I’d like us to take a moment this morning to think back. It being Rose Sunday we are called on by the church to take a moment in the midst of the waiting season of Advent to rejoice. So let’s do that, let’s rejoice. Think for a moment of your greatest faith experience. Maybe it was a Happening. Perhaps you found the Lord at Camp Beckwith as a child. Many of you sat on the mountain top during a Cursillo Weekend. For me, it was a mission trip to rural North Carolina, my last official act as youth minister at St. Thomas in Lancaster. Whatever it is, find that place, and just for a moment try to remember what it felt like to be so close to God. [Silence]
The mountaintop experiences of faith might be the most fantastic experiences possible in this life. To be that close to God and to feel his love that strongly is unlike anything we can feel in the flesh. And it is but a foretaste of what life in the Kingdom of God will be like. Mary’s Magnificat is a perfect example of a human’s response to God’s grace pouring out in abundance. Mary’s hymn of praise has given words to many who were caught speechless by their experience of God. And though her song expresses great joy, we know the pain that she, as the mother of our Lord, will experience as she stands at the foot of the cross helpless against the Roman regime.
See the mountain tops are great. And given our druthers we’d all love to live there forever, but it doesn’t happen. Life goes on, retreats end, mission groups return home, real life begins again. And while we are left with the memory of that time, like Mary, we know that we cannot hold onto it forever. John the Baptist had his fair share of mountain top experiences, even from before he entered this world. We are told that he leapt for joy within his mother’s womb as Mary arrived for a visit. He was given special knowledge as he was called as a prophet of the Most High to make straight a pathway for God. And, in what is perhaps the greatest mountain top experience in Christian history, as he baptized Jesus he heard the voice of God and saw the dove descend upon God’s anointed one, the Messiah, Christ the Lord.
But even John was not immune to what happens as we return to real life. Today we find John physically in prison; a dark and nasty place. We find John also spiritually in a dark and nasty place. Prisons in first century Palestine were not the place to go for three square meals a day. There were no services in prison. Family and friends were the source of food, clothing, and of course gossip. John had been hearing all sorts of stories about Jesus, and it seems as though the combination of his continued imprisonment and the stories of Jesus’ ministry in the sticks have lead John to doubt he got it right. “Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?” John has moved deep into the valley. John had preached of a new world order. Things were going to be flipped upside down with the coming Messiah. The axe was at the base of the tree and furnace was plenty hot. God was going to enact his vengeance on those who did not follow his ways. And none of it was happening. Jesus wasn’t putting together an army to overthrow the Romans. He wasn’t seeking political clout by hanging out with the elite in Jerusalem. What Jesus did and what John expected were not matching up.
What about you? Is what God is doing matching up with what you expected him to? As you moved back into real life following those high points were you frustrated that the good feelings didn’t linger longer? Have you found it necessary to ask “Is this all?” Faith, even for all-stars like John the Baptist, isn’t perfect. There are times when holding onto faith is hard. There are times when we, like John, have to ask, “Did we get this right?”
And, praise God, he is just as willing to accept our questions as he is our adulation. Jesus doesn’t chastise John for being in a dark place. Instead, he answers with honesty and love John’s concerns. “Tell John what is going on here – the blind can see, the crippled can walk, the sick are healed, the deaf now hear, the dead are alive, and the poor are receiving good news!” John will have to make do as the rest of us; a second hand account of the miracles and the message of Jesus. He will have to hear from his disciples that Jesus is doing exactly what Jesus came to do, and it will have to be enough for him. In the midst of his doubt John will be confronted by the simple fact that Jesus is doing the work of God – even though it doesn’t look how John wants it to look.
We are confronted by the same simple fact – our hopes and dreams won’t define the kingdom of God. It will most likely look vastly different that what we expect to see. But it will be a place where God’s will is lived out at all times for eternity. Our mountain top experience will last forever one day, just have faith.
While Jesus doesn’t get upset with John’s question, he does finish his message with a kick in the butt, “Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me.” “Even with this comment, Jesus is being kind and compassionate with John. Jesus did not say, "Blessed is the one who never, ever has the slightest doubt about me!" Had he said something like that Jesus would have slammed John as well as anyone else who has ever harbored a doubt in the quiet recesses of his or her heart. But Jesus didn't chide John for having a hard time figuring everything out. Jesus did not deny that his ministry was surprisingly quiet even as it was happening in rather out-of-the-way locales.
The NIV translates Jesus' words in verse 6 as blessing the one "who does not fall away on account of me." Actually, the original word in the Greek is skandalizo, which means to be scandalized by Jesus. In Jesus' day a "scandal" was literally something you could trip over and so cause you to fall flat on your face. In order to enter God's kingdom you need to pass through Jesus. He is the door, the way, the gate that leads to life. So blessed are those who can pass through that door without tripping over the nature of Jesus' life and ministry. Blessed is anybody who can see Jesus for who he really is despite the fact that Jesus led no major political revolutions, made apparently no impact on the Caesar in his day. Blessed is anybody who can admit that Jesus really did get crossed out by the Romans while at the same time believing he is the resurrected Lord of life even yet today”[1]
We see today John the Baptist as he stumbles, but he does not fall. He, like many others, has miss-judged what God’s will for a redeemed world would look like. He has to ask the question, but knows what the answer will be. “Yes, Jesus is the one who was to come. No, you need not look for another. See, he has done great signs; God is at work in him. Listen, he proclaims God’s love to those who society says God could never love; God is turning things upside down. It is more subtle that we had hoped. It will take a lot longer that we want, but it will happen, just keep the faith.”
As we wait this Advent season, the message remains the same. 2000 years later we are still waiting for it to be finished, for God’s will to reign supreme on earth as it does in heaven, but it will come, just hang on, just keep the faith. For now, remember those moments when you got a glimpse of it; the blind can see, the crippled can walk, the sick are healed, the deaf now hear, the dead are alive, and the poor are receiving good news, and rejoice that those moments will someday last forever. Amen.
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