Get Ready for Change

The Third Sunday in Advent

December 14-15, 2019

Matthew 11:2-15

 “Get Ready for Change”

Once again today, we encounter that fiery figure of John the Baptist, but no longer is he preaching a baptism of repentance on the banks of the Jordan River. He’s now behind bars; imprisoned for speaking truth to power. Then as now, there can be a heavy price to be paid for speaking like this to those who are in positions of power. In last Sunday’s Gospel lesson, we heard John’s stinging words, “Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire” (Matthew 3:10), and those words lead him to a prison cell. John the Baptist had called out Herod for having Herodias, his brother, Philip’s wife, as his own wife. Herodias bore a grudge against John and would bide her time until an opportune moment presented itself to exact her revenge (Mark 6:19). She manipulated things to bring about John’s beheading (Matthew 14:1-12). But before John comes to this grisly end, while in prison he sends word to Jesus: “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?” (Matthew 11:3). The change which John was called by God to preach, the coming of the kingdom of God which he himself was sent to prepare people for, seemed far off and distant. Might remained right; abuse of power and corruption continued on as it always had. How long, O Lord? Where was that kingdom that John was called to prepare people for? In so many words, Jesus tells John’s messengers: Get ready for change! That is the theme for preaching this day. May the Lord’s rich and abundant blessing rest upon the preaching, the hearing, and the living of his Word for Jesus’ sake.

Jesus’ words to those messengers of John echo the words of Isaiah in today’s Old Testament lesson: “Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who have an anxious heart, ‘Be strong; fear not! 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” (Isaiah 35:3-6a). Did you hear that? “He will come and save you.” That’s the kind of change God is talking about. And how will God save his people who dwell in darkness and in the shadow of death? He will give sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf. He will cause those who cannot walk not just to walk, but to run and leap. He will cause those who are speechless to sing for joy.  But wait! There’s more:  “… and the dead are raised up, and the poor will have good news preached to them” (Matthew 11:5). All of these things – every single one of them – were fulfilled in the life and ministry of our Advent Lord Jesus Christ. That longed-for, way-off-in-the-distance kingdom of God had now come crashing full-on into this dying world. Who else but God-come-to-earth could do such things? And that is the biggest change of all: that God-in-Christ did indeed come into our world, leaving his heavenly glory and power behind, to take upon himself the sorrow and suffering, the sin and shame, that was our legacy and give to us change that in our wildest dreams we could never have imagined. Change that begins now, this side of heaven, and that will be brought to completion when our Lord comes at his second advent. It is a now, but not yet perspective here.

Jesus reminds the people of his day that the change John was all about was promised by God long ago. John is the fulfillment of that promise made by God in final book of the Old Testament: “Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way before you” (Malachi 3:1). And in the very final verses of the Old Testament where God promises to “send Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord” (Malachi 4:5), Jesus tells us that John is that new Elijah. And yet, great as John may be, “the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he” (Matthew 11:11). We who are just simple Christians are greater than John the Baptist? Through simple faith and trust in Jesus our Advent Lord, and all that he has done for us, we are called great in the kingdom of heaven. Talk about a change! “He who has ears to hear, let him hear” (Matthew 11:15).

I share with you excerpts from something that I read recently: “This is the time of the Christian year dedicated to expectant longing. God, we are assured, is at mysterious work in the world. Evil and conflict are real but not ultimate. Grace and deliverance are unrealized but certain. Patient waiting is rewarded because the trajectory of history is tilted upward by a powerful hand… the assurance at the heart of Advent is the antidote to fear. No matter how desperate the moment, we are told, time is on the side of hope. Such hope does not come naturally to human beings. On the evidence of our senses, despair is perfectly rational. Entropy is built into our nature. Decay is knit into our flesh. By all appearances, the universe is cold, empty and indifferent… This leaves every human being with a choice between despair and longing. Both are reasonable responses to a great mystery… This is the fullest expression of the hope of Advent – that all wrongs will finally be righted, that all the scales will eventually balance and that no one will be exploited or afraid. But this hope is not yet fulfilled. Poets and theologians have strained for ways to describe this sense of anticipation. It is like a seed in the cold earth. Like the first, barely detectable signs of a thaw. Like a child growing in a womb. People who hold such an expectation should not be consumed by worry or driven by insecurity. Because hope is not a cruel joke. Because nothing is impossible with God. Because the seed is planted. Because Advent is a declaration of war upon fear” (Michael Gerson – The Washington Post. December 6, 2019). And do you know where I read this? Not in a theological treatise or some Advent devotional book, but in a recent edition of The Washington Post. An unexpected message from an unexpected source perhaps, but a reminder that change wrought by God is all around us, if we are willing to see it. The Advent season and our very faith call us to get ready for that change.

John the Baptist was surely anxious for the change he was called to proclaim; a change not just in outward things, but inward change of the heart. We, too, long for change that leads to better things. To change exterior, outward appearances is small potatoes compared with that interior change of heart. That is infinitely more difficult to accomplish. Such change of heart that leads from despair to hope, from selfishness to selflessness, from death to life comes from the One who gave sight to the blind, who made the lame to walk, who cleansed lepers, who made the deaf to hear, who raised the dead, who preached good news – Jesus. And so we pray: “Come, Lord Jesus. Change us that we may be ready to greet you with joy at your coming.” Amen.