Rsvp

You’d think John would know. After all, when Jesus came down to the Jordan to be baptized, John had just finished saying, “I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” [Mt 3:11] After that, Scripture tells us, John saw “the heavens . . . opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him.” [Mt 3:16] And yet just a few months later, John is sending messengers to Jesus asking, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” [Lk 7:2]

But John had doubts. You see, he came from a long tradition of prophets. With a few exceptions like Isaiah, prophets were all outsiders. They were strange, wild people who caught the people’s imagination with their appearance as well as their words. Also, John may have been taught by the Essenes, a sect that usually withdrew from society and preached a radical message of separation from society and purification to prepare for the imminent coming of the Day of the Lord. He dressed like Elijah, Israel’s greatest prophet, and came out of the desert like Elijah. John may even have taken the Nazirite vows, which forbade cutting his hair or drinking wine. All of these clues would have been familiar to the Jews of Jesus’ day.

And John was part of that same culture.

He probably expected Jesus to conform to the same pattern, to look like prophets were supposed to look, only more so. But Jesus wasn’t following the traditions. At the same time, Jesus was more than a prophet. If he was who John had thought he was, Jesus was the anointed one, the king from the line of David, the prince of peace. David was a military man, who had conquered their enemies and established an empire. And yet Jesus wasn’t challenging Roman power. If his message was prophetic, he sure didn’t look like a prophet, and if his mission was liberation, he sure didn’t act like a liberator. So John, being a simple and straightforward man, came right out and asked him.

John wasn’t the only one to question Jesus’ identity and credentials, of course. The ordinary people were flocking to Jesus, just as earlier they had flocked to John. And the Pharisees came to check Jesus out, just as earlier they had come to watch John for signs of danger. Some of Jesus’ hearers came to be baptized, or healed, or taught. Some went home again, other became part of the movement. Some were disturbed, and others were frightened.

People are the same today. If they weren’t, there wouldn’t be so many “seeker” services. There are almost as many reasons as there are people. They come for entertainment, enlightenment, answers. Some come for a quick fox, others for a real change. Some, like the Pharisees, come to criticize, or to gather information to discredit the movement. All have some kind of expectations. And when their expectations aren’t met, either they go home disappointed or even angry, or they stay and listen and change.

John’s question was legitimate. He really wanted to know. If Jesus really was who John wanted him to be, the one sent from God, John was prepared to accept the answer and get on with the program. So Jesus answered him. Well, to be precise, Jesus pointed him to the evidence so that John could answer the question for himself. “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard,” he said to the messengers, “the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.” [Lk 7:22-23]

The others have seen all these things, as well. And some find their answers in the evidence; others are convinced as they recognize “one with authority.” [Lk 4:32] These who understand and welcome what they have seen are blessed, Jesus says. But the Pharisees cannot accept the testimony of their own eyes, and they cannot tolerate the challenge to their own authority. And many of the ordinary people found Jesus’ challenge too different, too disturbing, too demanding. They take offense at Jesus’ words, because he is not like what they expected to see, and he does not say what they wanted to hear.

And so Jesus challenges them. “What did you come out into the wilderness to look at? A reed shaken by the wind?" [Lk 7:24] "Did you come out here, all this way, to see something as ordinary as a reed blowing in the wind? Of course not! Why then should you be astonished or disappointed that what you are hearing is not just the same old, same old?” Some people think that the reed blown by the wind means a person who is easily swayed by peer pressure or popular opinion, but since these were the same sorts of people who had come out to see John, and they liked John’s preaching, that can’t be it. John certainly wasn’t someone who wavered in his beliefs; he never went off message! It was just what the Jewish people expected from a prophet, and they got their religious itch scratched by getting baptized and then going home feeling safe again - much like many churchgoers feel when they go home from church. We’ve done our religious duty, even though we haven’t been changed.