verse than our passage for this morning. Our passage from Matthew 11 stops at verse 11, but verse 12 says, “From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and violent people take it by force.”
The Messiah – the promised hero to lead the apocalyptic armies – says that the time for violence is over.
If you’re John, you might think, “What?”
And, in fact, this wasn’t the first time Jesus had said these things. If we flip over to the Gospel according to Luke, ch. 4, at the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry – when asked to read at the synagogue of his hometown in Nazareth – Jesus quoted the prophet Isaiah like this:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me [the title “Messiah” literally means “anointed one,” by the way]
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to set free those who are oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
In our Gospel passage this morning, Jesus was showing John – just like he did to the synagogue in Nazareth – that he was asking the wrong question —
The Kingdom of God, or heaven as we read here in Matthew, was not about violence or political mastery, it was so much bigger – the kingdom is wherever the blind see, the lame walk, the oppressed are set free, and the poor have their needs met – But not by violence, never by violence.
Now, we may feel that in the year of 2022 we’ve gotten this point – that we’ve learned so, so much in the last two thousand years, but what answers are we looking for today? What questions are we still asking?
Are we not still asking when Jesus will return? When will the Second Coming be? Are we really asking: “When will God come down and punish our enemies and prove us right?”
We have an answer to our questions waiting for us – love your enemies, whenever you see suffering, alleviate it, as best you can – and don’t stop – not until the blind see, the lame walk, the sick are healed, and the poor have all their needs met.
We have an answer waiting for us this Advent.
When might we expect Jesus to return?
Are we asking the right question?
Amen.