The One Who Is to Come

Lections: The Third Sunday of Advent (Gaudete), AD 2025 A

Homily:

Lord, we pray for the preacher, for you know his sins are great.

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

“Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”

I often wonder how John the Baptist asked that question of Jesus. What were his inflections, his meaning? Was it a genuine inquiry? Did he doubt the Christhood of Jesus? That would seem to go against his character. Regardless of which Gospel we peruse, John always knew who Jesus was: “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”

Of course, John has sent a messenger from prison, wherein he awaits his untimely death. Is he worried perhaps, seeking assurance? Had he expected a more traditional Christ: a warrior-ruler, a priest-king, who would cleanse the land of Israel by fire? At times John can sound more irascible than his cousin. Is He asking Jesus whether He’s up to the job?

Or is it, as I suspect, a call to arms? John knows his end draws near. He has accomplished his mission, achieved his purpose: John has prepared the way. Soon he goes to his reward with his head upon a platter—knowing that Jesus will follow, as Jesus always has. “Are you the one,” he says unto his Lord, “or are we to wait for another?” I read John as saying this fondly, gently chiding Jesus as only family can. “It’s up to you now, Lord,” he says. “It has always been up to you. I will see you in your Kingdom, in your Resurrection.”

“Go and tell John,” Jesus replies, “what you see and hear: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, those with diseases are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have the Good News, the Gospel, proclaimed to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.” It is a word of assurance, a word of divine promise fulfilled. The Christ is come; His kingdom is come; and so John may depart in peace, confident he has run his race and witnessed his salvation.

This is their farewell, you see. John preceded Jesus in his birth, in his life, in his ministry. Several of Jesus’ Apostles were John’s disciples first. John’s whole life has been a prophecy, not simply of words but of deeds: a human life as prophecy for the Word of God made flesh. And John’s own death presages Jesus’ own. With the beheading of the Baptist, Jesus turns His face toward Jerusalem, toward the Cross, toward the Last Supper and the empty Tomb. And so John prepares the way even amongst the dead! He is herald to the Conquering Lamb, who soon shall harrow Hell.

After the messengers have set off to return His answer to John, Jesus then looks to those around Him and says, “What did you go out into the wilderness to see, a reed shaken by the wind, someone dressed in soft robes? No, I tell you. You went out to see a prophet, indeed, more than a prophet. Truly, amongst those born of women, none has arisen greater than John the Baptist.” You can hear the admiration in Jesus’ voice, the undeniable love.

This bolsters, as I think, my initial reading, as Jesus appears to wonder at the fortitude of John. “And yet,” He continues, “the least in the Kingdom of Heaven is greater than he.” Such a parting line cannot be read as a rebuke. No, Jesus affirms the worthiness of John, the truth of John. What did John promise, after all? That one greater than he would arise.

Christ has come: Christ who is the Kingdom, Christ who is the Way. And His followers, John included, shall be born again, by water and the Spirit. They shall have the Life of Christ, the Life of God, breathed into their very bones; a life not like this mortal one, where everything decays; but a life beyond time, beyond space, beyond death; an eternal and spiritual life, beginning now and expanding ad infinitum.

This is not a kingdom of the sword. This is not a kingdom of violence or death. In this Kingdom, the blind see, the deaf hear, the sick are healed, the dead arise! And the fire with which Jesus baptizes us is the fire of His Spirit, the fire of forgiveness, the fire of the mercy of our God. For the flames which ever burn yet never consume—the flames of the burning bush, the tongues of flame at Pentecost—can be none other than the living Love of God, the Holy Spirit.

And everyone born of the Spirit shall grow, from glory unto glory, ever becoming more than we could hope to conceive of here below. That fire shall burn out of us everything that is not Him, and make of us at last whom we were always meant to be: children of God, the Body of Christ, the Resurrection unleashed.

Are we to wait for another? There is no other, could never be another. What king has ever satisfied? What priest has never failed? What prophets stood the test of their own heaven-sent ideals? Politicians cannot save us. Soldiers cannot save us. Lovers cannot save us. Only this Man, who is our God, who came to die for us—not simply in our place but at our own hands—only He has the keys to death and Hell. Only He has overcome this world. Only He bears the love to which we all shall bend the knee.

John faced injustice, imprisonment, torture, and death, knowing that these were not the will of God; that God does not countenance cruelty, oppression, ignorance, or violence; that God cannot be evil or indifferent. God is the Good and the True and the Beautiful. And because of that, God will not let our horrors win the day. Death does not have the final word. Suffering and mourning and loss and grief will soon all pass away. He shall dry our every tear, heal our every wound, raise our every child.

And He will do this not with armies raining hellfire down from above, but with a grace so shocking, so scandalous, so utterly outrageous that it has to be divine. God comes now to us not from above but below, undermining the posturing that we mistake for power. Here He is found in the poor, the oppressed, the disabled, the disbanded. Here He is found in small mercies shared amongst the least, the last, and the lost—His Kingdom spreading like weeds, like mustard, like mold infecting the cracks within each edifice’s foundation.

All shall fall, all shall die, all shall burn—and then shall all arise! The first order of things has passed away; behold, He makes all things new!

And so John in his prison, John awaiting death, can smile, can chuckle, for nothing more can harm him. His Lord has come. His Christ has come. Death has no dominion here, Hell no power over him. What then can a Herod hope to do? He awaits not in anxiety, but in the silent joy of anticipation. John knows what comes next. His patience becomes his pleasure, his waiting his reward. “Are you the one?” he asks, knowing already the answer; knowing the Kingdom is come, and so shall all be greater than he.

What sort of a man does not fear his death? One who has seen the Lamb who saves us all.

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Pertinent Links

RDG Stout

Blog: https://rdgstout.blogspot.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RDGStout/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsqiJiPAwfNS-nVhYeXkfOA

X: https://twitter.com/RDGStout

St Peter’s Lutheran

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064841583987

Website: https://www.stpetersnymills.org/

Donation: https://secure.myvanco.com/L-Z9EG/home

Nidaros Lutheran

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100074108479275

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@nidaroschurch6026