Gaudete, the 3rd Sunday in Advent + Matthew 11:2-10 + December 17, 2017

Gaudete, the 3rd Sunday in Advent
Matthew 11:2-10
December 17, 2017

Grace and peace be unto you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

1)         John the Baptist sends two of his disciples to Jesus. They’re sent with one question, “Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another?” Perhaps John was riddled with doubt. He had, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, preached, “One mightier than I is coming, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to loose. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.   His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and gather the wheat into His barn; but the chaff He will burn with unquenchable fire” (Luke 3:16-17). None of that was happening. Jesus preached repentance, just as John had done. But there was no baptism of the Holy Spirit and fire, at least at that point. There was not sweeping out the threshing floor in judgment. Jesus had not gathered the wheat, believers, into His heavenly garner while burning the chaff, unbelievers, in unquenchable fire. That would come, just not yet. Maybe as John suffered in prison for his own preaching, he heard what Jesus was doing and wondered if he had made a mistake. Or perhaps John sends these two disciples of his to Jesus because his faith is firm but theirs is not. Perhaps his disciples had misgivings about Jesus and still clung to John, reticent to follow Jesus. John’s sending them to Jesus with this question would have been his final act of teaching them, of pointing them to Christ as He pointed many Christ on the banks of the Jordan. I tend to think it is the latter point, that John, even in persecution and prison, still points people to Christ. The important part isn’t whether John is a doubter or a good teacher. The point is the question. “Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another?”

2)         Jesus’ answer is more than a simple yes or no. “Go and tell John the things which you hear and see: The blind see and the lame walk; the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear; the dead are raised up and the poor have the gospel preached to them. And blessed is he who is not offended because of Me.” John’s disciples would have seen all this for themselves. In Luke’s account of this exchange, after these men from John arrive, “that very hour He cured many of infirmities, afflictions, and evil spirits; and to many blind He gave sight” (Luke 7:21). These men witnessed things that none of us have ever seen. Right in front of their eyes Jesus drives out evil spirits from people. These men get to watch as Jesus gives sight to the blight. The infirm and afflicted that so many had brought to Jesus are healed in that very hour. Jesus could have simply said, “Yes, I’m the Coming One.” Instead He shows them that He is the Coming One by His works. Not only that, but look at the works He does at that moment and throughout His entire earthly ministry. His works are good and gracious. His miracles are always acts of mercy, never of judgment. Not a single miracle that Jesus did harmed someone. Moses’ miracles were for the purpose of harming the Egyptians and beating them into repentance. Elijah called fire down from heaven to devour his persecutors. But Jesus’ ministry is far better than Moses and Elijah’s. In fact, in one instance when James and John want to call down fire on a city that rejected Christ, He tells them, “the Son of Man did not come to destroy men's lives but to save them” (Luke 9:56).

3)         Jesus points these men to His miracles because the prophets had foretold that the Christ would do all these things. But Jesus prioritizes His preaching over His miracles. He told these men from John, “Go and tell John the things which you hear and see.” He puts hearing before seeing because Jesus’ preaching is the primary reason He came. His miracles demonstrate His authority and His gracious character. What did these men hear? “And the poor have the gospel preached to them.” He’s not talking about the financially poor. He preaches to the spiritually poor as He tells us in Matthew 5:3, “Blessed on the poor in spirit.” The poor in spirit are those who admit that they are sinners and confess their sins, wanting to be rid of them. David says in Psalm 34:18, “The LORD is near to those who have a broken heart, and saves such as have a contrite spirit.” He says again in Psalm 51:17, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, A broken and a contrite heart -- These, O God, You will not despise.” In Isaiah 66:2 the Lord says, “On this one will I look: On him who is poor and of a contrite spirit, and who trembles at My word.” He does not preach the good news to those who think they are spiritually rich. People who think they are righteous have no need of the gospel of the forgiveness of sins. They don’t feel their spiritual sickness, so the physician of souls will not administer the medicine of absolution to them.

