Joy

Advent 3

 

Barbara Bartocci was searching for the perfect birthday card for her husband a few years ago.  She came across a promising one.  On the outside it read: “Sweetheart, you’re the answer to my prayers.”  Then she turned to the inside, which was inscribed like this: “You’re not what I prayed for exactly, but apparently you’re the answer.” [i]

 

For thousands of years, the Jewish people had been praying for a Messiah, a deliverer who would conquer their enemies and establish a kingdom of righteousness and might.  Their deliverer would be powerful, a warrior and a king, and through his power the Jews would again reign in peace and prosperity.

 

Then along comes Jesus, a poor carpenter with questionable friends.  He claims to be the long-awaited Messiah who has come to set up a very different kind of kingdom.  And so we can forgive even Jesus’ strongest supporters for asking, “You’re the answer to our prayers? Really?” [ii]

 

St. John the Baptist had also been praying for and preparing for the Messiah his whole life.  John had been doing this with a harsh criticism of the ruling religious establishment and a stern call to penance for the people.

 

John’s idea of Jesus was, then, one of a warrior type, someone as we said above who would, like John, preach fire and brimstone.  John had even said the coming Messiah would baptize his hearers with the “Holy Spirit and fire.”

 

In today’s gospel John is in prison.  Herod had put John in prison for criticizing him for marrying his brother’s wife, Herodias.  She hated John even more than her illegitimate husband hated John.

 

John probably knew his days were numbered.  He was hearing of the conduct of Jesus, whom he had thought was the Messiah, in preparation for whom he had given his life.  He had heard, though, that this Messiah, far from preaching hellfire and brimstone, was doing works of mercy.  John was confused.  He sent some of his disciples to ask Jesus if he was the one to come.

 

We sometimes have a hard time seeing Jesus in others.  Jesus said he was in the least of his.  But we have our ideas of whom Jesus should be in, and so we judge some people worthy of our alms and mercy, and others worthy of hellfire and damnation.  It’s not easy to see Jesus in our enemy.

 

In response to John’s question, Jesus could simply have said, “Yes, I am the one.”  He doesn’t do that, but neither does he evade the question.

 

Jesus does what he so frequently does when asked a question – he throws it back on the questioner.  This greatest psychologist of all times shows his understanding of human nature most clearly here.  Anyone who has counselled knows that there is no easy answer to hopes and doubts.

 

A psychiatrist once told a story about himself when he had first begun his practice.  A patient said to him, quite frankly, that she was sure he saw what her problems were with clarity. She asked him to tell her what they were and save her a lot of money by cutting short her therapy.  He was so new to the profession that he did as she asked, at which point she flounced out of his office, saying, “Well, if that’s what you think of me, I certainly don’t want to work with you!”

 

It is in our prayers and our expectations.  We come to Jesus with our agenda, and he gives us the Sermon on the Mount.

 

Jesus sent John’s disciples back to John with the very quote from Isaiah we read in the first reading.  Jesus knew John would understand, for John was the greatest prophet, together with Isaiah, in the Old Testament.

 

It’s interesting to note Jesus never directly answered John’s question: “Are you the expected One or shall we look for someone else?”  He never gave a  straight “yes” or “no.”  Jesus could have pointed to hundreds of Biblical prophecies that his life had fulfilled.  He could have performed some dazzling miracle that would have instantly silenced all of John’s doubts.  Instead, Jesus announced, “Go and tell John the things which you hear and see: The blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them.”

 

Why did Jesus choose these particular things to prove his Lordship?  What does this tell us about his priorities?

 

These miracles all seem to involve restoration and compassion. Just as they are today, the deaf, the blind, and the lame were kept outside the mainstream of society.  They were often forced to beg to support themselves. Others viewed their disability as a punishment from God. Lepers were outcasts, unclean, cut off from all social or religious acceptance.  Jesus didn’t just hear these people – he restored their place in society.  And Jesus’ restorative powers were never on greater display than when he brought a dead person back to life.

 

These answers demonstrate Jesus’ compassion for the least and the lowest. They remind us that Jesus came for the hurting, helpless, overlooked people of society.

 

That’s always a good thing to remember at this time of the year when our greed and materialism are given free rein.  Don’t confuse our society’s celebration of Christmas with the character of Jesus.  The two are as different as day and night.

 

Lieutenant Gerald Coffee spent seven years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. During his second Christmas in that rotten hellhole of a camp he made an amazing discovery.  He had been stripped of everything by which he measured his identity: rank, uniform, family, money. And yet, alone in a cramped three by seven foot cell, he began to understand the meaning of Christmas. Removed from all commercial distractions, he was able to focus on the simplicity of Christ’s birth. Although he was lonely and afraid, he realized that this Christmas could be his most meaningful, because now, more than ever before, he understood the event.

 

We can assume John the Baptist discovered the same thing.  As he sat in his prison cell, stripped of all the things we think are necessary for life, he discovered the one most important thing: hope, peace and joy.