Listen to the sermon with the player below, or, download the audio.
+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Last week’s Gospel Reading told us of John the Baptizer’s preaching about the Christ and of Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan’s going out to him (Matthew 3:1-12). This week’s Gospel Reading tells us of John the Baptizer’s asking whether Jesus was the Christ and of Jesus’s speaking to the crowd about John. In between the two Readings, the divinely‑inspired St. Matthew tells us in passing that John had been arrested (Matthew 4:12), and later he tells us that Herod the Tetrarch arrested John because John condemned Herod’s divorce and adulterous remarriage (Matthew 14:3-4). In last week’s Gospel Reading, John was boldly and confidently preaching of the Coming One Who would gather His wheat into His barn but burn the chaff with unquenchable fire. And, by the time of this week’s Gospel Reading, perhaps after a year in prison, John is asking whether Jesus is that Coming One or whether they should look for another. As St. Matthew records the question, John the Baptizer arguably asks not whether they should expect an additional Coming One, or Christ, but he arguably asks whether they should expect a different kind of Christ. This week’s Gospel Reading has several riddle-like statements, the interpretation of which is debated, but this morning we focus primarily on John the Baptizer’s question and Jesus’s answer, and we do so under the theme, “A Different Kind of Christ”.
To be sure, St. Matthew does not tell us in the Gospel Reading the reason why John asked what he did, and, as you might expect, some people do not hesitate to speculate about what was going on in John’s mind. For example, some think that John himself had no question about Jesus and was trying to get his disciples to follow Jesus, but that conclusion is usually motivated by a desire to deny that John’s faith could have wavered. But, there is no reason to protect John the Baptizer, and the natural understanding of the Reading is that John was in some way disappointed by Jesus, that John had some expectations of the Christ that Jesus simply was not living up to. For example, John may have expected to be freed from Herod’s prison on his timetable and in the way he wanted, or John may have expected Jesus to execute judgment more immediately and in a more dramatic fashion. So, John asked whether to expect “A Different Kind of Christ”.
In many ways, you and I are just like John, and we know what having disappointed expectations is like. When we open Christmas presents, we may not get the toy we wanted, or the sweater may be the wrong color, or the smart-phone may be the wrong model. In the Gospel Reading and the verses we did not hear that follow it in St. Matthew’s account, Jesus challenges such expectations—not only John’s expectations but also the expectations of the crowd. Some had treated John as a spectacle to be viewed and not as someone to be heard and heeded. Some approved neither of John’s asceticism nor of Jesus’s indulgence. Yet, the problem is not in God’s gift of the Christ or His forerunner but in people’s expectations of them. The same is true of our expectations. We may expect that Jesus will act in a certain way and then be disappointed when He does not. For example, we may expect Jesus to free us or a loved one from suffering on our timetable and in the way we want, or we may expect Jesus to grow His Church more immediately and in a more dramatic fashion. If we are honest, each of us certainly can think of our own expectations of Jesus Christ that have been disappointed. You and I may sinfully wish for “A Different Kind of Christ”.
In the Gospel Reading, Jesus warned John about being “offended by” Him, essentially John’s becoming so “ensnared” in his disappointed expectations that he would completely fall from faith. Jesus similarly warns you and me. As St. James put it in today’s Epistle Reading (James 5:7-11), the Judge is standing at the door. Now is the time of blessedness and salvation for those who believe in Jesus, and so now is also the time of judgment and damnation for those who do not. We all are sinful by nature and so certainly deserve eternal damnation. Until the end of time, some will take offense at Christ and His Church, and so they will fall from faith or refuse to believe. As it was for John, the question for us is whether we will let our disappointed expectations drive or keep us from believing. We all need to let Jesus’s warning in the Gospel Reading call us to repent: to turn in sorrow from our sin, to trust God to forgive our sin, and to want to do better. When we so repent, then God forgives our sin. God forgives our sinful expectations of Him, or whatever our sin might be. God forgives all our sin, for Jesus’s sake.
In the Gospel Reading, Jesus answered John’s disciples by pointing to the evidence, telling them to tell John what they heard and saw: Jesus’s making the blind to see again and the lame to walk, cleansing the lepers, giving hearing to the deaf, raising the dead, and preaching the Gospel to the poor in spirit. All of those things were expectations of the Christ, expectations that God gave through the prophet Isaiah, in passages such as today’s Old Testament Reading (Isaiah 35:1-10). Jesus was doing all that He was supposed to be doing. John knew who he himself was as the forerunner of the Christ: the angel Gabriel had told John’s father Zechariah (Luke 1:13-17), and Zechariah had told John (Luke 1:67-79). In the Gospel Reading, Jesus seems to be reminding John of that role by pointing—not only the crowd but also John’s disciples—to Malachi’s prophecy about John. John was the Elijah-like forerunner of the Christ, but, as great as John was, he himself was not the Christ.
Both John and Jesus suffered violent deaths on account of their faithfully proclaiming the Kingdom of Heaven, but only the death of Jesus, God in human flesh, was sufficient to save us from our sins. He is just the right kind of Christ! Yet, as Jesus died on the cross His death did not appear to be victory. Talk about disappointed expectations! He appeared to be least in the Kingdom of Heaven and yet was greater than John. In some sense John surely knew all that, for he addressed his question to Jesus in faith and, if indeed Jesus was the Christ, John seemingly was willing to wait for Jesus to act. No doubt John repented of his sinful expectations and was forgiven by grace through faith in Jesus, just as we repent of all our sins and are forgiven by grace through faith in Jesus.
In the Gospel Reading, the solution for John’s problem of sinful expectations was the Word of God, and the Word of God, in all its forms, is the solution for our problem of sinful expectations and for all our problems. That Word was announced to John by his disciples, as it is proclaimed to us by pastors today, and John was encouraged to hear it, as we are encouraged to hear it today. That Word stands written with binding authority and is fulfilled in God’s way and time. That Word shapes our proper expectations, as Malachi’s prophecy did of John and as Isaiah’s prophecy did of Jesus. Even when that Word is joined with seemingly insignificant elements—water, a pastor’s touch, and bread and wine—we hear and see the miracles that mark the power of the Christ. In their own unique ways, Baptism, Individual Absolution, and the Sacrament of the Altar all give us the forgiveness of sins. That is the kind of Christ we have! Significantly, as recorded in the Gospel according to St. John (John 6:61), Jesus recognized that the idea of eating His flesh and drinking His blood in the Sacrament of the Altar would offend, ensnare, some people, as it still does today. Yet, we who discern His body in the Sacrament and in the Church receive it rightly and so also receive life and salvation. We may not receive life and salvation in the way our sinful natures would like and expect, but we receive life and salvation as God wills, and thereby He enables us to rejoice.
Today, the Third Sunday in Advent, is usually the “rejoice” Sunday of Advent. We see the slightly-less penitential nature of the Sunday reflected in the pink or rose-colored candle on the Advent wreath and banner on the wall. Here today, we heard the note of rejoicing in the Old Testament Reading and the Gradual for the Season (Zechariah 9:9; Psalm 118:26). We have reason to rejoice: we are forgiven of our sinful expectations and of all our sin. With daily repentance and faith, we live in that forgiveness of sins. And, we are given the right expectations by the Word of God. Those who say such things as “My god would not do such-and-such” essentially want “A Different Kind of Christ”. We are content with the kind of Christ we have! We know that the Christ of the Bible does all the things that He is supposed to do, not as we would do them, but in His way and time, according to His compassionate and merciful purposes. Like the farmers St. James describes, we are patient until the Christ’s final coming. For then, as God describes through Isaaiah, everlasting joy will be upon our heads, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +