The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.
One of the tried and true lessons of test taking is never to change an original answer. This is especially true on multiple-choice questions when the right answer may not be immediately apparent. Probably every student knows the regret of having marked the correct answer only to find out you’ve lost points because you changed the answer to a wrong one. It’s a bout of second guessing. And that second guessing is leading to changes and inevitably wrong answers. Why? Because of time. The further away and the more time you have to wait on something, to look for something, to do something, the more likely the error is going to be committed. The problem is second-guessing is directly proportional to the amount of time we take to rethink our original answer. Thus, second-guessing too often goes hand in hand with waiting. And it seems to be this morning that’s John the Baptist’s problem: too much time in jail to think about and to second-guess his confidence in the claim that Jesus of Nazareth is indeed the promised Messiah, the Son of God incarnate.
Matthew 11 tells us, “When John heard in prison about the deeds of Christ, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?'” That’s a big doubt going on in the mind and heart of John the Baptist, if in fact that’s what it is: doubt. In response to the question, Jesus gave John all he needed for certainty. He tells the disciples to tell John the Baptist what they’ve heard in their own hearing. That is, he directs them to the words that he speaks and then to the deeds that he does, that it is his works and his deeds that testify to who he is and what he has come to do. While we wait for God’s promises to be fulfilled, we need to be careful about our tendency to second-guess that which God has already said and done. There are times and circumstances though in our lives that give rise to our tendency to second-guess God’s promise to care for us and to rescue us. But even in the face of doubt, we can take hold of Jesus by what he has said and by what he has done. That’s the sort of takeaway from the Gospel lesson this morning. Jesus points to his words and to his deeds as verification that he is indeed the Son of God, the promised Messiah. Never trust your second thoughts or your best guesses when the answer is so clearly stated or done by Jesus Christ.
Now, we’ve all heard of doubting Thomas. He was the missing disciple on Easter evening who declared that he would not believe in the resurrection of the promised Messiah unless he was able to see the wounds and to touch the wounds with his own hands. Only then would he believe. Bible commentators have been divided over whether John was really experiencing doubt or was simply engaged in a ploy to get his own disciples to believe and to follow Jesus rather than to continue with him. These folks argue that given John’s strong personality and that his very existence is hardwired to be dedicated to all but one mission, preparing the way for the Lord, John was not concerned with his own faith and standing. Instead, he was coaching his disciples in a very visible way to go to Jesus and to hear and to see what he says and what he is doing and in that way encourage his disciples to follow the Christ rather than John himself. But the fact is that if John did fall prey to doubt, if he was second-guessing what God was doing, he would not be the first Old Testament prophet to doubt God’s will and way. In fact, if you do a survey, you find out that almost every single one of the prophets at one point or another has a bone to pick with God. They’re unhappy with their circumstance. They’re unhappy that they’ve been driven to hide in the wilderness or go out under a tree or hide in a cave for fear of their lives, doubting all the time whether God knew what he was doing or not. They often offer God advice about how he should be handling the situation. But after all, fear and doubt are often the natural response when we’re confronted by matters of life and death, of faith and unbelief.
The birth and mission of John the Baptist had been prophesied long before John was conceived by Zechariah and Elizabeth. The prophet Malachi offers one of the clearest prophetic words concerning the birth and mission of John the Baptist: Malachi 3:1, “Behold, I am going to send my messenger, and he will clear the way before me.” Jesus himself teaches that Malachi was talking about John the Baptist. He does that in verse 10 of our reading this morning: “This is he of whom it is written, ‘Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way before you.'” Isaiah and John the Baptist were both on a mission from the Lord God. And the Lord God gave Isaiah to prophesy and to write about John so that the people at John’s time would know this is he who has been sent to prepare the way for the promised Messiah: a voice calling in the wilderness, “Clear the way of the Lord in the wilderness. Make smooth in the desert a highway for our God. Let every valley be lifted up and every mountain and hill made low, and let the rough ground become a plain and the rugged terrain a broad valley.” That’s what Isaiah prophesied concerning John’s mission of preparing the way by virtue of repentance for the coming of the promised Messiah, his cousin, Jesus of Nazareth.
So when the time was right, God created through a miracle of its own John in the womb of a very old lady named Elizabeth. Luke tells us in 1:15 that John would be filled with the Holy Spirit from the moment of his birth and he would occupy the office of prophet just as Elijah had. Jesus confirmed this prophecy when he told the people in verse 14, “And if you care to accept it, he himself is Elijah who was to come.” That is, he took up the office and the mantle of Elijah to continue to preach repentance and the coming of the kingdom of God. When the time was right for John, he emerged from the wilderness, went to the river Jordan, called the people to turn away from their sin and their self-righteousness, believe in the Messiah, and be baptized accordingly. And when we hear the name John the Baptist, it conjures up all kinds of images: a man with unkempt clothing, unshaven, long hair, a garment made of camel’s hair, eating locusts and wild honey, a model of self-denial and faithfulness to the Lord God himself. That’s the way most of us have been taught to see John, as an unshakable voice of God calling all to faith and repentance in Jesus the Christ. This is the man who stood opposite scribes and Pharisees and Sadducees who came to be baptized by him for the wrong reason. He looks at them and calls them a brood of vipers. Fearless, undoubting. When Jesus came to be baptized, John humbly offers to submit to Jesus and asks Jesus to baptize him. After Jesus is baptized, John looks over to Jesus, points to the promised Messiah and says, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world,” and sends disciples to follow after Christ.
