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SERMONS

Advent 3A
December 16, 2007

By The Rev. Sylvia Czarnetzky

Isaiah 35:1-10
Psalm 146:4-9
James 5:7-10
Matthew 11:2-11

There’s a yard in my neighborhood that I pass several times a day, and in this yard there sits one of those gigantic, inflatable Santas -- you know the kind I’m talking about?  Sometimes, when I drive by, Santa Claus is looking good:  He’s standing up straight, holding a candy cane in one hand and giving me a little wave with the other.  Other times, Santa is listing badly to one side, or has fallen over onto his inflatable Santa back.  And several times when I’ve driven by, poor Santa not only has fallen completely over,  but also somehow has become deflated.  Most of the air has leaked out of Santa’s being, so that, instead of the smiling, waving Santa, all you see on the lawn is kind of a Santa puddle of red and white!

I have to say the first time I saw the deflated Santa, I was, like “Santa, man, I’m with you!”  At that moment, I felt some real solidarity with Santa in his deflated state!  It is sometimes a struggle to keep one’s Christmas spirit!   The shopping and the carols and everything start so early that, by the time Christmas rolls around, we’re pretty sick of it all.  But the good news is that we’re finally on the down-slope!  Christmas Eve is a week from tomorrow, so it’s kind of the home stretch.  The horse can see the barn door now.  And as we enter the home stretch of our run up to Christmas, here comes what, for me, is a most unwelcome sight: John the Baptist. 

Wasn’t he just here, in church, last Sunday?  What’s he doing here again, in the middle of Advent?  I think it’s a mean trick that the Sunday lectionary plays on us that we have to wait until Christmas Eve to get the story of the birth of baby Jesus.  I don’t know about you, but I’m ready now for the angels and shepherds, for the stable and manger.  But, no.  We have one more dose of John the Baptist before we get to the baby Jesus.  We actually have to pass by John the Baptist to get to Jesus.  (Taylor, “Changed” 128)  We get one more dose of  John the Baptist before we can get to the stable.

Last week’s gospel gave us John the Baptist emerging from the wilderness, preaching repentance and baptizing people in the River Jordan.  John showed up wearing camel’s hair and a leather belt, living on locusts and wild honey.  And John acts out his role as lesser light to Jesus’s greater light.  John tells people what Jesus is going to do.  John says, “…one who is more powerful than I is coming after me;…He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.  His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”  (Mt. 3:11-12)

John the Baptist reappears this Sunday, but things have changed.  John is no longer in the wilderness, and no longer baptizing people in the River Jordan.  He’s in prison, having been put there by Herod.  Herod had had John arrested, bound, and put in prison, because John had made the mistake of denouncing Herod “for his philandering with his sister-in-law.”  (Brueggemann 26)  Herod paid him back by putting him in jail.  Herod had actually wanted to kill John the Baptist right away, but didn’t, because John was a prophet and  Herod didn’t want to stir up trouble.  (Mt. 14:1-5, Brueggemann 26)

So John is in prison, while Jesus’s ministry is beginning really to pick up steam.  By this point in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus has called the disciples, stilled a storm, healed a bunch of sick people, and commissioned the twelve disciples, so Jesus’s star is clearly rising, while John’s star seems stalled.  And it is at this point in the gospel that the delegation of John’s followers comes to Jesus, bringing with them a question from John in prison.  John wants to know from Jesus: “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”  (Mt. 11:3)  Are you, Jesus, the one we’ve been waiting for, or are you not? 

Now there are at least two ways that this question from John has been understood.  First, some argue that John’s question to Jesus was a question born of impatience or disappointment – that Jesus wasn’t doing what they expected him to do.  (Taylor, “Gift” 20)  Remember last week, when John used very strong language to describe Jesus?  He spoke of “the ax [] lying at the root of the trees,” to be used to cut down “every tree [] that does not bear good fruit.”   Those non-fruit-bearing trees will be “thrown into the fire.”  (Mt. 3:10)

John is kind of wondering where the ax is.  John seems to be asking Jesus, “If you are the one who is to come, when will you be starting to separate the wheat from the chaff?  When, exactly, will the powerful Herod be brought down from his throne; when will release be proclaimed to the captive?”  (Shore 22)  John the Baptist is a deadly serious reformer (O’Driscoll 21), and he seems to be wishing that Jesus would do a little less healing and a little more cutting and burning – a little less forgiving and a little more denouncing!  Jesus is “not turning out to be the kind of Messiah John expected.  (Brueggemann 26)  So John’s question could be a question born of disappointment.

