(By Jody)
Matthew 11:2-11
It’s another seemingly strange bible reading for a church in the final throes of Christmas preparations.
We’ve had a wonderful nativity show from Paradise Point, with wise travellers, startled shepherds, a sulky king, and many, many rock stars.
We’ve practiced our carols and corralled our candles.
We’ve got a tree and sheep up the front, a heavily pregnant Mary trudging the wall, and a star shower suspended over us.
So why would we turn from all this to a despairing prisoner? (Especially since we are entitled to an angelic announcement on this last Sunday before Christmas – please do read the beautiful poem in the service sheet.) I’ve been a week behind throughout Advent, but determined to see the difficult themes through: the end of the world imagined, the wilderness cry for repentance, and the uncertainty of John in prison.
I guess we are given John, like this, because there is no better way to be confronted, without stepping on Easter’s toes, by how unexpected and confounding Jesus is, as the longed for and awaited Messiah. So unexpected and confounding that one who devoted himself to proclaiming and preparing others for Jesus is having serious second thoughts.
Yes God-with-us comes as a vulnerable baby surrounded by rough and ready shepherds, animals, and danger. This is unexpected and confounding, but also very familiar and quite palatable. Who could take offense at a baby? (Other than King Herod.)
“Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” John’s comprehension of the unexpected and confounding Messiah, voiced by proxy while he waits in captivity, is bleaker, harder, more obviously troubling. There is much in his story to cause offense.
From an exuberant fetus, to a wilderness preacher at home in the elements: earth air space water and fire, he is now confined to a prison cell, realising, with alarm or perhaps resignation, that the reign of heaven drawing near will not overthrow the empire that oppresses him, will not save him, will not yetchange everything that so desperately needs changing.
(John, if you didn’t already know, is executed by King Herod a little later in the story.)
Before John’s question comes to Jesus, Jesus has sent out twelve of his male disciples, to their own Jewish people. He sends them to proclaim the good news (“the kingdom of heaven has come near”) and to cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. (No prisoners are to be set free, which you might expect in a list like this.) Jesus instructs them not to go prepared with their own resources, like money or spare clothes, but to rely only on what he has given them, and the hosts who will receive them. Jesus gives them warnings too, about the persecution they could face, the upset and upheaval God’s coming kingdom will incite.
This is the backdrop to John’s question: “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”
It’s not that he doesn’t appreciate the work of the twelve disciples, preaching and teaching without money or spare clothing, it’s just not quite what he expected when he cleared a path for Jesus in the wilderness.
He presumably anticipated something more spectacular, with more fire, more calling out of systemic injustice and overthrowing of empire. And if the revolution could start by taking out Herod, insecure power grasper and colonising colluder, that would be particularly helpful for John right now. Healing is a wonderful sign of God’s care, but what good is sight, and hearing, and clear skin, when daily life is lived under the thumb of ruthless oppressors?
Jesus pays tribute to John for his role, bridging what has been and what is, but he doesn’t linger with the pain and disappointment John must be experiencing, stuck in prison while the story unfolds, unexpectedly, leaving him behind. Jesus has no words of compassion or comfort.
But nor does he rebuke John, for questioning, or doubting, or despairing.
What’s so incredible about including John’s question in our sacred writings, and in the reading cycle as we draw near to the festivities of Christmas, is that it is elevated alongside the stories of hope and healing and spiritual authority.
We cannot prepare for the wondrousness of God-with-us without stories of despair and hopelessness and pain.
Jesus wants to make sure John knows what is happening. People seeing, walking, joining in, hearing, living, where they hadn’t before. Good news lovingly and tenaciously finding its way into the poorest, most neglected cracks. But more importantly, the Messiah is showing what God-with-us means. Taking no offense is being in process with Jesus: letting Jesus show how it is when God is with us.
Who Jesus is and what he means emerges in the stories we live and tell. The healings, yes, but the not healings also. The expected, longed for, anticipated, yes, but the unexpected, un-longed for, unanticipated also. We don’t have to shut down painful stories, justify or negate them. Our calling is to keep telling the stories of Christ coming, come, with us, among us, and to not take offense at God’s way of being with God’s world.
If we had to weigh stories against each other, resolve tension, allow only one set to stand, we would really struggle. Surely we have all tried. But we don’t have to. Jesus doesn’t ask it. He just asks his followers to trust the process.
We can get complacent, come Christmas. Oh once the baby arrives it will all be fine. God-with-us. No one will doubt or fear or mourn, they wouldn’t dare be so ungrateful! As if Christmas is a completion rather than a start. The conclusion to a struggle rather than the seed of what is coming. But we know that’s not true. And we have to hold space for all the stories of a world in process, otherwise we’re not telling the story of Immanuel, God-with-us.
