Advent 3, Year B
Isaiah 61:1-4,8-11; 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24; John 1:6-8,19-28
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I.
What happens when you lose your confidence, or even your faith?
This happened to John the Baptist after he was arrested and thrown into prison.
In Matthew 11:2-3 John pointedly asks:
“Now when John heard in prison about the deeds of the 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?’”
Compare this to John’s earlier confidence, which we read about in today’s gospel.
The priests and Levites sent from Jerusalem ask John:
“Who are you? We need to give an answer to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself… why are you baptizing, if you are neither the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?”
To which John boldly replies:
“I baptize with water, but among you stands one you do not know, even he who comes after me, the strap of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie.”
II.
Today’s reading from Isaiah proclaims “good news” to the brokenhearted, to captives, and to those who mourn.
Isaiah’s words were originally addressed to those exiles who returned from captivity in Babylon to rebuild Jerusalem and the temple.
Ezra, the scribe and priest, and later, Nehemiah, the governor of Persian-ruled Judea, were the first to fulfil the prophetic words of Isaiah 61:4:
“They shall build up the ancient ruins;
they shall raise up the former devastations;
they shall repair the ruined cities,
the devastations of many generations.”
However, the appearance of John the Baptist, the success of his ministry, and even the attention he gets from the Jerusalem establishment, tell us that the prophecy has only been partially fulfilled.
This is true especially of the last verse we read today, Isaiah 61:11, which extends the prophecy well beyond the 5th century BC, or even the time of John the Baptist, to the time of the church, the times we are living in today.
But even today, we cannot say that these words have been fulfilled:
“For as the earth brings forth its sprouts,
and as a garden causes what is sown in it to sprout up,
so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise
to sprout up before all the nations.”
Isaiah describes righteousness and praise in natural terms. As both earth and garden yield their fruit in due season, so God also causes right living and right worship to grow, not just in Israel, but the world over.
There are two things to point out here.
First, right living and right worship — righteousness and praise — are not the product of chance. Cultures do not evolve morally. God brings about their perfection according to His word.
Second, the principles they praise — the very things they worship — offer no guidance and only lead to God’s judgment.
It is a fact of God’s judgment that He lets the sin itself be the punishment.
We often see Jesus healing the blind, deaf, and lame. These are not just physical healings but spiritual cures as well.
Psalm 115 describes this physical-spiritual condition in verses 5-7:
“They have mouths, but they speak not: eyes have they, but they see not:
They have ears, but they hear not: noses have they, but they smell not:
They have hands, but they handle not: feet have they, but they walk not: neither speak they through their throat.”
In the psalm “they” refers to the idols that people have made and worship. But the judgment comes in verse 8:
“They that make them are like unto them; so is every one that trusteth in them.”
In other words, those who make idols become like them: deaf, dumb, blind, and crippled.
According to Isaiah, right living and right worship happen almost naturally, wherever God is acknowledged for who He is.
Also, according to Isaiah, judgment for sin occurs wherever idols replace God:
“They know not, nor do they discern, for he has shut their eyes, so that they cannot see, and their hearts, so that they cannot understand.”1
III.
The priests and Levites ask John three specific questions: Who are you? Are you Elijah? Are you the Prophet?
John can answer with confidence because he actually knows the answer. He knows that he is not Christ, not Elijah, and not the Prophet.
(By the way, the Prophet referred to here is a reference to something Moses said in Deuteronomy 18:15:
“The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen—”
This is another way for John to emphasize that he is not the Messiah.)
John knows that he is servant of Christ, who is already standing in the crowd, but they do not yet know him. John knows he is the servant of this Christ because he says he is not worthy even to untie His shoes.
How many of can answer with John’s confidence, “Who are you?”
Can you say that you are the servant of Jesus Christ?
That might take some humility.
It’s flattering after all, to be thought of highly, even to be asked: Are you the Christ? Are you Elijah? Are you the Prophet?
Our ears itch to be flattered: “Are you…? Are you…? Are you…” Fill in the blank. To which we are eager to say, if only to ourselves (out of false modesty), “Why, yes, I am… I am… I am….”