But there’s a second way that John’s question from prison can be understood.  When John asks Jesus, “Are you the one…?”  some argue John is expressing doubt about who Jesus is.  (Wardlaw 6)  You have to remember that John and Jesus grew up together.  They’ve known each other since they were small.  They played together, spent holidays  together.  And now that they are grown, Jesus’s ministry is hitting its stride, while John is in jail with perhaps too much time on his hands.  And then from prison comes the question:  Are you really the one?  Was I wrong about you, Jesus?  Have I put all of my eggs in the wrong basket?  Tell me, please!  (O’Driscoll 21,, Taylor, “Gift” 17-8)  John never actually “use[s] the word ‘imposter,’” but the suggestion seems to be there, just under the surface.  (Taylor 1)

For me this is a moment of deep humanity for John, as he asks his cousin and friend whether he is the Coming One or not.  To hear doubt in John’s voice after all that he has seen and heard!  Surely if anybody ought to know whether Jesus is the One, it ought to be John the Baptist!  It is terribly unsettling.

It’s a little like learning recently that Mother Theresa had doubts.  Mother Theresa!  This “dedicated nun who, in life, gave herself away to the poorest of the poor in  Calcutta, and who, in death, is on a fast-track” to sainthood in the Catholic Church.  (Wardlaw 6)  To learn that Mother Theresa had doubts and struggled with her faith makes her more human to us.  (6)  It knocks her down off her pedestal, and brings her down to where the rest of us live.  And it reminds us that, in those times when we long to believe Jesus is the one, but for some reason can’t quite get there, that we are not along.  That doubt is sometimes a companion on our journey of faith, even for the most faithful people.

But whether you interpret John’s question to Jesus as a question born of doubt or a question born of disappointment, Jesus’s answer to John is pretty unmistakable.  Jesus tells Jon’s disciples to go back to John and tell him “what you hear and see:  the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, [and] the deaf hear…”  (Mt. 11:4-5)  The healing power of Jesus speaks for itself.  That is Jesus’s answer to John.

And maybe that’s Jesus’s answer to us as well.  Because we, too sometimes have doubts. We, too, are sometimes disappointed that our Savior doesn’t fulfill all our expectations.  We, too, sometimes find ourselves sitting in a prison, often of our own making, wondering Are you the one?  And to our doubts, disappointments and failures, Jesus offers his healing power, and his grace, and his mercy, and his salvation.  And we let Christ’s deeds and words demonstrate uo us just who Jesus is:  our Savior, Redeemer, and Lord.  Amen.

Words Cited:

Brueggemann, Walter, et al.  Texts for Preaching:  A Lectionary Commentary Based on the NRSV-Year A.   Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1995.  19-27.

O’Driscoll, Herbert. “The Art of the Homily.” Lecture notes from presentation at the Cathedral College in Washington, D.C. (November 2006)

Shore, Mary Hinkle. “The Season of Advent.”  New Proclamation, Year A.  Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007.18-24.

Taylor, Barbara Brown. “Are You the One?”  Mixed Blessings. 2d ed. Cambridge: Cowley Press, 1998.  86-93.

__________.  “Changed into Fire.” Gospel Medicine.  Cambridge: Cowley Press, 1995. 128-32.

__________.  “The Gift of Disillusionment.” God in Pain:  Teaching Sermons on Suffering.  Ed. Ronald J. Allen.  Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1998.  17- 21.

__________. “Third Sunday of Advent.” Sermon preached at Duke University Chapel, 2005.  Posted on Textweek.com.

Wardlaw, Theodore J. “Preaching the Advent Texts.”  Journal for Preachers XXXI (Advent 2007)