Come, Immanuel by Godfrey Rust
Matthew 11:2-11
It’s another seemingly strange bible reading for a church in the final throes of Christmas preparations.
We’ve had a wonderful nativity show from Paradise Point, with wise travellers, startled shepherds, a sulky king, and many, many rock stars.
We’ve practiced our carols and corralled our candles.
We’ve got a tree and sheep up the front, a heavily pregnant Mary trudging the wall, and a star shower suspended over us.
So why would we turn from all this to a despairing prisoner? (Especially since we are entitled to an angelic announcement on this last Sunday before Christmas – please do read the beautiful poem in the service sheet.) I’ve been a week behind throughout Advent, but determined to see the difficult themes through: the end of the world imagined, the wilderness cry for repentance, and the uncertainty of John in prison.
I guess we are given John, like this, because there is no better way to be confronted, without stepping on Easter’s toes, by how unexpected and confounding Jesus is, as the longed for and awaited Messiah. So unexpected and confounding that one who devoted himself to proclaiming and preparing others for Jesus is having serious second thoughts.
Yes God-with-us comes as a vulnerable baby surrounded by rough and ready shepherds, animals, and danger. This is unexpected and confounding, but also very familiar and quite palatable. Who could take offense at a baby? (Other than King Herod.)
“Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” John’s comprehension of the unexpected and confounding Messiah, voiced by proxy while he waits in captivity, is bleaker, harder, more obviously troubling. There is much in his story to cause offense.
From an exuberant fetus, to a wilderness preacher at home in the elements: earth air space water and fire, he is now confined to a prison cell, realising, with alarm or perhaps resignation, that the reign of heaven drawing near will not overthrow the empire that oppresses him, will not save him, will not yetchange everything that so desperately needs changing.
(John, if you didn’t already know, is executed by King Herod a little later in the story.)
Before John’s question comes to Jesus, Jesus has sent out twelve of his male disciples, to their own Jewish people. He sends them to proclaim the good news (“the kingdom of heaven has come near”) and to cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. (No prisoners are to be set free, which you might expect in a list like this.) Jesus instructs them not to go prepared with their own resources, like money or spare clothes, but to rely only on what he has given them, and the hosts who will receive them. Jesus gives them warnings too, about the persecution they could face, the upset and upheaval God’s coming kingdom will incite.
This is the backdrop to John’s question: “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”
It’s not that he doesn’t appreciate the work of the twelve disciples, preaching and teaching without money or spare clothing, it’s just not quite what he expected when he cleared a path for Jesus in the wilderness.
He presumably anticipated something more spectacular, with more fire, more calling out of systemic injustice and overthrowing of empire. And if the revolution could start by taking out Herod, insecure power grasper and colonising colluder, that would be particularly helpful for John right now. Healing is a wonderful sign of God’s care, but what good is sight, and hearing, and clear skin, when daily life is lived under the thumb of ruthless oppressors?
Jesus pays tribute to John for his role, bridging what has been and what is, but he doesn’t linger with the pain and disappointment John must be experiencing, stuck in prison while the story unfolds, unexpectedly, leaving him behind. Jesus has no words of compassion or comfort.
But nor does he rebuke John, for questioning, or doubting, or despairing.
What’s so incredible about including John’s question in our sacred writings, and in the reading cycle as we draw near to the festivities of Christmas, is that it is elevated alongside the stories of hope and healing and spiritual authority.
We cannot prepare for the wondrousness of God-with-us without stories of despair and hopelessness and pain.
Jesus wants to make sure John knows what is happening. People seeing, walking, joining in, hearing, living, where they hadn’t before. Good news lovingly and tenaciously finding its way into the poorest, most neglected cracks. But more importantly, the Messiah is showing what God-with-us means. Taking no offense is being in process with Jesus: letting Jesus show how it is when God is with us.
Who Jesus is and what he means emerges in the stories we live and tell. The healings, yes, but the not healings also. The expected, longed for, anticipated, yes, but the unexpected, un-longed for, unanticipated also. We don’t have to shut down painful stories, justify or negate them. Our calling is to keep telling the stories of Christ coming, come, with us, among us, and to not take offense at God’s way of being with God’s world.
If we had to weigh stories against each other, resolve tension, allow only one set to stand, we would really struggle. Surely we have all tried. But we don’t have to. Jesus doesn’t ask it. He just asks his followers to trust the process.
We can get complacent, come Christmas. Oh once the baby arrives it will all be fine. God-with-us. No one will doubt or fear or mourn, they wouldn’t dare be so ungrateful! As if Christmas is a completion rather than a start. The conclusion to a struggle rather than the seed of what is coming. But we know that’s not true. And we have to hold space for all the stories of a world in process, otherwise we’re not telling the story of Immanuel, God-with-us.
Come, Immanuel by Godfrey Rust
