Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
Text: (Matthew 11:2-10)
Go tell John what you see and hear.
Prayer: Let the words of my mouth, and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
At one point in gospels, Jesus says to St Peter: “But who do you say that I am?” And Peter replies: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus is a totally unique person. There has been nobody on earth like him who has lived before, and there will be nobody like him in the future – he is unique. And in our gospel reading today, we are told about the things which are distinctive to Jesus, things which show us that he is the Messiah, the Christ, the Son of God who is coming into the world, so that we can join with Peter and speak our confession of faith with certainty and confidence.
Our reading today starts with the words: Now when John heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, he sent word by his disciples and said to him: “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?”
As we read earlier in the gospels, John the Baptist was in the wilderness calling people to repentance, and that many hundreds of people from Jerusalem and Judea all went out to him to be baptised. And finally, we read that Jesus was also baptised by him. After this, we don’t hear too much about John at all. We know that he was locked up in prison for speaking the truth, and later had his head cut off because a silly little girl asked her dad to do it. It’s almost as if this last the last thing he was supposed to do: baptise Jesus. Now after this, Jesus was becoming famous, and John was locked up. While he was in the clink, he was hearing all sorts of rumours. He wasn’t able to go and investigate for himself. So he sends some people to Jesus to ask him: “Are you the one we’ve all been waiting for?”
So how do you think Jesus shows to John that he is the one to come?
He says: Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.
There are three things that Jesus speaks about here: His miracles, his preaching of comfort, and his offence, the offence of the cross.
He says: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up. There’s the miracles.
Then he says: The poor have good news preached to them. There’s his comforting preaching.
And last of all he says: And blessed is the one who is not offended by me. There’s his offence, his cross, his humility.
In Isaiah 35 we read: Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come and save you. Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then shall the lame man leap like a deer and the tongue of the mute sing for joy.
We can see that right from the time of the Old Testament, that it was prophesied that these miracles would happen. And also, when these miracles happened, we would know that this was the person that all the Jewish people were waiting for, the Messiah, the anointed one of God. And it even says in Isaiah: Your God will come. We know, of course, that Jesus is true God, and that he is God with us, the Word of God who has become flesh, he is God of God, Light of Light, true God of true God.
But it’s not just any old miracle that Jesus performs here. Jesus could have very easily done it the other way around: he could have blinded those who could see, he could have made deaf the people who could hear, he could have made people lame those who could walk, and he could have taken away the voices of different people. But anyone could do that – a person who went around poking people’s eyes out and breaking people’s legs would have been locked up. That’s the devil’s work. And sometime God even hides behind this kind of suffering to show his anger and his wrath and to bring punishment. You remember in the book of Exodus, that Moses turned water into blood, he brought great plagues, great suffering, pain and darkness.
But Jesus did not come into the world to condemn the world but that the world might be saved through him. He is our Saviour. Mary and Joseph were commanded to call him Jesus, because he would save us from our sins. His name means Saviour, and he is our true Saviour. He did not come to show God’s wrath and anger and punishment, but to show us that this is the time of grace. It’s the year of the Lord’s favour. So he comes to undo and destroy the devil’s work. He comes and does comforting miracles. He heals the sick, he makes the mute to sing a new song, he makes the lame walk, he raises the dead.
We are also sick, lame, mute, deaf and dead. St Paul says: You were dead in your sins. So thank him that he has come to heal you and comfort you and to care for you. Psalm 147 says: He heals the broken hearted and binds up their wounds.
But also we read: The poor have the good news preached to them. In the Gospel of Luke walked into the synagogue and read from the scroll of Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me… to proclaim good news to the poor.” And then when he finished reading he said: “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” And all spoke well of him and marvelled at the gracious words that were coming from his mouth. “Gracious words” – “words of grace”: That’s what Jesus does: he speaks gracious words, words of forgiveness, good news to the poor. The devil makes people afraid of God: Jesus cast out the fear, and brings them to God himself. The devil brings terror and despair to people’s hearts, Jesus brings comfort, good news, refreshment. Comfort, comfort, says your God, speak it tenderly to Jerusalem.
And then Jesus says: And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.
