Bible Text: St. Matthew 11:2–11 | Preacher: Rev. Andrew Richard
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
John the Baptist sits in prison. King Herod had taken his brother’s wife, John had told him, “It is not lawful for you to have her” (Mt. 14:4), and Herod had laid hold of John, imprisoned him, and later beheaded him. While in prison, John sends to Jesus with today’s question: “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?” (Mt. 11:3).
There’s been an long-standing debate in the Church about whether John asked the question for his own sake or for the sake of his disciples. We could easily argue that John himself had no doubt. Jesus Himself says in today’s reading that John is no “reed shaken by the wind” (Mt. 11:7). When the angel Gabriel announced the birth of John to Zechariah, Gabriel said of John, “He will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb” (Lk. 1:15). When the pregnant Mary visits the pregnant Elizabeth and greets her, Elizabeth exclaims, “As soon as the voice of your greeting sounded in my ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy” (Lk. 1:44). Later John preaches with the utmost confidence, “I have seen and testified that this is the Son of God” (Jn. 1:34). He pointed at Jesus and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (Jn. 1:29). We sing this confession of faith every Sunday.
Moreover, John knew the Scriptures. He himself quotes Isaiah 40 to answer the question, “Who are you?” as we’ll hear in next Sunday’s Gospel: “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’ as the prophet Isaiah said” (Jn. 1:23; Is. 40:3). John knew the prophecies about himself and about the Christ, and the reason he sends to ask Jesus the question is because “John had heard in prison about the works of Christ” (Mt. 11:2). He heard the works, and he knew the prophecies: “In that day the deaf shall hear the words of the book, and the eyes of the blind shall see out of obscurity and out of darkness” (Is. 29:18). “Then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing” (Is. 35:6). “The Lord has anointed Me to preach good tidings to the poor” (Is. 61:1).
Why then would John send his disciples to Jesus if he already knew the answer to the question? Because John shouldn’t have disciples at this point. He has repeatedly pointed them to Jesus, and yet they cling to him. When he hears that Jesus is doing the very signs that confirm Him to be the Christ, John sends his disciples to go see for themselves so that they would believe and be disciples of Jesus. That’s the one view.
The other view is that John asked for his own sake. That seems to be the natural reading of the text, that John has a question, sends it to Jesus, and wants an answer back. Jesus sends the disciples back to John with the answer: “Go and tell John what you hear and see” (Mt. 11:4), as if John is the one who needs to hear it.
We know that even saints of strong faith have moments of weakness. When Moses first went to pharaoh to say, “Let my people go” (Ex. 5:1), the initial result was that the enslaved Israelites would no longer be given straw for making bricks, but would have to gather it themselves and keep up the same quota. The people turned against Moses and Aaron and said, “The Lord look on you and judge” (Ex. 5:21). “So Moses returned to the Lord and said, ‘Lord, why have You brought trouble on this people? Why is it You have sent me? For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in Your name, he has done evil to this people; neither have You delivered Your people at all’” (Ex. 5:22). Now you know the history. Everything came to pass just as the Lord had promised, because He is always true to His Word, and Moses led the people of Israel out of Egypt with a bold faith. His moment of weakness did not define him, nor was it a black mark upon him. Such moments are simply part of the Christian life. The same David who sings, “You, Lord, have not forsaken those who seek You” (Ps. 9:10) also cries out, “How long, O Lord? Will You forget me forever? How long will You hide Your face from me?” (Ps. 13:1). The same Elijah who stood by himself against the 450 prophets of Baal and 400 prophets of Asherah and boldly called upon the Lord and saw the Lord answer with fire―this same Elijah fled into the wilderness because Jezebel was seeking his life, and he cried out, “It is enough! Now, Lord, take my life, for I am no better than my fathers!” (1 Kgs. 19:4) and “I alone am left; and they seek to take my life” (1 Kgs. 19:10).
We don’t look down on Moses or David or Elijah. Rather we see that they’re men who’ve suffered what we suffer and persevered and found the Lord’s help and seen the truth that He had not cast them off. We admire them for their perseverance, and John the Baptist might have been in the same situation. John had preached of Jesus, and not wrongly, “His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly purge His threshing floor, and gather His wheat into the barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire” (Mt. 3:12). Where is this judgment? Should we expect another? It could be that John was wondering himself.
As I mentioned, the Church has debated this question for centuries, and we have no more information than is given us in Scripture, so we must content ourselves with waiting until we get to heaven to find out, if we even care about the answer at that point. But the fact that we can see it both ways says something about us and the Christian life generally, because we know what it is to have it both ways. We know what it is to be confident in our faith. We have sure and definite reasons for knowing that Jesus is our Savior. Jesus has fulfilled the prophecies of the Old Testament, as confirmed by the eyewitness testimony of the apostles recorded in sacred Scripture. We have the testimony of John himself: “I have seen and testified that this is the Son of God” (Jn. 1:34). Jesus died and rose again, of which many were witnesses. Jesus has caused His Gospel to be preached to you, has baptized you, has fed you with his body and blood. You can know for an absolute certainty that your sins are forgiven, that heaven is open to you, that eternal life is yours, that the devil is defeated and powerless, that you will rise from the dead. There are times in life when your confidence in these things makes you able to face anything, to be cheerful in distress, to mock at misfortune, to feel light as a feather even though the cross upon you is ten feet tall and made of solid oak.