And, of course, that’s how the idols get made.
When Moses asks God for His name, God replies:
“I AM WHO I AM… Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”2
IV.
When John is in prison, he seems to lose confidence that Jesus is the Christ. John sends his own disciples to ask Jesus, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?”
John’s doubt, his momentary loss of conviction, is much different than our idol-making.
Idolatry is rooted in the sin of unbelief. It is the heretical question the serpent asks Eve in Genesis 3:1:"
“Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”
John’s doubt is understandable. He was arrested and will be put to death on a jealous wife’s whim.
(Incidentally, that wife, Herod’s wife, is upset because John called her out in her sexual sin. She divorced her husband after falling in love with her husband’s brother, who also happened to be King Herod.
“I am Herodias,” she said. “I am the king’s wife.”
“I am in love…”
I am. I am. I am.
And so, she made for herself, idols.)
John’s doubt is born of fear and the dungeon. Like John, true Christians face these terrors too.
It’s natural for us to want some assurance that the man we call Lord is, in fact, the Christ, and not just another fraud.
Jesus sends His answer back to John by way of John’s disciples, saying:
“Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.”3
I’ve emphasized that last sentence: “and blessed is the one who is not offended by me.”
The reason is that not only is Jesus confirming that He is the Messiah through the miracles He lists, He is also smashing idols at the same time.
Remember: sin is its own punishment.
When Jesus heals blindness, He must also destroy the sinful works that cause blindness.
That’s all well and good when it happens to someone else, but when Jesus turns to heal us and destroy our cherished works, we are apt to be offended.
We desperately want to hang on to all of our “I ams….”
V.
After John’s disciples leave, Jesus addresses His own followers and says:
“Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.... and if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come.”4
What John denied, Jesus now affirms: John is the second coming of Elijah.
Here is hope for all of us who have returned to “build up the ancient ruins and raise up the former devastations.”
The hope is this: the work we do may not seem effective, and it may rank us among the least in the kingdom, yet if we know who we are (and whose we are) — if we know we belong to Christ — then we will come to know that we are greater than we can possibly imagine.
The work we do is the repair of the ruined cities, and the undoing of the devastations of many generations. I am thinking here especially of the Church but also of our nation and society.
Once again, we are about to turn the page on the calendar and begin a new year. Many predict 2024 will be a difficult one.
The message of the Third Sunday in Advent is that the work of God continues. With or without us, that work continues until God accomplishes His purpose.
Let us make sure God can use us. Amen.
Questions for reflection and discussion:
1. Why did John the Baptist lose confidence that Jesus was the Christ?
2. To whom did Isaiah originally address his “good news”?
3. Isaiah describes righteousness and praise in ____________ terms.
4. Righteousness means ____________.
5. Praise means ____________.
6. Explain how God lets the sin be the punishment.
7. What three questions do the priests and Levites ask John?
8. Explain how these questions might flatter a man less humble than John.
9. Who alone can truly say, “I AM” without any reference or dependency on another?
10. Explain how John’s momentary doubt is different than unbelief.
11. When Jesus heals blindness, He must also destroy the sinful ____________ that cause blindness.
12. Explain the hope of those who work in God’s kingdom.
Parents and Grandparents, you are responsible to apply God’s Word to your children’s lives. Here is some help. Young Children – draw a picture about something you hear during the sermon. Explain your picture(s) to your parents or the minister after church. Older Children – Do one or both of the following: 1) Count how many times the word idol (or idolatry) is mentioned. 2) Discuss with your parents the significance of work.
(1) he was in jail for his preaching (2) to the captives who returned from Babylon; (3) natural; (4) right living; (5) right worship; (6) the sinner takes on the characteristics of his sin; (7) Who are you? Are you Elijah? Are you the Prophet?; (8) it’s flattering to be taken for somebody important; (9) God; (10) unbelief is rooted in idolatry, in things we prefer to tell ourselves are true rather than what God says in His holy word is true; (11) works; (12) God allows our small efforts to be the causes of great things to come
Isaiah 44:18.
Exodus 3:14.
Matt. 11:4-6.
Matt. 11:11, 14.
The work continues