How different things must have looked for John behind prison walls. If ever the word "free spirit" applied to anyone, it applied to John. He said what he wanted to say, without holding back. If the scholars are correct that he was an Essene, then he had gone into the wilderness specifically to get away from everyone. The Essenes wanted to worship their way, with no interference from anyone. Now, those prison walls confined John.
We can't know what it was like for John to be the superstar preacher. We don't really know much about him, so we don't know if he was able to keep his ego in check when crowds of people from all over came to hear him preach. Perhaps it is safe to say that John at least felt a kind of excitement with so much religious energy in the air. All of that religious energy was part of the expectation in the beginning of John's ministry that something was about to happen. Matthew records John's first words as the proclamation that "the kingdom of heaven has come near" (Matthew 3:2). John's mission was to prepare people because someone was coming who was "more powerful" than he was (Matthew 3:11). John was sure that when this powerful person arrived, things would change. John expected that evil and corrupt people would be confronted. John's words sound as if he thought evil itself would be destroyed, burned up like chaff in a fire (Matthew 3:12).
From where John sat behind those prison walls, the chaff was still very much around. Things hadn't worked out the way John expected. As an Essene, he thought his community worshiped God the right way, preserving the pure faith. He must have expected that when the powerful one came, he and his group would be vindicated. The corrupt leaders, like Herod, would be judged. Now he was the one subject to judgment. He was the one in prison. God hadn't released him. The powerful one hadn't released him. He woke up each day to the same four walls. He had been thrown in that prison for speaking the truth. Was he frustrated? Was he angry? Was he bitter? With our lack of information, should we choose the safest adjective and say he was disappointed?
John had once made the crowds tremble with his words. Now he had to pass messages by way of his disciples. He couldn't even ask Jesus the question himself. He couldn't look Jesus in the eye and give the question the exact inflection he wanted to give it. He had to ask the question second hand and receive the answer second hand, through his disciples.
The question was, "Are you the one who is to come or are we to wait for another?" John knew that someone was coming. Whatever else had happened within him, he hadn't lost his faith in God. He wondered whether Jesus was really the one, or just another flash in the pan who raised everyone's hopes just to have them dashed all over again. Jesus tells us that John was a good man, even among the best of humanity (Matthew 11:11). These were not the doubts of a scoffer. John had been willing to accept Jesus as the one who was coming, but he had had some questions all along.1 John didn't understand why the one who would judge the whole world needed to be baptized for the cleansing of sin (Matthew 3:14). After John was put in prison, John's disciples questioned why Jesus' disciples didn't fast, especially if even the Pharisees fasted (Matthew 9:14). Was Jesus really the one? Even worse, was Jesus supposed to be the one, but lacked the discipline to follow through?
Now, while John languished in prison, those doubts really began to matter. Could John have known that he never would walk out of that prison? Could he have at least suspected that he never would breathe air as a free man again? Could we blame John if, under these circumstances, he began to wonder if he had invested himself in the wrong cause? Could we blame him if he thought his life had been based on a mistake? The answer to his question really mattered to John.
Where do we find ourselves in this Advent season? As we approach Christmas, how is our mood? Do any questions or doubts plague us in the midst of holiday cheer? Does some grief or worry have us down? Even if we are able to enter into the spirit of the season, does some of the singing and merry-making just hide our anxiety for a time? Do we use the Christmas spirit to cover up deeper problems?
John's question about whether Jesus was really the one who was to come may lead us to ask some of our own questions at this time of the year. How has it made a difference to the world that Jesus was born? If the Messiah has come, why do so many of us find ourselves in one kind of prison or another?
We could all name some of those prisons. For John the Baptist, the prison was literal. For too many people that is still true. The prisons in this country are practically standing room only. We know what lies behind that overcrowding: drug addiction, poor education, childhood abuse, a loss of values, and poverty. Those in prison have committed a crime, but they also reflect some of our society's ills. We can't know true Christmas joy until we've owned up to those problems.
John's incarceration was political. Certainly, we can see some joy-killers in politics. Our two parties seem almost unable to work together for the good of the country. Each party seems to spend all of its time attacking and discrediting the other party. Meanwhile the national debt soars to the stratosphere. Social Security is heading for a train wreck. The war on terror is based more on ideology than research.
Our problems this Christmas do not have to be as big as the whole country. Maybe we have lost our job and the frustration eats away at us. At Christmas time, not having a job really stings. Maybe an addiction to gambling, substances, or pornography has us in its grip and, no matter how much we strain, we can't break free. Maybe the memory of some mistake we have made hangs over us. We can't find any oasis from the guilt. Our prison may be something else, and we feel isolated because we think no one would understand. We hold on tight to our secret.
If we look at some prisons that hold us in, we may ask a question that sounds a lot like John's question. If Jesus is the one, if Jesus came in power, if God has reached into our world through Jesus, why aren't things different? Why hasn't God chopped down the trees of evil? Why hasn't God burned up the chaff, even the chaff inside our own souls?
Not only do we struggle to understand the continued existence of evil, we wonder about the persistence of evil. We don't even seem to be making progress against evil. When Coretta King died, the media revealed that the percentage of African-American children living in poverty remained about the same as it was when her husband had died. All the years of the civil rights movement had not made much of a dent in childhood poverty. The more we have invested in these issues, the more we share John's apparent frustration.
Jesus sent an answer back to John. It wasn't the answer John wanted or expected. "Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them" (Matthew 11:4-5). Jesus came in power, but not the kind of power John anticipated. Jesus' power was the power of healing and grace. Jesus' power was in his message of the reign of God. Jesus' power was in his deeds and his teaching. In spite of the evil of the world, we see that power now. The arrival of the Messiah didn't instantly fix all of our problems. It didn't free John from prison. Nevertheless, Jesus came bringing power. When we see the church working in the inner city teaching job, parenting, and life skills, that is Jesus' kind of power. When we see people break the power of addiction and live free, that is Jesus' kind of power. When we see the walls of prejudice shattered brick by brick, that is Jesus' kind of power. When we see families healed and love restored, that is Jesus' kind of power. When people find the courage to live with things that won't change, that is Jesus' kind of power. When people hear of the coming reality of God's reign and learn to trust it, that is Jesus' kind of power.
Not only did Jesus answer John's question, he answered it just when John needed to hear it. John recognized Jesus at his baptism, but still had questions. Those questions grew into doubts when Jesus' disciples did not fast. Now, with John in prison, the doubts had intensified so that John had to know the answer. Was Jesus the one or not? As New Testament scholars point out, when John's uneasiness was at its most intense, Jesus gave the clearest answer about his identity as the Messiah.2
Where are we this Christmas season? Are we as convinced as ever that Jesus is the Messiah and that the future is in God's hands? Are we covering up doubt with Christmas cheer? Are any doubts or uneasiness right before us, making us wonder what difference Christmas really makes? John has been there before us. Jesus' answer to John is our answer. Where we see the power of healing and the wisdom of true teaching, we see the difference the coming of the Savior has made, and we anticipate the full realization of that difference. Amen.
1. Throughout this sermon, I am indebted to the insights of Canadian New Testament scholar, Gary Yamasaki, whose discourse analysis of the passages about John in Matthew are contained in the book, John the Baptist in Life and Death: Audience-Oriented Criticism of Matthew's Narrative (Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998).
2. Ibid, p. 109.