In the Gospel today, the great question is asked – “Are you really the one that we are waiting for?” This is a powerful question that John asks of our Lord, and it is one that is sometimes still uttered to this day. When John asked this question, it was with the knowledge of not only what his cousin’s mission was, but also of the things that He had been doing amongst the people. Those He had healed, those He raised from the dead, and the other signs and miracles that had taken place. Yet with all this, what Jesus was doing was not what he expected, and so he felt compelled to ask. You see John, like many of the people of that time had a vision of the Messiah being someone who would be a warrior king, who would force the Romans out, and would restore the sovereignty of Israel in one decisive encounter. He was expecting someone that would use battle to swiftly bring about all the changes in Israel that they had dreamed of for so long.
Our Lord’s plan was quite a bit different than the expectations of those around Him. He did not come to wage a war and drive Rome out of Israel, He came to drive evil from the hearts of men. He came to reshape souls, and to reconcile them to God. He would do this not by combat, but by self-sacrifice. He was born into the world to fulfil the prophecy about the Messiah, that of the suffering servant. He was born into a world of men, with one ultimate purpose, to ransom himself for their sake and to die and to rise for them to release them from the bonds of condemnation. John could not possibly have fathomed all of this, he indeed knew of prophecy, but he did not know the whole plan.
When Jesus responds to John’s question, He is very plain – the blind see, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the dead are raised, and the poor have the good news proclaimed to them. This is a message of hope to us all. It is not the wrath fueled words of the warrior that John was expecting. Jesus came to effect true change. Wars begin and end, and are largely forgotten in a relatively short span, and the goals of those who wage them often evaporate in history. Not so with the seeds of change that our Lord planted, the fruits of these seeds continue through generations, right up to this day. Human hearts and minds are mended, there is healing of these that will last many lifetimes because the healing does not stop with the individual but is passed on through the way they lived their lives and were an example to others. The process continues, just as our Lord intended with the kind of profound change which was His plan. In a sense, the warrior that John awaited did indeed come, but the battle was against sin, corruption, evil in the hearts of men, and ultimate lasting death.
When we embrace the Gospel message, and live our lives by His commands, we are mended. All within us is strengthened, our hearts are not fearful, our feebleness of frame and soul are gone, and we carry on with God’s work. We work patiently, knowing that God’s plan is for all generations, and that it continues to bring souls to Him in our time, and will continue to do so in the future. We wait for the time when all with be revealed and our Lord will come as Judge and King, but with great hope because we know that He has already loved us, purchased our salvation, and given us the path to follow home. As we await the celebration of the birth of the Christ child at Christmas, let us each remember the true meaning of the season, and why that precious babe was born into this world on a cold night in a humble manger in Bethlehem all those years ago.
The Deacons Bench 