Advent 3 2024

This week the Lectionary has invited us to examine our expectations of Christ as we wait for his arrival to Judge both the living and the dead.

We remember that the world waited for the baby in the manger and simultaneously practice that waiting as we await Jesus return to gather his church.

What Punctuates our waiting. Sorrow, while on this side of heaven we grieve the loss of loved ones or important relationships, economic opportunity or lost status.

I know that this week my mourning has been a little bit about Syria. The mean Dictator has been toppled, but there is nothing to go in that vacuum and there is an expectation of a renewed civil war that does not include Assad. And the war has so far been so horrible to the innocent non combatants and I think when will these folks catch a break.

Yours might hit closer to home, you miss a loved one, or something about your year didn’t work out. What does todays scripture tells us about creeping doubts in a time of waiting.

The Text

Verse 2: John the baptist is in prison. It is starting to seem that his life will end in that prison. He had called out Herod for having an affair. He was speaking truth to power.

Verse 3: Ever being the prophet he sends his Disciples to Jesus. Two things, some commentators talk about an act of Doubt and others an acts of Prophetic wisdom.

They ask if he is “the one.” The Hebrew Scriptures talks of a “one.” A prophet better than Moses, one who will crush the snakes head, one that a greater king than David who will restore the fortunes of Israel. Is Jesus he?

Verse 4-6: Jesus is not going to directly answer but point to the ways he is the one.

Verse 5 leans heavy on the predictions of Isaiah 35, and Isaiah 61. One about healing and one about restored Fortunes.

Verse six a Mild Rebuke to the doubter. Saying to the Believer there is blessings.

Verse 7, 8not if Jesus is Cross with John for needing the reassurance he certainly does not hold on to it. He turns to the crowd to celebrate John.

What did the people go to see? a bad prophet who sways with every given opinion?,

Did you go see a person who tells the king what he wants to hear in exchange for plush treatment.

Verse 9 or was he a true prophet? The persecuted kind, the one who is without honor. The second or even something more than a great prophet.

Verse 10, he is greater than the prophets prophets from before. He is a special prophet that will proceed the arrival of the one.

The book of Malachi is the last book of the OT Cannon. Between Malachi and Marks Gospel there is a 400 year gap were God is silent. If you are in the Catholic or EO family you would knowledge some books in between that give some histories, but they are not prophetic.

Malachi which is the last utterance of God before Jesus arrives tells of a Prophet who comes before the Messiah. The book calls him Elijah as he will be in the ilk or Spirit of Elijah. Elijah who spoke truth to power and who did miraculous signs.

In fact this waiting for the Elijah became such in important pert of the Messianic hope fo Israel that the Jews added a place at there cedar table for Elijah, so if he arrived at passover he would have a place to sit.

I have not seen much of the Chosen but of what I have seen this scene is my favorite.

John is not literally resurrected Elijah. He is here is the same ilk and authority.

Born of women there is no other like he. And yet in the Kingdom of Heaven he is least???/

What?

Remember that the Bible is telling the story of 2 covenants or agreements with God, the second one fulfilling the first. The first covenant is one where by you are a member through Ethnic lineage, and you are sustained through faithful obedience. If you are of the family of the Jews and living out the law you are living within the parameters of the Old Covenant. The Old covenant was powerless to change hearts but it revealed who God is by showing off his Character in behaviors.

Of all the Law followers who ever lived, John the Baptist is being hailed as the best.

But there is a New Covenant, where people are transformed from one thing to the next. That next thing is a child of God, who is perfectly obedient and transformed, not by their own behavior but but the work of Christ applied to you.

The citizenship of new covenant people is not in the earthly kingdoms but in the heavenly kingdom. And even the worst in that kingdom is so transformed by God, that he is greater than John the Baptist.

You as a child of the new kingdom are greater than he, and it was all accomplished by Christ and not your own acts of Piety.

Okay well lets apply what we have heard.

Doubt: First thing, if you like John are experiencing doubt there are probably 3 things animating your doubt.

Difficult circumstances: to that I would remind us that this happens to the righteous and un-righteous. To those who reject God’s presence their difficult circumstances is just the result evolution and has no higher purpose. To the Christian it shapes us into the image of Christ. Remember the difficult circumstances of Christ…to many to list.

Unmet Expectations: Everyone hits that glass ceiling of experience. For some it brings about doubt, but for others faith. CS Lewis…“If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.” And remember Jesus on the Cross

Limited perception: You do not know what God is accomplishing through your circumstance. Alvin Plantinga Notre Dame University reminds the skeptic that thinking you see no good reason for suffering, is eqivilent of saying in my omniscient view this has no meaning and there fore could only be meaningless..

at the same time Jesus says of the Blind man in John 9, that his suffering was not of his or his parents sin, but that God would be glorified through it.

I mean it when I say that your doubts are the wait room of faith and if you have the courage to walk through them you will come out stronger.

Christo-centric life: After exploring doubt we are also needing to live Christo-centrically. John the Baptist send his disciples to seek out Christ for the answer. We need also to seek out Christ. For the answer, if your situation is going sour, seek out Christ. John was not saved from death, but his death came with the assurance of Christ victory in the end. I cannot promise you that things will be better moving forward but I can promise you of Christ care. And the place where we can experience the care of Christ in its most tangible is in worship, where arm in arm with others we come to his presence and are fed the food os spiritual necessity to get us through another week.

Born-again: Final application, we did doubt, we did Christo-centric living. Let us also cling to our baptism, that in it the Holy Spirit has made us greater than the least of woman born. In your baptism you have an irrevocable status as great in the kingdom of heaven. Yes in the kingdom of man you might be a no-body, but in God’s eyes a great somebody, a Child of Christ.

Brothers and sisters let us finish today in the memory that we behave like the wicked of woman born, we are enslaved to affections that kill us. Lust, Jealousy, self protective lying, discarding our parents, trusting in our ability to make money over the trust in the ability of GOd. We break all the commandments. And yet, Jesus on the Cross dies for those sins and gives us new status, of born again. Making us greater than John the Baptism. Let that be our Advent hope, new life in Christ. Amen.