4)         This may not have been the Christ that John expected. It may not have been the Messiah that John’s disciples sought. Those expectations of winnowing out the wheat from the chaff will be met what Christ comes again in glory. But at His first advent, and as He advents among us now in His church, His coming is full of grace and mercy to those who repent of their sins. Sinners are to flee the wrath to come on the Last Day, by lamenting their sins and fleeing to Christ as their throne of grace. Jesus acknowledges that He is not what people might expect so He says to these disciples of John in closing, “And blessed is he who is not offended because of Me.” “Blessed is the one who is able to put away his expectations and receive Me for the kind of Messiah I am.” “Blessed is the one who is not offended that I preach the gospel to the poor in spirit, those who feel and acknowledge that they are, from head to toe, sick with sin.” He bids them, and John, to not be offended at what they see and hear but to cling to what they see and hear because He is the Coming One and they should expect no other. After these two disciples of John leave, Jesus then tells the crowd, “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind? But what did you go out to see? A man clothed in soft garments? Indeed, those who wear soft clothing are in kings' houses. But what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I say to you, and more than a prophet. For this is he of whom it is written: ‘Behold, I send My messenger before Your face, Who will prepare Your way before You.’” Christ confesses John is the forerunner, and thereby confesses Himself to be the Coming One, the Messiah.

5)         What was true in Jesus’ day is true in our age as well. There are so many hear what Jesus preaches and see the works of Jesus and take offense. They are offended at Jesus’ doctrine and work because they expect something different from Him. Jesus says that the good news is preached to the poor in spirit. Yet many do not want to be poor in spirit. They do not want to repent of their sins, let alone even admit that they have sin. Most are repulsed at the idea of being contrite over their sins. They think of themselves as spiritually healthy. They imagine that they are worthy of everlasting life. Their defense against repentance is “I’m a good person,” which when translated into Biblical language is the same as saying, “I’m a righteous person.” They are offended when they are told, “your goodness and righteousness is no better than filthy rags in God’s sight. You need a better righteousness.” The Lord diagnoses sinful man in Isaiah 1:5-6, “The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faints. From the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness in it, but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores.” Not willing to admit their condition, many today imagine themselves strong and healthy. But Christ says, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.  For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance” (Matthew 9:12-13). There is not a single one that is righteous in God’s sight apart from faith in Christ. This offends a great many because it means they cannot rely upon their own good works and merits as they would prefer to do.

6)         Still others are offended by the suffering, persecution, and hardship that Christ allows to befall His Christians. People expect, and where this idea comes from I’ll never know, that life becomes easy for the baptized. This false expectation even causes many Christians to stumble and be offended when Christ does not make their life a bed of roses. In fact it is often quite the opposite. Look at John the Baptist at the beginning of this Sunday’s Gospel lesson! He’s in prison! His preaching, which God commanded him to do, is what got him there. He told Herod to repent of taking his brother’s wife as his own. The very forerunner of the Messiah suffers this evil but it doesn’t stop there. His preaching of repentance stirred up the hatred of Herod’s wife, who retaliates by arranging for John’s execution. St. Paul, after He was stoned nearly to death outside of Lystra, tells the saints in Acts 14:22, “We must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God.” He tells Bishop Timothy that is not just preachers who will suffer for the sake of Christ, but “all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution” (2 Timothy 3:12). This persecution comes in many different forms, and it comes not only from the world but from the devil and our own flesh as well, so that no one is immune. Yet this suffering, trial, and hardship is meant to encourage us, as the author of the book of Hebrews tells us. “For whom the LORD loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives.’ If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten?” (Heb. 12:6-7).

7)         In spite of all of these things, “blessed is he who is not offended because of Me.” Blessed is the one who is not offended by the necessity of calling oneself a sinner on a daily basis. For it is Christ who daily and richly forgives all our sins whenever we repent and believe that in Him God is merciful to sinners. Blessed is the one who is not offended that Christ, who Himself suffered for our sins, allows us to suffer for His sake. For our Lord Jesus is the one who comforts us in our afflictions with the promise of His Gospel and reveals our sonship to us by our sufferings when we endure them in faith. Blessed is the one who puts aside his expectations of what he thinks Jesus ought to be, and receives Jesus as the Coming One, who advents among us in grace and mercy to forgive our sins and make us sons of God through faith in Him.

May the peace of God which passes all human understanding guard your hearts and minds through faith in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.