Reflections...

Sisters and brothers in Christ, good morning! Greetings of joy on this third Sunday in Advent!

If everyone has had a chance to share their joyful expectations this Advent season and the causes of sorrow/sadness that may be preventing them from experiencing joy, we would probably have a long list of such expectations. Well, let me guess…

Joyful expectations can include a gift that addresses a real need; a family reunion; a new job opportunity or a promotion; an improvement in one’s health. Sorrow/sadness can be due to a sickness or death in the family, loss of a job, the ongoing pandemic, the ongoing wars in different places, the worsening climate change, or the realization that humanity has sadly become “a weapon of mass extinction,” according to the Secretary General of the United Nations. These joyful expectations, or lack of them, can range from personal to communal expectations, depending on one’s passion or commitment.

The expectation of joy during the Advent season is traditionally associated with Mary who sings the Magnificat, rejoicing in the coming birth of the Christ child who would transform the world – so that the mighty may be cast down from their thrones and the rich sent away empty; while the lowly may be lifted and the hungry filled with good things.

This year, however, the lectionary reading from the gospel according to Matthew challenges us to reflect on the question of John the Baptizer for and about Jesus: “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” The question seems to be asked from great expectations to a great disappointment, even doubt.  

It may sound strange that John would ask such a question. He knew Jesus so well from young, and he had been testifying that Jesus is more powerful than him. Some scholars believed that John had great expectations of Jesus as the long-awaited Messiah of the biblical Jews. But unlike John’s expectation of the Messiah who would pronounce judgment, Jesus proclaimed the in-breaking of God’s kindom of love and salvation. Unlike John who lived a life of an ascetic prophet, living in the wilderness, eating locusts and honey, Jesus mingled, ate and drank with the so-called sinners. Unlike the expected Messiah who’s believed to be a warrior king/ruler like the famous King David, Jesus demonstrated non-resistance, turning the other cheek, and self-sacrificial love.

Could it be that John’s imprisonment for speaking truth to power, also caused this shift from great expectations to disappointment and doubt? It’s like John is asking: 

“Jesus, are you really the one? Otherwise, were my efforts as your forerunner and testifier, preparing the way for you, all in vain?”

Jesus does not directly respond with a “Yes” or a “No.” Instead, he tells John’s disciples: “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...”

Jesus’ response is very similar to the prophecy of Isaiah that was read earlier (35:1-10). At a time of exile, Isaiah prophesied rejoicing, through images of the blossoming desert wilderness; of the healing of infirmities or disabilities like blindness, deafness, speechlessness, lameness; and of the promise of security of life without the lion or ravenous beasts preying on other animals or people. For decades of living in exile in a foreign country, the biblical Israelites were longing for a return to their homeland where they could once again live as a free people. Isaiah’s images of rejoicing were both literal and metaphorical images of a life beyond their bondage in exile.

What this means is that great expectations of joy develop or form in situations where there is no joy. A world in darkness, distress, desolation, and danger feeds and breeds deep longing for and great expectations of hope, peace, joy and love.

Yesterday was Human Rights Day. Peace activists and human rights defenders are like our modern-day prophets who keep reminding us of the great expectations of a life beyond bondage, even when the reality seems too gloomy and foreboding. Like John, peace activists could end up being persecuted, arrested, imprisoned for speaking truth to power. Like John, they too could feel disappointed or doubtful about their comrades or the movement as a whole. Which is what the powers-that-be would like to happen. Powers-that-be want to break the spirit of the activists in order to quash the cause or movement.

We do not know what John thought of Jesus’ response. We can only try to understand what it means for us today. For indeed and in fact, John’s question is really our question, which we are just too embarrassed or afraid to ask, lest we will be seen as losing faith, or backsliding.

And so, strengthened by John’s original question, perhaps our question would sound like this:

Jesus, if you are the one, what signs are there that a great transformation is truly underway? For things seem to be the same, if not even worse than what we’ve known before. Why should we hold on to our great expectations that things will get better?

Like John, we ask these questions not because of lack of faith, but because we take our faith seriously. Like John, we too have to assess our great expectations. For when we do, we just might come to understand the prisons that confine, restrict or limit our understanding and imagination about God.

Some of our usual prisons are greed or selfishness, self-centeredness, or apathy. But our narrow theological perspectives can be our prisons, too. For example, we may hold a linear, one-directional view of the Christian life as a journey from being lost to being found, from darkness to light, from despair to joy. But John's story goes backwards – from certainty to doubt, from boldness to hesitation, from what seems to be a heavenly light to his jail cell darkness.

But as the saying goes, “It is okay to not be okay.” Episcopalian minister Debie Thomas reminds us that worshiping the Crucified One means being in the presence of extreme doubt, despair, or suffering. In a sermon on this same gospel passage, she wrote: 

“Maybe we are invited to honor doubt, despair, and silence as reasonable reactions to a broken world. To create sacred space for grief, mourn freely, and rage against injustice. To let joy be joy, sorrow be sorrow, horror be horror. To feel deeply, because God does.”[1]

And then, like John, we too have to discern the meaning of Jesus’s response: tell what you hear and see – life-giving deeds are happening, touching and changing the lives of those who have been deprived and excluded; the kindom of love and mercy is not just for a select few; it includes the least, the last and the lost.

I like a paraphrase of Jesus’s response to John, by renowned author and preacher, Barbara Brown Taylor. It goes this way: 

“People who were blind to the love loose in the world have received their sight; people who were paralyzed with fear are limber with hope; people who were deaf from want of good news are singing hymns. And best and most miraculous of all, tell John that this is not the work of one lonely Messiah but the work of God, carried out by all who believe, and there is no end in sight. Tell him I am the one, if you must, but tell him also that yes, he should look for another, and another, and another. Tell him to search every face for the face of God and not get tripped up on me, because what is happening here is bigger than any of us. What is coming to pass is as big as the Kingdom of God.”[2]

Sisters and brothers in Christ, if we believe that we are part of the body of Christ, we are called to be his hands and feet today, called to participate in the in-breaking of God’s kindom of love, mercy, justice and forgiveness. 

May that be our common joyful expectation this Advent season. Amen.

By Hope Antone