Jesus tells us here that there will be an offence: he is too humble, too friendly, too submissive, too loving. He is not forceful enough, not arrogant enough. So many people say: If God were real, why doesn’t he just come and fix everything up? Answer – because he loves you. He has come down, he took on human flesh, and he is fixing everything up, but he wants to win you over, he wants to woo you like a bride, he wants you to love him.
Jesus humility is an offence to the world though. In Philippians we read: He humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. And even in the Old Testament it was prophesied that Jesus had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him, but that he was despised and rejected. He even comes and promises to be among two or three who are gathered in his name. He comes to us in preaching, water, bread, wine – humble things. And so he says to us: Blessed. Blessed is the one who is not offended. The whole Christian faith can really be summed up as learning not to be offended at Jesus. In John 6, when all the people were offended by Jesus, the people left over said to Jesus: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”
So what a wonderful Christ, what a wonderful Jesus we have described for us in our reading. He does wonderful works, he keeps his hands busy, and heals us, binds us up, opens our eyes, opens our ears, raises the dead. He speaks such comforting words to us so that we can put our trust in his promises. And he holds up his cross, his suffering, his humility before our eyes and says: Look at me and trust in me – Blessed is the one who is not offended by me.
But in the last part of our reading, we read:
As [the disciples of John] went away, Jesus began to speak to the crowds concerning John.
When John began preaching we read in Matthew 3: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” When Jesus began preaching, we read in Matthew 4 that said: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
It’s the same message. Now if John’s in prison, what do you think will happen to Jesus? It’s all very well to listen to Jesus, and not be offended by him. But John the Baptist preaches the same words: He points to Jesus with his own finger and says “Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”
And so Jesus defends him. He shows to the people that he is innocent. And this is the sort of thing that happens to people who preach the truth, who witness to the truth – they are hated by the world.
So Jesus gives four characteristics of Christian pastors who are called to preach God’s Word. And these things are not just for pastors who speak the word of God in the pulpit, but also for all of us together as the living and powerful Word of God shapes and forms our lives.
Jesus says: What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind?
We should not be blown about in the wind. In Ephesians, it says that we should not be tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine. Christianity is not a fad, and so we shouldn’t treat it like a fad. Jesus is the same, yesterday, today and forever. Much of what passes for Christianity today is windy, blowy, and not much use. We should close our ears to anything that is not the pure gospel, the forgiveness of sins won by Jesus on the cross which receive with beggars hands by faith alone. We should not be reeds shaken by the wind.
Then Jesus says: What then did you go out to see? A man dressed in soft clothing?
We should run around in soft, comfortable clothes, being a bunch of lenient, pushovers. So often are pastors complemented on being polite, but none of the Old Testament prophets were all that polite. Today we need to speak the truth, courageously, bodly, confidently. We need to put our hands to the plough and not look back. We should not be people dressed in soft clothing.
Then Jesus says: What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet.
Pastors of God’s church in this time of the New Testament are more than prophets. The prophets in the Old Testament pointed to Christ in the future. In the New Testament we point to Christ in our midst. We say: Behold, the Lamb of God. Look, he’s here with us! He is God with us, our Immanuel. He is here in his word, and in his sacraments, Baptism and the Holy Supper.
And then Jesus says: This is he [John the Baptist, that is] of whom it is written, “Behold I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way before you.”
Jesus says that pastors should not be reeds shaken by the wind, dressed in soft clothing, more than prophets, and also sent by God. Behold I send my messenger before your face. I send him. Pastors have to be called by God through the church and ordained, and without that call, it’s nobody’s right to get up in the pulpit and say what they like. God sends pastors, just like he sent John the Baptist, in a special way.
And so, we come to church today to be pointed to Jesus Christ, to see him perform comforting miracles again by giving us his body and blood to eat and drink, to speak his words of comfort for us, and also learn not be offended by his cross, his friendliness, his humility. And as Christ comes to his own church, to build up his own church, and to strengthen it, we are called, both pastors and all Christians, to be steadfast, immovable, certain, sure, not blown around by the wind.
Psalm 103 says: Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name! Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits.
Amen.
Lord Jesus Christ, thank you for your comforting miracles, your friendly comforting words, and also your humility and your suffering and death on the cross. Teach us not to be offended by you, and not to be blown around by every wind of doctrine, but to be firmly grounded in your works and words of grace. Amen.
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