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+ + + 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.
Great Expectations is not only the name of a nineteenth-century coming‑of‑age novel by English writer and social critic Charles Dickens that we might have read in school, but “great expectations” is also a phrase that can apply to what we “look for” from ourselves or from someone else. In today’s Gospel Reading appointed for the Third Sunday in Advent, John the Baptizer seemed to have “Great Expectations” of Jesus, as John through his disciples asked Jesus whether or not Jesus Himself was the “Coming One”, the long‑promised Messiah or Christ, or whether they should “look for”, or “expect” (NIV, NEB), another. Certainly some people before, during, and after Jesus’s ministry did “look for” another Christ (confer Acts 5:36-37), but we hardly “expect” such a question from John the Baptizer, who at the start of his ministry essentially said that the Coming One was “at hand” (Matthew 3:1-12) and, after baptizing Jesus, by Divine revelation, confessed that that Coming One was Jesus (John 1:19-34). But, clearly later, after his imprisonment by Herod the tetrarch (Luke 3:19-20), John asked these two questions, perhaps for his disciples’ benefit or perhaps for his own benefit, maybe because John wrongly expected to be released from prison (for example, Isaiah 61:1; confer Luke 4:18) or maybe because John wrongly expected Jesus to execute judgment more quickly. The Divinely-inspired St. Luke does not tell us why, but, regardless of the reason, today’s Gospel Reading gives us an opportunity this morning to consider our own “Great Expectations”.
“What do you expect?” we might ask rhetorically, in order to emphasize that there was nothing un‑expected about something or someone, however disappointed we might be. For example, we might say, “The temperature is colder this month than last month, but what do you expect?” As with right expectations of the weather, properly formed by past experience, so with right expectations of our God, properly formed by His own revelation about Himself: we can and should have right “Great Expectations”, even about God’s setting prisoners free and about His executing judgment, albeit about His doing those and all things in His time and way. In the Gospel Reading, John the Baptizer’s disciples had reported to John all the things that Jesus was saying and doing and what people were saying about Jesus as a result, including, for example, Jesus’s immediately preceding so-called “Sermon on the Plain” (Luke 6:17-49), His then healing a centurion’s servant who was sick and at the point of death (Luke 7:1-10), and His next raising from the dead the only son of a widow, which left the people saying that a great prophet had arisen among them and that God had visited His people (Luke 7:11-17). Those reports prompted John, who arguably both still believed in Jesus and was willing to submit to Him, to check his wrong “Great Expectations”, as we may need to check our wrong “Great Expectations”.
Hearing about others’ being miraculously blessed by God—healed of diseases and plagues and evil spirits and bestowed sight—can leave us asking about ourselves, why God is not so miraculously blessing us. Like John the Baptizer, we may try to impose our will on God (Roehrs-Franzmann, ad loc Matthew 11:1‑15, p.26), and so we may risk taking offense at Jesus (NASB), falling into sin and away from faith, rejecting Him as the Son of God and our Savior, and so deserving temporal and eternal death. Even on this Third Sunday in Advent, with its emphasis on joy, symbolized by the rose-colored candle, we are still in a penitential season, and, in Advent or not, we should, enabled by God, live every day with sorrow over our sin, trust in God to forgive our sin, and the desire to stop sinning. When we so repent, then God forgives us our sin. God forgives our sinful “Great Expectations” and whatever else our sin might be. God forgives us all our sin, and He forgives us our sin for the sake of His Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ.
Jesus did not answer John the Baptizer’s question simply by saying that He was the Coming One and that they should look for or expect none other, but Jesus answered John the Baptizer’s question by telling John’s disciples to tell John what they saw and heard, namely, that, as the Divinely‑inspired St. Luke uniquely reports, right then and there Jesus was doing the miraculous things that Old Testament prophecy said that the Coming One would do, including preaching the Good News. And, perhaps as John’s disciples were going away and were still within earshot, Jesus began to speak to the crowds concerning John, identifying John as the prophesied messenger who prepares the way for the Messiah, and so in the process also identifying Himself—Jesus—as that Messiah and the Lord Himself in human flesh (appropriating to Himself Malachi 3:1). Among all human beings, in some sense no one is greater than John, but, among all Divine beings, Jesus even in His state of humiliation is still greater than John (Grundmann, TDNT 4:534-535). In that form of a servant Jesus may disappoint especially our sinful “Great Expectations”, but His not using His divine powers was necessary in order for Him, out of His great love for us, to take all sins to the cross and there die for us and all people, in our place. The miraculous signs show that the Kingdom of God has broken into our suffering world, but the greatest miraculous sign is Jesus’ victory over sin, death, and the devil on the cross (Beyer, TDNT 3:131).
Jesus’s list of things for John’s disciples to tell John that Jesus is doing arguably climaxes in the preaching of the Good News (Friedrich, TDNT 2:718), which Good News John himself had once preached, pointing two of his disciples, who then became Jesus’s disciples (John 1:35‑42), to Jesus as the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29, 36). Jesus could have comforted John the Baptizer Himself, without messengers or means, but Jesus chose to work through messengers and means with John, as He chooses to work through messengers and means with us. God’s ordained ministers read and preach His Word to groups such as this and apply His Gospel to individuals such as each one of us in His Sacraments—Baptism, Absolution, and Communion—whereby God is present—in water, touch, and bread and wine—to forgive our sins and so give us great joy.
Today’s Old Testament Reading (Zephaniah 3:14-20) calls for rejoicing at the Lord’s presence and forgiveness of sins, and today’s Epistle Reading (Philippians 4:4-7) calls for rejoicing always, even when we might otherwise be anxious (confer Romans 5:3); for, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, we let our requests be made known to God, and so we have the peace of God that surpasses all understanding. We can and do have right “Great Expectations”; we can and do trust that those right “Great Expectations will be fulfilled; we can and do pray for them to be fulfilled; and we can and do watch for and expect them to be fulfilled, but we do not judge God or take offense at God when He does not fulfill those right “Great Expectations” in the time and way that we want Him to fulfill them. Everyone is afflicted for a length of time; even those for whom Jesus did miraculous signs later died. Their sufferings came to an end, and our sufferings also will come to an end: a termination and a goal. If the Coming One has not come the final time before, then at our deaths we will be with Him, until He does come the final time, with glory, to judge the living and the dead, and transform us in our resurrected bodies, by His un-mediated presence, for the life of the world to come.
In Charles Dickens’ novel Great Expectations, the protagonist “Pip” ultimately has his “Great Expectations” dashed and realizes “the vanity of his false values” (Wikipedia). Today’s Gospel Reading does not tell us how John the Baptizer reacted to the messengers and message that Jesus sent to him in order to check his “Great Expectations”, which may help us focus on how we react to the messengers and message that Jesus sends to us in order for us to check our “Great Expectations”. As “great” as our right “expectations” are, we can be sure that the One Who came, comes now, and will come again ultimately will not dash but surpass those “Great Expectations”, and surpass them for eternity.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +