Yes, He Is The One Who Is To Come

Third Sunday in Advent 2022

Justice in Judgement–that’s what every one of us wants when we are in trouble, whether someone else imperiled us or we did it to ourselves. Actually, what we are likely to seek is an outcome favorable to our side, isn’t it? “Really, officer, is ten miles over the speed limit that big a deal when I’m the only car on the road?” “Can’t you just issue a warning?” But our psalm today recognizes that Our Lord is the most just of all judges, and our prayer is that He will execute justice, especially for those who oppressed by circumstances.

Because the world we live in, just like that of John the Baptist and his cousin, Jesus of Nazareth, is a mess. One thing we can count on is that everybody else will be watching out for his own good, even if that means ignoring our own good. We really do need divine help, guarding us from outside perils and from those that come from our own disordered nature. I am my own worst enemy much of the time.

St. James tells us something very pertinent to this Sunday, just two weeks away from the celebration of Christ’s Nativity. He warns us that the judge is standing at the doors. God will judge us. His Son, Jesus Christ, is King of the Jews, King of the Universe. And in Hebrew culture, the King is the ultimate judge, very much like the Supreme Court summed up in one person. So we must not judge others, in the sense that we pass sentence on what they do to us. We do have a tendency to judge others more harshly than ourselves. And that’s unwise for many reasons, particularly because we can’t know all the facts in every situation. The other reason, obvious to wise people all the way back to Socrates, is that we tend to judge with partiality. We want to maximize our own advantage, and that becomes for most of us more important than impartially judging a situation only on the facts. So follow James’s advice: patiently wait until all the situation becomes clear, and then ask if you really do know everything needed to make a decision. A lot of the time we never do get all that information. Then we just have to turn the situation over to Our Lord.

Now Jesus was in a sense a follower of John the Baptist, who was under arrest in Herod’s lockup near the Jordan valley. But John still had a huge influence among his disciples, so he made remote inquiry into this new charismatic figure from Nazareth whom he had baptized not long before his arrest. In a sense, he knew he had to pass judgement on the man. John was always very direct, so he just asked his disciples to find out if Jesus saw Himself as the Messiah. He used cautious language, just asking if the Lord was “he who is to come.” Jesus was careful, too. He could not risk arrest by Herod or the Romans until He had accomplished His mission. So He did not claim the title of Messiah. He was always guarded about His true identity. He simply asked John to consider whether He was fulfilling the prophecy made centuries earlier by the great Isaiah. He told the ambassadors to go back and tell John what they had seen Jesus do. Isaiah said He would open the eyes of the blind. Check. Isaiah told them to look for the restoration of lost hearing. Check. Do those without the power of speech give praise with their tongues to God? Check. And are the lame walking? Check again. That’s all John needed to hear. His mission to prepare the way for the Messiah had been accomplished. Herod chopping off his head did nothing to cut short the work of God.

That should be all we need to hear. Jesus Christ is the one who was to come, and is the One who has come. Why? He came to undo the rebellion of humanity begun millennia before by Adam and Eve. He came to win forgiveness of human sins, bring all humanity together in right praise and right living around His cross on Calvary, and forge a Church that would fight successfully against the very gates of Hell. We are called to be integral members of His Body, His Church. We must pray daily that we will stay true to that mission, and tell everyone we meet about the salvation He has won.