Every year, during Advent, we talk about John the Baptist. That may seem a little odd. Why John the Baptist? If Advent is a time of waiting and preparing for the birth of Christ, if Advent is a time of waiting and preparing for the coming Kingdom, why talk about John the Baptist? Well, there’s a few reasons. If you think about it, John was the quintessential Advent preacher. Right? If you want to see what Advent preaching looks like, John is your man. I mean, think about his message: Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand! That’s Advent, right there. The dawn is about to break. God is coming to set things right, so get ready, the hour is near. If Advent is a time of waiting with anticipation for God to act, then John is the one who comes along and says, “Your time of waiting is almost over.” So, John was the quintessential Advent preacher.
John was also the epitome of what it meant to be a prophet of the Lord. Jesus says to the crowd, “What did you all go out in the wilderness to see, when you went to see John the Baptist? A king dressed in soft robes, living in luxury? No. You went out to see a prophet. And that’s what you saw.” John is a prophet. Really, he’s the last of the Old Testament prophets.
There was a prophecy in Malachi, which stated that before the Day of the Lord comes the prophet Elijah would come and prepare the way (Malachi 3:1; 4:4-6). So, as people were waiting for the Day of the Lord to come, they were also looking for Elijah. Elijah was the “canary in the coal mine,” so to speak. So, Jesus basically says, “You all have been waiting for Elijah? Well, if you can accept it, John is the Elijah you have been waiting for.” In other words, John is the promised Elijah and the Day of the Lord is at hand.
Think about it this way. The prophets always came with words from the Lord. God communicated to the people through the prophet. When a prophet had something to say they would often begin with “Thus says the Lord.” Well, John the Baptist comes along and does the same thing. It’s as if John says, “Thus says the Lord,” and then points to Christ as the Word of the Lord that John brings. And, since Jesus Christ is the very Word of God, he himself reveals the will of God to the people. So, once John comes and the very Word of God begins to speak, there’s really no need for any more, Old Testament-like, prophets. John is the last of the old prophets. In biblical terms, John signals the end of an eon, the end of an age. In Jesus Christ, a new age is dawning, right?
So, John the Baptist embodies Advent. He’s a prophet preparing the way for the Lord. He’s an Advent preacher, with an Advent message: Get ready, the Kingdom is at hand. But something unexpected happens to John. He begins to have doubts. The text says that John was in prison, which was not an uncommon destination for prophets. John was going around railing against corrupt religious leaders and telling king Herod his marriage was illegitimate. So, Herod throws John in prison. And it’s in prison, as he has some time to reflect on what Jesus is doing, that John begins to have questions and wonder if he might have been wrong.
John sends some of his own disciples to ask Jesus, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we to wait for another?” To be fair, John does ask Jesus this question as if Jesus should know. John is not doubting whether Jesus is a holy man. He’s doubting whether Jesus is the promised Messiah. And, why? Why is he beginning to doubt whether or not Jesus is the Messiah? Well, think about the contrast between what John was preaching and what Jesus was doing.
Prior to prison, John is out in the wilderness preaching repentance, telling people it’s time to return to God. Droves of people are coming out to hear him preach and to get baptized. At one point, some of the religious leaders also come out to be baptized. John says to them, “You brood of vipers! (which is not a compliment) Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit worthy of repentance…Even now the axe is lying at the root of the trees…”
John is saying, “Look, the time is short. Judgment is coming. It’s right around the corner.” He firmly believes that the Day of the Lord is almost there. And, he has clear expectations of what that Day will look like. If you go back to the prophet Malachi, it says on the Day of the Lord the Lord will draw near for judgment, and that judgment will be swift (Malachi 3:5). In other words, it will be quick. But, when John hears what Jesus has been doing, it doesn’t look like the swift judgment he was expecting.
So, think about it. Here’s John, warning corrupt religious leaders about the wrath which they are about to face, and yet it is John who is sitting in prison. And what is Jesus doing? He’s walking around the countryside, sitting down teaching folks, healing folks, holding children. He’s hanging around with tax collectors and prostitutes. Unlike John who lived in the wilderness eating locust and honey, Jesus is at a Pharisee’s house eating a banquet dinner. As John is sitting in his prison cell thinking all this over, it just doesn’t seem like the Day of the Lord he was expecting.
This is another way that John teaches us about, and even embodies, Advent. Advent is a time of expectation and hope. Really, we spend four weeks in Advent being reminded that we are always in Advent. As Christians we are always waiting with expectation and hope. And what John is experiencing in this passage is a reminder to us that God’s plans, and how they unfold, ma look very different than what we expect.
Think about our Lord’s birth. The time into which our Lord was born was at a fever pitch with expectation. Those prophetic passages that had promised a coming Messiah had been around a long, long time. And, people had pretty well-defined expectations of what the Messiah would be and do. They expected the Messiah to come and take over in the way that understood kings to do. When they thought of the Messiah’s kingdom, they thought in terms of earthly kingdoms. And so, Jesus says, “Blessed is anyone who does not take offense at me.” Jesus knows that he is not meeting some of their expectations. But, why would anyone take offense at him? The word Jesus uses there is the root from which we get the word “scandal.” What could be so scandalous about Jesus Christ? One answer: the cross.
No one really saw the cross coming. It was unexpected. 1st cent. Judeans expected the Messiah to come and defeat their enemies and restore the former glory of Israel. They weren’t expecting the Messiah to come and give his life to save humanity, and especially not through a cross. And yet, the way to the joy they were hoping for was through that cross. As the writer of Hebrews put it: Jesus is the “pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame (Hebrews 12:2). He disregarded the scandal for the sake of the joy he would secure. The joy they were hoping for, the good thing they were looking for, was so much more than they expected.
Last Monday, I had the opportunity to go to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and see the Edward Hopper exhibit. I don’t really know a whole lot about art, but I really like Hopper’s paintings. So, I made plans with my cousin from Harrisonburg to see the exhibit. I was pretty excited. You know, about as excited as I get about anything. I expected to have fun hanging out with my cousin and see some good art.
Well, as I’m going through the exhibit, I’m standing in front of a piece I’m familiar with, I’ve seen picture of it many times. I’m standing there, in front of this painting, looking at it. And, in that moment it just dawns on me that I’m basically standing in the same spot that Hopper would have stood as he painted it. I can see his brush stroke and even take my hand and imitate the stroke he made. All the sudden, I’m kind of overcome with this sense of awe. And as I’m looking at one painting after another, all these paintings I had only ever seen in pictures, I’m just overcome with awe and gratitude to have the opportunity to see them. To my pleasant surprise, the experience was so much more than I had expected. And, really, I couldn’t have anticipated what it was really like until I was there in that moment.
Paul says, “No eye has, and no ear has heard, and no human heart has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him.” In other words, the end result of what God is doing is so much more than we can possibly conceive. And as we wait for that, we are expecting the unexpected. I have to say, I don’t think John was wrong in what he preached. It’s just that they way God is bringing that about is different than John expected. I take that as a word of caution for us. And so, I’ll close with a word of encouragement from Paul in Romans 8: “For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience…(for) We know that all things work together for good for those who love God.”
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