And we also know what it is to be weak in our faith. You have been crushed, brokenhearted, downtrodden, disappointed. You have cried out with the psalmist, “How long, Lord? Will You hide Yourself forever? Will Your wrath burn like fire?” (Ps. 89:46). “I am weary with my groaning; all night I make my bed swim; I drench my couch with my tears” (Ps. 6:6). “Why do You stand afar off, O Lord? Why do You hide in times of trouble?” (Ps. 10:1). In such times it seems that the sun has gone out, seems that all hope has fled, seems that death itself is a welcome guest. And we know from experience how easy it is at such times to fill with self pity and sulk. No attention or sympathy of men is sufficient when we don’t think we have the attention and sympathy of God. Even the boldest pastors, whom it’s difficult to picture ever being weak, nevertheless know weakness. When he speaks of the preaching of the Gospel and the Office of the Ministry in 2 Corinthians, the Apostle Paul says, “But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us” (2 Cor. 4:7). If someone like Paul considers himself breakable, then we all are.
To be clear, we never have any real actual reason for doubt or weakness. All the things that Christ has done that give us our confidence when we are confident still stand unchanged when we’re weak. I’m sure we’ve all felt rather sheepish at one point or another when we’ve looked back on some catastrophe, like the disciples looking back on the storm after Jesus calmed the sea, and we’ve recalled our worry and fear and heard Jesus’ words echo in our ears, “Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?” (Mt. 8:26). Yet Jesus isn’t trying to shame us. He’s simply reminding us, “Everything I have done for you stands, regardless of whether the sea is stormy or the sea is calm. I am the One who is to come. I have come, and by My death I have redeemed you from all harm, and I will come and take you to Myself, and in the meantime no one will snatch you out of My hand.”
But let’s return to John and his question, because he has a very important lesson to teach us. Whether he’s dealing with the problem of still having disciples who won’t leave him to go to Jesus, or whether he’s struggling with doubt himself, either way he shows us what to do in every situation of life: take it to Jesus. Regardless of whether John’s faith was weak or strong at the moment, he knew one thing: Jesus will know what to do. And he was not disappointed, as the Lord says in Joel 2, “My people shall never be put to shame” (Joel 2:26-27). When the messengers bearing John’s question came to Jesus, they found a kind Lord, and you do too. “Cast your burden on the Lord, and he will sustain you; he will never permit the righteous to be moved” (Ps. 55:22).
Jesus directs the messengers to see and hear that He is fulfilling the Scriptures. Jesus might not have looked the part according to the expectations of John or his disciples, but Jesus certainly looked the part according to His Word. Sometimes our expectations of Jesus don’t line up with what we’re seeing or hearing. This is why Jesus says, “Blessed is the one who is not offended by me” (Mt. 11:6), that is, blessed is the one who doesn’t have the wrong expectations. Just as Jesus showed the messengers that He was fulfilling the expectations that He Himself had laid out in His Word, so also Jesus corrects our expectations by His Word. We might expect that because the Gospel is such good news, everyone will love it, or because the Church belongs to Jesus, she won’t have to suffer, or because we’re dear children of our Father in heaven, we won’t experience times of turmoil. Instead Jesus says, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me” (Mt. 16:24). The life we expect is the life of the cross, and this is a blessed life, because it means that we walk in the footsteps of our Lord. John the Baptist was beheaded, but his hope was in the Lamb of God, who would be the sacrifice for him, and so John could pass even through death with boldness, knowing it was nowhere his Lord wouldn’t go. And now Jesus has gone there, has passed through death and into life, and so you can have even more confidence than John did to follow Jesus through suffering and on into eternal glory.
This Sunday is called Gaudete, Latin for “Rejoice!” It seems perhaps an ironic name, given that John is in prison and there’s a question about whether or not Jesus is the One who is to come. Such suffering and such a question don’t seem worthy of the word “Rejoice!” Yet we rejoice because of the answer and its proof. Jesus is beyond a doubt your promised Savior. He proves it with multiple demonstrations of His power in today’s reading, building up to the demonstration of power that He still regularly does today: “the poor have the gospel preached to them” (Mt. 11:5). So “Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice!” (Phil. 4:4). Whether there be highs or lows, ups or downs, fair weather or storm, Jesus remains constant and is and will be your constancy until that Day when He appears to take us to Himself. May He preserve us all steadfast in the faith until that Day. In the name of Jesus. Amen.