So what happened to the great man of faith, the confident prophet who rightly identified Jesus as the promised Messiah? What happened to that brave witness who now shakes the confidence of the crowd with his doubt? Well, John’s no longer a free man. He’s been arrested for the trouble he caused the religious leaders and political leaders of the day. He had spoken a word of judgment against King Herod for Herod taking his brother’s wife to be his own wife. When he challenged and called Herod to repentance, they threw him in jail. And jails back then weren’t nearly as nice as they are now. They were dirty, dangerous, filthy places. And John had been in that dirty, filthy, dangerous place for about nine months at this point. From where John was sitting, it didn’t look like things were going according to plan. John also knew that he probably was not going to survive his circumstances. And Jesus, the possible Messiah, wasn’t climbing the political ladder. The kingdom of God appeared to be no closer to him in that jail cell than when he walked freely. Opposition to Jesus was growing just as quickly as his popularity amongst the people. As it turns out, John himself was beheaded at the behest of an angry wife. Perhaps John was like many of the disciples of his day. He had his own theological opinions about what was supposed to happen in order for the kingdom of God to be realized among us. Jesus certainly didn’t look like he was ushering in a new kingdom governed by love and grace and truth. Perhaps John began to live by sight rather than by faith. And as a result, he began to doubt whether Jesus was the Messiah, the King of the Jews. He probably asked himself, “Is Jesus of Nazareth really the true Messiah?” There was only one thing to do and that was to put his own thesis to the test. So he sent his disciples to say to Jesus, “Are you the expected one, or should we look for someone else?”
Notice what Jesus does not do. In this case, he doesn’t rebuke John and his disciples for this momentary confusion or weakness. Rather, Jesus understands in this moment the nature of second-guessing. Remember, Jesus had to struggle with temptation and doubt too, whether to trust the word of the Lord or the word of Satan. And Jesus replied, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes out of the mouth of God.” That’s Jesus’s reply in the midst of the temptation. Jesus responds to John with what’s needed. He points John to his words and to his deeds, to facts and evidence of his work and the results: “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the good news preached to them. And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.” When the teaching of the apostles came under attack near the end of the first century, listen to how John, the last remaining apostle, defends the Christian faith. He writes, “What we have seen with our own eyes, what we have heard with our own ears, what we have touched with our own hands, all tangible evidence, what has been revealed to us, we proclaim to you, that you will have fellowship with the Father, the Son, and with us his apostles.” Knowing how people think and how they gossip, they must have gasped when they heard that John was in doubt. Jesus still bears witness to his faith, his character, and his prophetic office. After all, the people might be challenging the testimony of John concerning Jesus. If John’s testimony falls, what does that mean in regard to their relationship to the Christ? If John’s faith is wavering, they too might not be on solid ground. So Jesus turns to the crowd and speaks of John. He asks them, “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind? What did you go out to see? A man dressed in soft clothing? Behold, those who wear soft clothing are in kings’ palaces. But why did you go out? To see a prophet? Yes, and I say to you, one who is more than a prophet. This is the one about whom it is written, ‘Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way before you.’ Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has not arisen anyone greater than John the Baptist.”
John was the prophet sent from God. He was not sinless. He was a sinner like all other prophets, subject to all the temptations of all the other prophets. Yet John is held up as a model by Jesus, the same as in our epistle reading, as an example of suffering and patience. The author wrote, “Brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. Behold, consider those blessed who remain steadfast.” Doubt is a deadly enemy. Luther constantly warned against allowing doubt to take root in your mind and in your heart. Doubt’s a form of unbelief and it can grow to outright rejection. James 1:6 warns about the power of doubt: “But let him ask in faith, without any doubting. For the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind.” Remember what happened to Peter when he began to doubt, when he lived by sight. He got out of that boat in faith, looked to Christ, began to walk on water toward his Savior. But seeing the wind, he became afraid and beginning to sink, he cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, save me.” And immediately Jesus stretched out his hand and took hold of him and said to him, “O you of little faith, why do you doubt?” John the Baptist is asking for the same thing: “Help.” He needed Jesus to help him in his moment of doubt. And Jesus stretches out his hand and shows John his deeds, and John can hear his words. And Jesus did just that: rescued John from sinking into doubt and despair. After Jesus stretched out his hand to Peter and saved him, those who were in the boat with Peter said of Jesus, “You are certainly God’s Son.” When the word reached John the Baptist in his jail cell, there was no more doubt. He told his disciples and he replied in similar way: Jesus is certainly the Son of God, the promised one. Jesus was the only one who never fell prey to doubt. He knew even his greatest prophets would doubt. And he knew that ordinary Christians like you and I would frequently fall prey to the very same. That’s why Jesus went on to say in verse 11, “Truly I say to you, among those born of women there has not arisen anyone greater than John the Baptist. Yet he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.” John did not live to see the rest of the Jesus story. He wasn’t around for the resurrection. He, like all the prophets of old, by virtue of the power, deeds, and the words of God, came to believe in Jesus the Christ. We live on this side of the resurrection and the ascension. We have a sure and certain word to uphold our faith in times of fear and doubt. First Peter 1:6 and 7 counsels us in this way: “Now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials.” Jesus never promises a rose garden. He promises the Christian life to be one of tough struggling and hardships, trials, and temptations. He continued, “So that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold, that perishes though it is tested by fire, may be found to result in the praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” When you are in doubt because of your circumstance, think of John the Baptist and think of Christ. Think of him offering his words and his deeds as your rescue line for your faith. For in your faith, or lack thereof from time to time, it is sinful, but your sins are forgiven in the one who speaks his words to you. Namely, your sins are forgiven. Go in peace. Amen.
May the peace that surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.