Isaiah 35:1-10; Psalm 146:5-10; James 5:7-10; Matthew 11:2-11
“Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”
It starts with a simple enough question. “Is it you?” “Are you the one?” “Are you the one who will actually make a difference?” “Are you the one who actually knows me… knows the real me… knows what I really need?” “Are you the one I can actually trust… trust with my dreams… trust with my family… trust with my life?” “Are you the one who loves me when no one else can?” “Are you the one who forgives me when no one else will?” “Are you the one who saves me when I can’t seem to save myself?”
These are questions that people ask of God every day. The faithful ask these questions occasionally. The faithless have asked these questions only at key moments in their lives. Those who are struggling with their faith ask these questions a lot. Those who are suffering ask these questions constantly.
“Are you the one? Are you who they say you are?”
There were several key times in my life when I asked those very questions. “Are you who I think you are? Are you who others say you are?” There were times in my life when those questions had held me back, when those questions did me great abuse, when those questions overwhelmed me.
I will confess that there has never been a moment in my life when I did not believe in the presence of a god – for me God’s existence has always been a given. What I was never sure of, though, was who this God we worshiped actually was, who this God-made-man we call Jesus Christ actually was.
Don’t get me wrong, there have been traits I’ve always believed true of God: wisdom; honesty; integrity; tenderness; justice; mercy; faith; love. These are things I have always believed were central to the God we worship, central to who God ultimately is, central to what the Kingdom of God brings to us and to all of creation.
But when life happens and I face those tough questions about God – about the kind of God we are the adopted children of, about how God is active in the world or about how God is absent in the world – I’m reminded of how little I really trust God sometimes; about how little I know about who God is sometimes.
Part of my problem is that I, like most people, have certain preconceived notions about who God is, or maybe more exactly who I think God should be. During a Bible Study one time, I said that ultimately, I want to believe in a “squishy” God – a God who doesn’t judge; a God who never tests; a God who answers all prayers; a God who punishes the wicked and shields the weak; a God who never gives us more than we can handle. But life has taught me that God is not always a “squishy” God.
I guess I should have seen it coming. Spoiler alert! Just read a little of the Old Testament and you see God in rare form smiting and judging and rejecting and playing favorites. How about God destroying the entire surface of the planet and saving only Noah and his family in the flood? Does the utter destruction of Sodom and Gomorra ring any bells, with Lot’s wife turned into a pillar of salt just for looking back? How about the story of Moses – God kills all the firstborn of Egypt, and not just those of pharaoh and his court; God drowns Pharaoh’s entire army in the Red Sea, including the conscripted slaves and the underage boys brought along as servants; God declares that not one of the Hebrews who started the journey with Moses will complete it alive, including even Moses himself, who receives a death sentence for apparently just interceding between God and his chosen one time too many.
Remember that land flowing with milk and honey that God promised to his chosen? The one that already had people living in it? The one God’s chosen were instructed to wipe out utterly, including women and children, and even the livestock and other animals, every living thing had to die?
How about the utter destruction of the Norther Kingdom of Israel as judgment? Or the destruction and exile of the Southern Kingdom of Judah as retribution, along with the destruction of God’s own home on earth, the temple?
So when John the Baptist, a faithful Jew, an Old Testament Jew, shows up declaring that God is soon to send the Messiah into the world to set things straight, to restore his chosen people to power, and to even the score with those who have persecuted and killed His children, turning back to God, repenting, is the most important thing to John. John’s message: get right with God NOW because God’s messiah is coming to set things straight, and believe me, you don’t want to be on the wrong side of that!
John even meets the coming Messiah, Jesus, who shows up for baptism in the Jordan river. John magnifies, Jesus shines; Jesus increases, John decreases, all according to the plan of who John thinks God is and what God’s Messiah will do.
Fast forward to today’s reading from Matthew’s Gospel with John in Herod’s prison awaiting his own execution. How far he has traveled. His ministry is over, his followers separated from him, his focus changed from excitedly counting the days until the Messiah comes and sets things straight to quietly counting the days he has left to live. John knows God, and so he thinks he knows how God’s Messiah will act and what he will do. None of that has happened.
And so John sends the question via his disciples to the one he thought he knew, the one he once upon a time was so sure was the Messiah. “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”
I guess we’re not in bad company when we ask those same questions. Can God be trusted? Does God keep his promises? Has God just left us here to fend for ourselves? Does God even care about me and about what I’m going through? Has God brought us out into the wilderness just to watch us die? We are not the only ones who ask these questions, and God does not think less of us for asking them, either. Jesus says of John, despite John’s apparent lack of faith, “Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist.” If John the Baptist suffered from the same crisis of faith we sometimes do, it looks like we’re in some pretty good company after all!
So what are we to take away from all this on a “Rose” Sunday in Advent, this Gaudete Sunday when we are called upon to be filled with Joy; to Rejoice? Life is a journey; a journey with God and a journey toward God. Sometimes we’ll catch a glimpse of God’s map for the journey, but more times than not we won’t have a clue where we’re going or even why. We are called upon to walk most of the journey by faith alone. We move forward because of our trust in God, by not allowing ourselves to be held back by what we think we know about God.
If we want to know who God is all we have to do is look to Jesus his son. Wisdom; honesty; integrity; justice; tenderness; mercy; faith; love. These are the essence of who Jesus was, so these are the essence of who God is.
The bad news, but ultimately the Good News, is that God isn’t going to give us all the answers along our journeys. They’ll be surprises, disappointments, struggles, and joy – we learn as we travel the road. That doesn’t always feel like a blessing. Sometimes that makes the journey exciting, and sometimes that fills the journey with fear and pain and suffering. Make peace with it if you can. Happiness and despair can feel powerful and all consuming, but they are fleeting – only Joy truly endures.
As for the journey of life and all its mysteries, luckily God doesn’t take us on this journey alone. God has given us the gift of other travelers we meet along the way. Think about it. You and I, all of us, together, are on a mission from God! That’s the stuff blockbuster movies are made of.
So Rejoice! Even if just for today. Rejoice in our fellowship. Rejoice in our journey. Rejoice in God’s eternal love. Rejoice in the salvation our journey brings. And especially in the season of Advent, Rejoice in the One who made it all possible.