Advent 3
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Readings: Isaiah 35: 1-10 and Matthew 11: 2-11
“Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” The question John the Baptist put to Jesus through his messengers, as he himself was locked up in prison. John’s whole raison d’etre was to prepare the way for Jesus. He had done that, as last week’s gospel related, by attracting thousands to confess their sins and be baptised; and by challenging injustice and immorality. He must have sensed that his work was done, as he was imprisoned and unlikely to get out. How wretched it would have been if he had been wrong about Jesus all along. John the Baptist may have belonged to a desert community at Qumran near the Dead Sea. Its followers lived an ascetic and strict lifestyle. Perhaps John had heard that Jesus was proving to be a friend of publicans and sinners, not as hard and judgmental as he and his disciples would have liked? Many people have doubts at some time or another over the religion and faith they profess. Even Mother Theresa wondered at times if there was ‘anybody there.’ In 1958 she wrote “My smile is a great cloak that hides a multitude of pains. People think that my faith, my hope and my love are overflowing and that my intimacy with God fills my heart. If only they knew.” So if you at times harbour doubts about your faith, know that some of the greatest spiritual figures have been there as well.
“Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” A good many people looking for something of added-value in their lives ask that question in different ways today. There’s a whole host of religions, beliefs, life-styles out there in which people can put their trust. Information is so freely available. If you don’t like this: try that. If Christianity doesn’t do it for you, try Islam. Go green; get into a lot of New Age stuff; try Buddhism. There is such a lot of confusion about, and people are encouraged to think that one lifestyle is as good as another. At school, of course, children are taught about the different religions and not necessarily encouraged to follow any. It is always good to read of people who have a positive experience of their spiritual search. Beatrice Scudeler is a journalist and editor. Writing in The Times a week or so ago, she said that as a child she knew only ‘cultural Christianity’ – her parents were ‘Christmas and Easter Catholics’ – as she put it. She rejected all that, but found herself drawn again to Christianity through the writings of Jane Austen, who was born 250 years ago this week. She found in Jane Austen’s writings what she calls ‘her moral compass.’ The philosopher Alasdair Macintyre says that Jane Austen’s works can be seen as being in the tradition of Christian virtue ethics. I am certainly no expert on her writings, but you can see how she shapes some characters to display virtues of humility, constancy and to demonstrate repentance. John the Baptist would have approved. Jane Austen wrote some prayers of her own emphasizing these qualities.
That Times writer Beatrice Scudeler notes that is there is a ‘Quiet Revival’ of Christianity going on today, which seems to be the case, especially amongst the young. It is because people are looking for a moral framework to guide their lives, which Christianity provides and for which secular humanism has proved to be a poor substitute.
So, it could be that many people are asking Jesus the question that John put. “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” How does Jesus respond? As is often the case, the Lord doesn’t answer directly. Rather, he urges John’s disciples to tell their master what is going on, so that he could judge for himself. If Jesus had provided conclusive arguments that he was the Messiah, that would eliminate the very possibility of faith. So, instead he talks about the signs of God’s kingdom. “The blind receive their sight, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news preached to them.” All these things had taken place in the preceding incidents in Matthew’s gospel. And they were things predicted by Isaiah as being signs of the coming of the Lord. Faithful Jews liked nothing better than searching their scriptures to see if current events matched up to something said by the prophets of old.
Actually, those words from Isaiah 35 date from the time of the Exile, and the prophet is promising vindication with a difference. He speaks of a way back from Babylon through the desert, and then of peace, security and unity with all the created order when God returns with his people to the land he originally promised them. No matter that the prophecy had been fulfilled hundreds of years before John and Jesus reflected on it. That didn’t stop the possibility of its being fulfilled again. We see the same pattern of biblical interpretation today. The Word of God is ever active, and ever capable of being re-interpreted for different generations.
Passages such as Isaiah 35 make us aware of the political implications of faith. From the days of John the Baptist through to the insights of Liberation Theology, there have been those who have noted that to believe in the God who is Father of Jesus Christ is to develop a new vision for human society.
But put all that aside, it remains clear that the coming of Jesus is meant to change lives. It is meant to challenge individuals for personal salvation, and it does challenge political and social structures. Let’s face it, if any politicians were able to tick off the ‘actions done’ list that Jesus achieved – the blind receiving their sight, the lame walking, the deaf hearing – they would be sure winners at the next election. Now Jesus lists the effects of God’s kingdom arriving, but does not actually refer to himself.
He goes on to affirm that John was indeed a great prophet; no reed shaken by the wind, but someone upright and unyielding. John had been imprisoned by Herod Antipas for daring to rebuke him over his immorality, in taking his brother Philip’s wife Herodias. Herod had chosen a Galilean reed as his symbol on some of his coins, which is maybe why Jesus chose this expression: John was ‘no reed shaken by the wind.’ Indeed, no-one greater had arisen, and yet – the least in the Kingdom of Heaven was greater than he. What did he mean? Jesus seems to be hinting that the era that now arrived with his own coming was to surpass anything that had been before. Yes. What is in store for those who respond to God’s invitation to receive the promises of the kingdom of God will outdo, outstrip and outshine anything and everybody before. Those riches are ours through Jesus.
The Venerable Bede once said about Saint Aidan, the 7th-century Northumbrian missionary, “The highest recommendation of his teaching to all was that he and his followers lived as they taught.”
Going back to those prayers Jane Austen wrote, one asks God to help her and her countrymen not to be ‘Christians only in name’ but in practice, in daily life. She wrote, “Teach us to understand the sinfulness of our own hearts, and to bring to our knowledge every evil habit in which we have indulged to the discomfort of our fellow-creatures, and the danger of our own souls.” May we truly live as those who believe that the dawning of God’s kingdom has come, and that by bringing its good news to others we will hasten that time of perfection and fulfilment which is God’s purpose for all humanity.