The Third Sunday of Advent Year A
December 16, 2007
Matthew 11:2-11

Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us…

It’s coming….it’s almost here. Can you feel it? Are you ready?

In 8 short days, just a little over a week, we’ll gather here on the Eve of the Nativity to once again welcome the Christ Child. We’ll hear the story of his birth; we’ll rejoice with the angels, we’ll be in awe with the shepherds. We’ll turn our eyes to the star and look for the appearance of the Magi who come bearing gifts for the new king.

And yet, and yet, I wonder if at the same time some of us won’t also experience some of what John the Baptist seems to be experiencing in this week’s gospel. “Are you the one?” he asks, “or are we to wait for another?”

Are you the one? Are you the one for whom all creation has been straining? Are you the one the prophets cried out for? Are you the one?

This cry is especially plaintive coming from John the Baptist—John who earlier in Matthew’s gospel we met at the river Jordan; John who dressed in the manner of Elijah, the prophet of old, preached the coming of a messiah; John who baptized Jesus at the outset of his ministry. Now John sits imprisoned, and he sends his followers to Jesus to ask, “ARE you the one?” It’s as if he needs a reality check, confirmation that what he has believed is in fact so, reassurance that he has not been led astray, has not become a false prophet.

Jesus answers him with words that evoke the reading from Isaiah we heard this morning, words that would have resonated with anyone familiar with Hebrew scripture,“… 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.” In other words, yes, I AM the one. I am the one you’ve been waiting for.

And here we are, some 2000 years later. We have not only the prophets, but also the gospels, telling us all about the life and death and resurrection of this one who is “The One”, and we have the testimony of those who spread that gospel and established the church. We’ve celebrated umpteen Christmases, and yes, Easters, too. We’ve traveled from the manger in Bethlehem to the Cross on Golgotha, and then to the empty tomb. We’ve been fed at the table by the body and blood of the one who is “The One,” and most importantly, we’ve experienced the power of Jesus the Holy One in our lives.

And yet … and yet, sometimes we, too, may plaintively cry out, “Are you REALLY the one?” Like John, we may want more evidence, we may look for reassurance…because like John, when we look around we may see a world where the kingdom of God is not always evident.

That’s the crux of the issue, isn’t it, for John and for us? Because when we hear the prophets, we set our hopes high for a world in which the blind do see, the lame do leap like a deer, a world in which justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness is like an ever-flowing stream. And when we look around, what we see is a world torn by war, by conflict, by strife. We see a world in which the poor still struggle, a world in which sickness and suffering abound. It’s awfully hard sometimes to see God active in such a world. It’s awfully hard to hold onto the hope that Christ promises. We see the suffering and the powerlessness, we feel the darkness even in our own lives, and we wonder, Jesus ARE you the one?

Jesus reassures John in today’s gospel by pointing him again to his ministry—to the healings, to the good news proclaimed for the poor. “Look”, he seems to be saying, “perhaps it’s not unquenchable fire, but the kingdom of God is at hand, just as the prophets proclaimed.” And in reassuring John, Jesus reassures us as well by reminding us to look for, to see the very real places where God’s kingdom is breaking into our world.

Hearing that reassurance now is timely. The coming of Christmas, advent if you will, is a time that can bring out both our darkness and our light. It is a time when memories and emotions—often joyful but frequently painful as well—can overwhelm us. It is a time when our failings and shortcomings, both personal and communal, stand in stark contrast to the superimposed mood of celebration and joy. It is a time when our expectations can be set so high that we are bound to be disappointed. It is a time that we can wonder just where God is in all this.

But the coming of Christmas can also pull the very best from us. Perhaps it’s the joyful anticipation of the nativity, perhaps it’s the wonder and awe of the angels and shepherds and magi reflected in the eyes of our children, perhaps it’s the response of our innermost beings to the inextricable call of God, but in this season, in our anticipation of the coming of the Christ Child, we remember again what Jesus has called us to. We remember our call to serve, to care for others, and we reach deep to do so in our communities, our churches, our families. This is reflected in the legend and lore of Christmas—in the story of the Christmas truce during WWI when men on both sides came out of the trenches, laying down arms on Christmas Day to share food and cigarettes and camaraderie, in the famous O. Henry story in which a couple who love each other deeply each gives up the best thing they possess in order to give a gift to the other (she cuts her long luxuious hair and sells it to buy a chain for his watch; he sells his watch to buy combs for her hair); in Dickens’s Christmas Carol when old Ebenezer Scrooge is transformed and celebrates with the Cratchit family.

And it’s reflected in the world around us—in the myriad ways that individuals and community reach out to others in this season. Look at what we have done here at Saint Mary’s just during Advent—we’ve helped provide for a foster family, provided clothes for needy children, bought gifts for teens, rung the bell for the Salvation Army—all of it evidence of Christ’s ministry still working in the world, all of it evidence of us being Christ’s body in the word.

Like John, at times we may find ourselves imprisoned in darkness and wondering if we’ve been led astray. But like John, if we can look into the world and see—illuminated by the light of Christ—the ways that God’s kingdom is breaking into the world, we too can be reassured. We, too, can have hope—hope that in Christ Jesus our saviour and redeemer our world is being transformed. We can have hope that the words of the prophets are not hollow, that there will be a world in which our swords are beaten into ploughshares and the lion lies down with the kid, a world in which there is peace and justice prevails. Moreover, with that hope in Christ Jesus, we are ourselves transformed and strengthened; we are empowered and we are nourished to be part of that breaking in of the kingdom, not just at Christmas but always as we act as Christ’s body in the world.

Are you the one, we ask, and Jesus answers with a resounding YES. In that we put our trust and from that we receive our hope as we go out into the world.

AMEN