ADVENT 3 16/12/07 Isaiah 35 v 1-10 Matthew 11 v 2-11: Revd. Julia Boothby

St. Mary’s 9.30:  St. Michaels 11.15

It has to be said that I am unfortunately not a very well travelled person….although my husband and I have plans to put that right when we retire! I have been to Europe a few times but no further and I certainly have never seen a desert. Having said that though I do have a glimpse of what Isaiah talked about in our first passage sitting on my kitchen window sill. There I have a beautiful flowering cactus….it is at this moment covered in pinky red long petalled flowers and gives me a real boost every time I stand at the kitchen sink!

However, it does not always look the way it does at the moment. For most of the year it stands in a little pot somewhere it can get some light, green, and spiky…shrivelled and dry. Twice a year…appropriately at Christmas and Easter, it suddenly develops buds and I give it a drink and enjoy the glory that unfolds before my very eyes, reminding me of that wonderful passage from Isaiah that we heard today.

“The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad
The desert shall rejoice and blossom,
Like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly,
and rejoice with joy and singing.”

Every year then I have to wait for the moment when it breaks out into blossom and those themes both of blossoming and of waiting and patience are in our readings today as well. But let’s begin with that passage from Matthew, where we hear that from his prison cell John the Baptist sends two of his disciples to ask Jesus..

“ Are you the one who is to come or are we to wait for another?”

John the Baptist has to be one of the weirdest characters in the New Testament. He likes to live in the desert, wear very scratchy and itchy clothes made out of camels hair and eat locusts and wild honey…..a very good candidate I would have thought for.."I’m a celebrity, get me out of here!"   John has been sent on a mission from God to prepare the way for the coming Messiah…and like all good prophets John has some pretty bad press. First there is his inhospitable lifestyle which attracts attention and then he starts calling the religious leaders “you brood of vipers” and telling them the judgement that will come upon them. He also starts baptising people and telling them that the Messiah is about to come. All of these things mark John out, not just as a prophet but as someone for the authorities to be concerned about. And then of course John turns his attention to Herod and starts criticising him for marrying his sister in law. Enough is enough and John ends up in prison and from his prison cell sends his disciples to ask Jesus…are you the one?

Speaking personally, this is where I really begin to connect with John. Up until this point he is someone whom I find it very hard to relate to. He is a prophet on a mission, and, as such, someone marked out as a holy and godly man who does what God asks without question. Someone to stand in awe of, and even be a little afraid of….but here I find the humanity of the man begins to show through and I find myself able to relate to him more easily.

John is in a difficult place. For a start he is in prison and in those days that could quite possibly have been just a hole in the ground or an underground cave. Can we begin to imagine what that must have been like for John, who was used to the wide open space of the desert? Possibly not able to see daylight and certainly shut in, John must have been longing for his freedom. And then there must have been fear. He knew that his words would lead him into trouble and he probably knew that he would end up dead one way or another.

And then there is the problem of what his message was. He has been telling people to repent, to get ready because the Messiah was coming. A Messiah, he tells them, who will baptise with the spirit and with fire and whose coming signifies judgement. He has seen Jesus and baptised him, even seeing the Holy Spirit coming upon him and a voice speaking from heaven. But now Jesus does not seem to be doing any of the things that John thought he would. There has been no apparent judging or baptising and so in doubt and uncertainty he sends his disciples to ask Jesus…are you the one?

Do we not begin to feel here certain sympathy for John at this point…even in fact empathy? Is this not a place that we recognise in our spiritual lives? We believe we have met with God, we have done what he has asked and followed him and then suddenly darkness has come and we feel as though we are imprisoned, imprisoned perhaps in terrible circumstances or situations over which we have no control. Imprisoned in fear, in grief, in uncertainty, perhaps we begin to question, even to doubt. Did I get it wrong? Did I misunderstand?

It certainly seems to me that there is an element of all of those things in the question that John sends his disciples to ask.
I find it comforting that this prophet, this man who, from before his birth, has been marked out by God as the one who will go before his Son to prepare the way, has doubts, has questions. And when we begin to look closely at the lives of the other prophets in the Old Testament we can find evidence too of their struggles. Think of Jeremiah who cursed the day that he was born. And what about Elijah who, after the miracles he had seen and performed, was so discouraged when pursued by Jezebel that he asked God to take his life. And it is not just prophets but time and again in the Bible we see men and women of faith facing trials and tribulations that make them doubt and fear.
 
I hope that like me, you find this encouraging. John did not understand what God was doing and so he questioned and, quite possibly, doubted too. You see it is ok to doubt. Our faith is not meant to be simply put in a box and shut away to get dusty for fear of opening it and seeing nothing but questions and uncertainties. Our faith should be questioned, we should not be afraid to voice our doubts. We should ask questions, and we should not be afraid that we don’t have all the answers. The important thing, as far as I can see, is that we do exactly what John did with his doubts and uncertainties….he took them to Christ. By all means debate and talk with others, ask your questions and air your fears, but first and foremost take them to Christ. Tell him that you are not at all certain that he is listening, or even exists, but that you want to tell him what you are thinking and the questions that you have.

For look at Christ’s answer to John. He did not reprimand or criticise John for his doubts he simply said to John’s disciples, look and see what God is doing. The blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear and the good news is preached…go and tell John that.

You see John had a very clear message from God to bring to the people and he faithfully brought it. He told them that the Messiah was coming and would judge the world. Well he was right. But it seems to me that John had expectations of his own as to how that would happen….and Jesus did not meet those expectations. God was judging the world in Christ, and still is. As Christ said to John’s disciples “blessed is he who takes no offence at me.”

We are judged by our attitudes to Christ and will be when we stand before him on the day of judgement. Christ did come to judge but not I think in the way that John expected.  John told the people that the kingdom of God was at hand. And he was right. But again I think John’s expectations of what that would look like were not met by Christ. The kingdom that Christ brought and is still bringing comes first and foremost in our hearts and minds. It is a kingdom of healing and love and power, not of earthly territory or show, but of grace and mercy.

Christ did not meet John’s expectations. But you see the God whom we love and serve is a God of surprises, simply by virtue of the fact that he is God, he is the creator and we the created. His ways, as Isaiah reminds us elsewhere, are far removed from ours, and his thoughts also. God is very often a surprising God and surely as we approach Christmas Day, this is no where more evident than in the birth of Christ.

God did not meet the expectations of the people of the day. They thought the Messiah would come and free the people from submission to Rome, vindicate the Jews in the eyes of the world and establish God’s kingdom here on earth. But God surprised them all with a baby born in a dirty stable, visited by shepherds, who grew up in a carpenters shop and went on to a cross to die a criminal's death. Yet God’s surprising plan, in every way different to expectations, was far greater and wider and more amazing than anything they could begin to imagine.

And when we, like John bring our doubts and questions to Christ, then I believe that he will answer us in his own surprising way. He may not give us the answers we expect; he may not give us any answers at all. But I believe that as we come to Christ in openness and honesty, he will meet with us. I cannot tell you how….God will surprise you just as he constantly surprises me. He will take us and love us and hold us and maybe slowly, little by little, maybe in a moment, we will see him and know our fears and doubts melted by the love that shines out of him.

My Christmas cactus blossoms if I am patient and wait. The desert of our doubts and uncertainties will break forth into the blossom of faith and hope, if we are patient and put our trust in our surprising God.