Isaiah 35:1-10, Magnificat, James 5:7-10, Matthew 11:2-11
Why do we get this gospel lesson on December 15, when we are ready for the manger? Why do we get John the Baptist on the Sunday of our Children’s Pageant? We are on the way to Bethlehem. The Isaiah lesson fits better with this Third Sunday of Advent, which is Gaudete Sunday, from the Latin for “Rejoice.” Gáudete, gáudete, gáudete. We’re ready for joy, so why delay us with John the Baptist?
But the Epistle lesson says, Patience. Don’t rush. James says, Be patient until the coming of the Lord. There’s reason to wait for ten more days. The reason for the season of penitence is that you can get Jesus wrong. You can welcome Jesus, and rejoice at his coming, but get him wrong. As John the Baptist did. As we all do. That’s okay, it’s expected, but it’s why we need to be patient and penitent.
What was John the Baptist expecting? He had baptized the people to prepare them for the revolution. He was expecting the Messiah, in the words of his second cousin Mary, to cast down the mighty from their thrones, and in the words of the prophet Isaiah, to come with vengeance, and with terrible recompense, and purge the land of Israel. For that expectation John was now paying with his life. And he did not see it in Jesus. “So cousin, no offense, but should we be looking for someone else?”
Jesus neither defends himself nor answers directly. “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor get good news.” But to John that’s all beside the point. He already knows all that. Doing that stuff is fine, but that’s not the job of the Messiah, not according to what the prophecies have told us to look for.
I expect the Lord Jesus knew that his response to John would not satisfy him, but in his answer is a challenge: “Look again, cousin, look again at what you have been seeing. The problem is not my evidence, but the solution that you’re expecting.”
Yet Jesus was not disappointed in John. His doubt did not offend him. It just had not been given to John to see the new thing coming down the pike. No one but Jesus had foreseen it, and no one else would see it until after his resurrection—his whole new way of being the Messiah. So Jesus doesn’t hold it against his cousin that he didn’t see it.
What do you expect from Jesus in your life? What do you want from God in the world? What news will you consider to be good news? What are you looking for in the world?
Those congressional hearings on impeachment I regard as necessary, but I’m glad they’re over. What struck me is how differently the two sides viewed the same evidence. I will give the side I disagree with the benefit of the doubt, that they just see it differently. Is this not from what they want to see, what they desire to see, what they expect to see, and what should we be on the lookout for—what’s the danger, who are the enemies, what is fire, and what is only smoke?
Once I was a volunteer fireman, honest! We were prepared for fires—we knew they’d come but not when or where. We had to expect the unexpected. You can expect what you do not know. The word “expect” comes from the Latin for “looking out.” Not as in “Look out!” when danger comes flying at you unawares, but as in being on the “lookout,” like from a Fire Service lookout tower in a National Forest. You have to be very, very patient in your looking, and you have to know the signs of what you are looking for. You are actively patient and always prepared.
John the Baptist was looking for the fire of righteous retribution with the Messiah’s coming, and you can imagine that his patience was tested by his imprisonment. John was looking for an ending, but Jesus offers a beginning. John expected the Day of Judgment and a final resolution. But Jesus offered previews, foretastes, appetizers. His healings were temporary, and despite the good news, the poor would still be poor. There are ways that the Lord Jesus does not satisfy our expectations of him, until we adjust our expectations. The coming of the Lord Jesus is a judgment, on everyone, good and bad, and it judges us who welcome him, but it’s a judgment that does not condemn us.
In the very judgment you have to look for joy. That’s so unexpected, but that’s the trick. Your joy comes not from avoiding judgment, but the judgment shows you your signs for joy. As I said last week, joy is not the same as optimism, because the world is actually worse than you think it is, and even the most critical among you do not judge deeply enough. The world is worse than you know, and yet you are called to choose for joy. It is a moral choice you have to keep on making, and you make that choice because it is God who judges with a perfect justice. Precisely because of God’s righteous judgment of the world, you are challenged to choose for joy. Gáudete, gáudete!
The benefit of choosing joy is that it changes what you want to see. It doesn’t change what you can expect, but how you take what you expect. Joy is not forcing an emotion on yourself, it is rather choosing how you approach the world and what you look for. In that sense joy is penitential, when you have to give up your prior rights to how you see your expectations. Joy is penitential because it changes your preparations. And joy is penitential because it forces you to be patient.
Patience does not mean passivity. Our Gradual Hymn uses the Biblical phrase, to “run with patience.” Distance runners know what that means, it’s about pacing yourself, it’s about running your own race and not somebody else’s. That kind of patience, that kind of penitence. That kind of running is endurance, but then running is also exuberance, as when my granddaughter sees me and runs and jumps up on me. Let your endurance be open to exuberance. You may be looking for an ending but can you see that it’s a beginning? Get up on that highway God is building and choose for joy.
Why am I speaking of exuberance when I say that your joy is not a feeling that you have to generate? I am not naturally exuberant, but I open myself to the exuberance of others. Like the native exuberance of children, which is why the Pageant is unexpectedly appropriate for the gospel lesson about John the Baptist. My penitence is in letting go of my own expert expectations to welcome the joy of others into my life. Especially children, and I can take personally what the Lord Jesus says, “The smallest (mikroteros) in the kingdom of heaven is greater than me.” I had better make room for their joy.
Can you see the Kingdom of Heaven? Look for it with a double vision, as I said two weeks ago. You look for that great and universal new life of the world to come beyond the resurrection of the dead, and you look for small signs of the Kingdom now: the mustard seed, the leaven in the loaf, the little flowers breaking through the hardness of the soil, the voices of children singing their praise. Look for those small and passing signs of God’s love in your own life, and bear witness to them. “Go and tell John what you hear and see.” He needs your witness, he needs your encouragement.
Like John the Baptist you are tempted to think that your witness makes no difference, and that the Lord Jesus is not performing as you were led to expect. So I challenge you to the active patience of a farmer, who knows the time for plowing and planting and the time for watching and waiting. You have your work to do, but the fruit depends on a power beyond your view and your control. You are neither to be despairing, as if nothing might change, nor self-sufficient, as if we ourselves can make the change. You do what you do and depend on God to do it. So strengthen your weak hands. If the world is worse than you think, then get up on that highway that runs through it with joy.
Copyright © 2019 by Daniel Meeter, all rights reserved.
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