Are You the One?

When John heard in prison of the works of the Messiah, he sent his disciples to Jesus with this question.  “Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?”  Mt 11: 2-3

I’ve always found John the Baptist’s words and the passage surrounding them disturbing, disorienting, provoking.  At times, I’ve resented Jesus’ reaction or lack of action in response to John.  John wandered the desert, ate locust, wore abrasive camel’s hair, kept his own dirty and unshaven.  John heralded Jesus with passion unparalleled by any other.  He was arrested and imprisoned.  I felt Jesus abandoned him.  Despite Jesus performing miracles, he does not rescue his cousin from being beheaded for a trivial request.  This passage is read during two seasons of anticipation, Advent and Lent.  It is a “passage” between one chaotic event to a later one.  During both seasons, I join John asking; Are you the one who is to come, or should I look for another?

In addition to the awkwardness between John’s disciples and Jesus’ disciples, both the birth and death of Jesus were messy!  Jesus was born among livestock, to parents questioning whether they belonged together!  Among strangers with inadequate care, everybody exhausted, his family fled from death threats to a foreign land.  At his execution, Jesus stood in a trial of mockery, deceit, and disgrace.  He’s beaten beyond recognition, marched through the streets where he’d once performed miracles among those jeering.  He was brutally stripped and nailed to a cross raised above his mother and disciples.  

During the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, the fall of Adam and Eve (Gn 3:9-15,20) is coupled to the Immaculate Conception (Lk 1:26-38) and adjacent to John the Baptist’s herald in the desert (Mt 3 1-12, the second Sunday of Advent). 

There is turbulence in transition!

Mary precedes John.  Mary, her name derived from Mariam meaning ‘rebellious,’ accepts the grace of conception to carry the Rebellion of man!  He is to be named Jesus, “Son of the Most High.” Who, while pregnant races by foot to a village to assist her cousin, also with child?  Who asks her son to do something about the wine at a wedding feast AND insists despite her son’s reply?  “Woman, how does this concern of yours involve me?  My hour has not yet come!”  Jn2:4

Who?  A spirited rebel!

It was John that the prophet Isaiah had spoken when he said: A voice of one crying out in the desert, ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths.”  Mt 3:3 

When John heard in prison of the works of the Messiah, he sent his disciples to Jesus with this question.  “Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?”

Jesus said to John’s disciples in reply, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind regain their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have the good news proclaimed to them.  Mt 11:2-5

Jesus doesn’t fit John’s expectations.  Their differences confused him.  Are you really the one?

Fiery, dark, and threatening, John warned of severe consequences.  Those who did not take his message seriously, they’d experience God’s wrath.  Jesus’ message was more uplifting, a pronouncement of good news.  John encouraged people to follow him in the wilderness.  Jesus went out to the people, to their villages and homes.  Unlike John refusing to eat bread and drink wine, Jesus changed water to wine, broke bread among the people.  Jesus over extended himself; inviting sinners to the table, feeding the poor, touching and teaching those living on the margins. No miracles were recorded of John.  Jesus filled his ministry with miracles.  John wore camel’s hair.  Jesus wore a purple cloak without a seam.  Before and up to the time of John, John and the prophets professed the law. 

As John’s disciples were going off, Jesus began to speak to the crowds about John.  “What did you go out to the desert to see? …. To see a prophet?  Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet.

Jesus said: “This is the one about whom it is written: ‘Behold, I am sending my messenger ahead of you; he will prepare your way before you.’

            “Amen, I say to you, among those born of women there has been none greater than John the Baptist; yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.”  Mt 11: 7-11

Did people go to the desert to see more of the same?  Did I go to the desert to see more of the same?  There is turbulence, churning, in transition!  John and Jesus both preached repentance and a change of heart, but a historical, dramatic, pivotal change in the human condition arrived, revealing, living, happening!  Jesus came not to reform, but to transform!  By coming to live among his creation, Jesus changed the world condition forever.  The Herald sealed the old covenant and Jesus introduced the new covenant as Isaiah had foretold.  Jesus is not a prophet.  He teaches not by threats and dire consequences, but by modeling expectations through the beatitudes, wisdom and parables, healing.  He is Emmanuel – God is with us!  Jesus brings the Kingdom of God to us.  He invites us, in all our messiness, to build in the Kingdom, to live in it.  Now!

           

John said: “I am not the Messiah; I am sent before him. …. That is my joy, and it is complete.  He (Jesus) must increase while I must decrease.” Jn 3:28-30

Jesus’ birth introduces his covenant.  His resurrection guarantees it with an Advocate to guide us.  The covenant is ongoing, in process. I once heard a theologian say, Mary received the Incarnate Word, while we received the Glorified Word.  John’s contrast to Jesus is so remarkable, I am compelled to listen and ponder.      

I was once asked; Am I willing to be part of something, invest myself in something that I’ll never live to see fully accomplished not unlike John the Baptist?  What does this look like?  How will I be present?

Without hesitation, to cultivate the fullness of life of my children immediately came to mind. I pray they continue to find joy, building and living in the Kingdom of God.

May this Christmas season bring you joy, a gladness independent of circumstance!