Third Sunday Of Advent
MATTHEW 11:2-11 (Isaiah 35:1-6a, 10; James 5:7-10)
The Baptizer’s role as preparer for the “advent” of the Lord Jesus continues in today’s liturgy. The situation in Matthew’s gospel is this: John was now in prison. According to Mark and Matthew, John’s imprisonment resulted from his rebuke of Herod Antipas for marrying Herodias, who was Antipas’ niece and wife of his brother Philip. To enable Antipas to marry Herodias, he had sent his first wife back to her royal father, who then waged war on Antipas for the insult. Antipas was defeated, and “the word on the street” was that God arranged this defeat for Antipas’ treatment of the Baptizer. First century Jewish historian, Flavius Josephus, gives a different reason for John’s arrest by Herod Antipas – John was too popular, so Antipas took preventive action to forestall a possible future rebellion led by the Baptizer against Roman imperial authority in Palestine.
Whatever the reason for the end of John’s baptismal ministry, he still had access to his disciples. He sent some of them to Jesus with a request, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?” In other words, was Jesus the awaited Messiah and deliverer from Roman occupation? It must have seemed otherwise to John, if we are to take seriously some of the fierce preaching Matthew attributes to John, “…the wrath to come, the axe laid to the root of the tree, the fruit cut down and thrown into the fire.” None of these expressions seemed to fit Jesus, as becomes clear from Jesus’ answer to John, “…the blind receive sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, deaf mutes cured, and the dead raised back to life.”
There was nothing political at all in Jesus’ activities. Whether John was actually doubting his concept of how “the Mighty One” who comes after him was to function or if John’s embassy from prison to Jesus was a teaching lesson for his disciples, we do not know. John himself may have been doubting by this time, since Matthew attributes to Jesus an appeal which seems to be aimed at John, not to stumble over what Jesus was actually doing, when he says, “Blessed is he who does not take offense at me!”
Jesus does not seem offended by the Baptizer’s possible doubts or by his question presented by the disciples John sent to him. In response to what could have been taken as an offense, Jesus takes the high road and praises John. Jesus asks rhetorical questions of the people around him. Did they leave their cities to go out to John in the wilderness be-cause he was a flip-flopper and crowd pleaser in his preaching? Did they expect to see someone in fine apparel, like the robes people wear in royal settings? Jesus answers his own question. John was none of the above. On the contrary, he was a prophet and more than a prophet.
Jesus compares John to an oracle from the 5th century B.C. prophet Malachy 3:1,
“Behold , I send my messenger before your face, who shall prepare your way before you.” The original meaning of that oracle seems to refer to the return of the ninth century B.C. prophet Elijah. As if even this comparison with Elijah does not do justice to John the Baptizer and his mission, the Matthean Jesus adds with an oath, “Amen, I say to you, among those born of women,” (meaning: all human beings), “there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptizer.”
But due to the circumstances in which Matthew composes his gospel, the conflict between disciples of John and disciples of Jesus about which of the two was the real Messiah, the Matthean Jesus adds, “…yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he,” (that is, than John). Possible meaning: the Baptizer belonged to God’s old arrangement. In that sense, the adherents of God’s new arrangement, Christianity, is even greater than “the greatest human being up to that time.” This statement was already anticipated in John’s preaching, when he said, “I baptize you with water for repentance. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.”
ISAIAH 35:1-6a, 10
Readers may have noted how important the oracles of the prophet Isaiah were and are to the composition of the gospels and to many other New Testament documents. It is not without reason that Isaiah of Jerusalem, 740-680 B.C., is sometimes called “the Fifth Evangelist,” or “the Fifth Gospel.” This passage from Isaiah was chosen to accompany today’s gospel because it echoes Jesus’ healing activities to which he refers in his answer to the Baptizer. Isaiah sings or raps, “Then will the eyes of the blind be opened, the ears of the deaf be cleared, the lame leap like a young deer, the tongue of the mute sing.” Earliest Christianity interpreted these words and predictive of Jesus’ miracles of healing.
JAMES 5:7-10
The Letter of James, dating from the time of Matthew’s gospel, had a major concern in common with the rest of the New Testament – the return of the Lord Jesus. Christians must await Jesus as the farmer waits for rain. We no longer expect an imminent return of Jesus. Instead we understand these expressions of James as a warning that we must be ready at all times to meet Jesus at the moment of our death.
