Comfort while you wait for the final redemption

Sermon for Gaudete – Advent 3

1 Corinthians 4:1-5  +  Matthew 11:2-10

We’ve arrived at one of my favorite Sundays of the Church Year, maybe because it helps to clarify why there’s so much evil in the world, and why Christians have to suffer; or maybe because a preacher can relate so well to John the Baptist in prison, the preacher of preachers who never got to see much fruit of his ministry and who had his own uncertainties to deal with. In any case, Matthew’s account of John’s question to Jesus from prison and of Jesus’ reply gives us plenty of reasons to rejoice on this Gaudete Sunday.

John had spent his entire life waiting for the Messiah to come. It was literally the purpose of his existence, from the moment he was conceived in his elderly mother Elizabeth’s womb, to announce the arrival of the Christ, with a powerful preaching of repentance for the forgiveness of sin, forgiveness which would be purchased and won by the Christ whom John was to declare the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And John carried out that ministry faithfully, as we’ll hear more about next week. But he was living in that rather confusing, unique age in which the Christ had come to earth as foretold in the Old Testament, had appeared and begun His ministry, but had not yet finished or completed anything. According to Old Testament prophecy, the Christ was to do lots of things, all with the goal of accomplishing two overarching purposes: to redeem mankind from sin, and to redeem His believing people from the consequences of sin, from death and from every form of suffering and evil. Two distinct purposes, often blended together in Old Testament prophecy, one mentioned directly in connection with the other. Only after the fact, only after Christ’s suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension did it become clear that those two distinct redemptions were not supposed to take place at the same time, but that the redemption from sin was the purpose of Christ’s first coming, and that the redemption the consequences of sin, from death and from every other evil, is the purpose of His second coming at the end of the age. And the whole purpose of this intermediary time in which we still live is that the Gospel of Christ crucified might be preached in the world, to bring more and more people into Christ’s kingdom through faith, so that as many as possible might participate in that final redemption that is about to take place.

All of that has become crystal clear through the preaching of the apostles and through the New Testament Scriptures. But John the Baptist didn’t have any of that. He didn’t even have the opportunity to hear Jesus preach in person, much less to spend every day with Jesus, as the apostles did. John was a minister from afar, and that came with some big challenges.

John had been carrying out God’s orders, preaching repentance to the people of Israel, and that included preaching against everyone’s sins, no matter who they were. It meant preaching against rich and poor, against powerless citizens and against powerful rulers, including King Herod, who had taken his brother’s wife into his own house to be his wife, with her willing consent, something which our society would barely even notice as sinful anymore, but which God’s Law openly condemns as a form of adultery. That preaching got John tossed into Herod’s dungeon. That’s OK, he thought, because the Christ has already come and will soon restore all things as they should be. As John used to preach when he was a free man, His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and gather His wheat into the barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.

But Matthew tells us that, When John heard in prison about the works of Christ, he sent two of his disciples and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect another?” Of all the amazing reports about Jesus, John had heard nothing so far about Jesus cleaning out His threshing floor, or gathering His wheat into His barn, or burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire. Nor had he heard anything yet about Jesus’s plan to make atonement for sin—remember, Jesus hadn’t even begun telling His own apostles yet about His journey to the cross. So it seems that John was beginning to wonder how all those Old Testament prophecies could be pointing to Jesus as the Christ if Jesus wasn’t doing the main things the Christ was supposed to do. And he was all the more confused because Jesus had come, but Jesus was letting this prophet of His sit in prison, awaiting his death. Are You the one?

Jesus could have explained everything, explained the two distinct redemptions He was going to accomplish, explained that He would allow His enemies to betray Him, condemn Him, and crucify Him, explained that it had to happen that way in order for Him to shed His blood to make atonement for the world’s sins. He could have explained the need for the New Testament period, so that the Gospel could be preached to Jews and Gentiles alike, to bring all people to repentance and faith, to build His Church one soul at a time. He could have explained that He would finally redeem His waiting people from death, and from prison, and from sickness, and from the world’s hatred at the end of time, when His Church was fully built. He could have explained why it was necessary for John to remain in prison and for those who hated him to have their day.

But He didn’t. The time hadn’t yet come for those fuller explanations. Instead, Jesus answered him with the works He was doing right then. Go and tell John what you hear and see. The blind receive their sight, 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 does not stumble over me. No, it wasn’t yet the redemption from sin. And no, it wasn’t yet the final redemption from sickness and from death and from every other evil. But what Jesus was doing and preaching was still wildly impressive and entirely unheard of, and more importantly, these things, too, were included among the Old Testament prophecies about the Christ. As Isaiah had said, Be strong, do not fear! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, With the recompense of God; He will come and save you.” Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, And the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then the lame shall leap like a deer, And the tongue of the dumb sing. And again, The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me To preach the gospel to the poor. Those were Messianic prophecies, too, along with the ones about the two kinds of redemption He would accomplish. Even Jesus’ beatitude, blessed is he who does not stumble over me, is a reference to the Old Testament prophecy about the Christ: Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and rock of offense, and whoever believes in Him will not be put to shame. Through the prophecies and through the fulfillments that were already taking place, Jesus was communicating to John the answer to his question, “Yes, I am the One who was to come. Hold on a little longer. Everything will be revealed in its time. Believe in Me, and you will not be put to shame.”

And now, it has been revealed, how the Christ entered the world, lived among us, did the miracles, preached the Gospel, and redeemed our race from sin by His blood. Now it has been revealed that the time for His final redemption and for the removal of all this pain and heartache and suffering here was never supposed to be immediate. It was always supposed to come at the end of the age. The consequences of sin have to remain in the world as long as the world remains. But the Gospel, the good news of Christ, also has to remain as long as the world remains.

Take heart as you sit in whatever figurative prison you may been be sitting in, wondering why Jesus doesn’t seem to be doing everything you expected Him to. He has done enough, so far. He has fulfilled every prophecy except for the final one. He has sent out His ministers, His stewards of the mysteries of God, and has called you to see and to grieve over your sins, and to trust in Him for the forgiveness of sins. His Spirit has led you to believe things that the world calls crazy, like a six-day creation, like the virgin-birth of the Son of God, like the divinity of the Man who died on a cross, like the invisible reign of that Man over the universe. If you’re still suffering under the cross, if the weight of the world is heavy, if you don’t understand everything Jesus is doing and you don’t see the success you imagined God’s Church should have, remember, Jesus is the One who was to come and who is to come. Hold on a little longer. Everything will be revealed in its time. That truth sustained John the Baptist in his dungeon, and it will sustain you in yours, too. Keep living in repentance. Keep clinging to God’s Word. Keep carrying out your earthly vocations. Your final redemption will come soon enough. Believe in Christ, and you will not be put to shame. Amen.