When God Confuses Us

Good MORNING. Advent, Christmas and the New Year invite us to look at expectations, not only expectations for our own lives, but also the expectations we can make about God. Our Gospel lesson from Matthew shows us how even the best of us, someone like John the Baptist, can make assumptions about what God should be doing, that don’t line up with what God actually does.

In our Gospel lesson, John the Baptist sits in a prison cell and discovers how difficult it is when God’s plan moves in directions he never imagined. v. 2

When John heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, he sent word by his disciples 3 and said to Jesus, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?”

In other words, “are you really the one I was preaching about for the last couple of years, or not?” Seems rather bold! Here’s the good thing, and I can’t repeat this enough. We’re not going to understand everything God does in this world. Why people we love, or even we ourselves, suffer is probably the greatest question. And the most important thing is, take it to God, just like John did.

Sin begins when we try to find our answers in all these other places besides God.

John had preached boldly in the wilderness. He had confronted the corrupt temple leadership. He had called Israel to repentance with absolute courage. His entire life was shaped by faithfully repeating Isaiah’s promise that God would come with power, and visit his people, that God’s salvation and God’s judgment, would come to the world. All of this John believed with his whole heart.

But now everything looked wrong. Why? Well, John was confined in a prison built the immoral, adulterous King Herod. The wicked temple leaders in Jerusalem still seemed to prosper. And John is suffering!

John had said that the Messiah would come with an axe, and fire, but the reports he received about Jesus sounded very different from what he expected. Jesus healed the sick and preached good news to the poor. That much was fine, of course.

But Jesus also spent time with sinners and tax collectors. Jesus confronted the Pharisees on their sin, but continually sought to “teach” them, rather than destroy them, showing mercy where John expected judgment and wrath.

So, John sent his disciples to Jesus with a question that came from deep confusion. Are you really the one who is to come, or should we look for someone else to bring God’s Judgment?

As I’m emphasizing, it’s so important to note that this is not rebellion. It is the honest cry of a believer who can’t make sense of God’s ways. Abraham did the same thing trying to save Sodom and Gomorrah if a few good people could be found. Job sat in ashes waiting for answers. Habakkuk sat on the roof lifting his complaint about why God allowed injustice in the world.

God never condemns the believer who brings honest questions to him. The danger comes when we stop asking.

Jesus responds to John with patience and clarity. He doesn’t rebuke him or give John a lecture about why he doesn’t have more faith. Jesus sees our hearts.

Instead, he tells John’s disciples to report what they have seen and heard. The blind receive their sight. The lame walk. The deaf hear. Lepers are cleansed.

These works echo Isaiah, and Jesus has added His own signs. But Jesus doesn’t quote Isaiah’s comments about the wrath to come. Where John’s hopes were shaped by the promise that God would come with vengeance and then open the eyes of the blind and loosen the tongue of the mute, Jesus leaves aside the portion about vengeance, not because judgment isn’t coming, it will come, but because Jesus wants John to understand the order of God’s mission.

The kingdom of God, our mission as a church, begins with mercy. God’s Judgment will come in God’s time. But first the grace of God must be proclaimed. The Gospel must be heard. Sinners must be called.

It is very easy, when looking out on a sinful world that seems to hate the Christian message more and more every year, to want, like John, for God to bring the fire now. It’s not “unnatural” to want God to remove all the obstacles we think are in the way of our being able to live a godly life.

When we see wicked people prosper, we ask why God does not intervene. When we suffer for doing what is right, we wonder why God delays. But Jesus teaches John that the mercy of God is not weakness. God’s mercy and grace and forgiveness are the very power that conquers sin and changes hearts.