The Third Sunday of
Advent, Year A
December 16, 2001
Christ Church, Covington
“Jesus answered them, “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.
And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me” (Matt.
11:4-6).
Our Gospel today gives us a clear characterization of the ministry
of Jesus Christ; a description of his work and its meaning.
The characterization is offered by Jesus himself, in very
particular terms borrowed from the Prophet Isaiah of centuries before.
The terms describe acts of preaching and healing, which are signs
that God’s Messiah has come. By
using Isaiah’s terms, as he does elsewhere in the Gospels, Jesus
connects his ministry with what was foretold by the Prophet; and connects
John the Baptist as well, as the one who comes before the Messiah to
prepare the way.
Advent gives us opportunity to “connect the dots” of the story of
salvation; a chance to see the unity of God’s work in Old and New
Testament, and to discern the purpose that works itself out in the birth,
death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
According to the faith of Israel, God had prepared for the
salvation of the world from the first moment of human faithlessness.
Jesus stands in a tradition, of longing for and expectation of, the
coming of the Messiah.
But in this case, Jesus does more than simply connect the dots of his
ministry with what has gone before. There
is more than simple commentary on the prophetic text, and more than a
“proof” that Jesus is the Messiah.
Jesus invites the faith of those who have seen the works and heard
the words. “Blessed
is anyone who takes no offence at me”, Jesus tells John’s
disciples; in other words, those who can receive these words and works as
the signs of God’s presence and coming kingdom will be blessed.
To do that is to do something more than to connect dots or to contemplate
proofs. It means to commit the
whole of who we are to “the Jesus project”: to the notion that God
would enter the world in Jesus Christ to do for us what we could not do
for ourselves. He brings
salvation to the world; that is, healing and reconciliation with God.
At great cost he overcomes sin and death, the terrible enemies of
our race. Those who can
receive this truth are blessed.
Yet there is more here than a notion or an idea.
There is commitment to a person, to Jesus Christ himself, as the
sign of God’s presence and reconciling work.
He is a person, not an idea; and therefore those who follow him
commit their selves, and not simply their minds or their reasoning
faculty. John Henry Newman
once wrote, “If faith is to live,
it must love” (An Internal
Argument for Christianity, 1866).
Love is the work of the whole person, not a part.
If you love with a fraction of who you are, then you really are not
in the business of loving. Faith
works through love, involving the whole of who we are in relationship with
the Messiah.
But note how the invitation to faith is framed in our Gospel today.
It is cast in the form of a negative: “blessed
is anyone who takes no offense at me”.
In its very form, it points to the disastrous possibility that some
in fact may take offense at
Jesus; that some may not put their faith in him.
The negative statement fits, however, as Jesus’ ministry in his day is
met with opposition by the religious authorities.
Not only Jesus’ ministry, but also John’s as well, for we find
him in prison. The signs are
not enough to convince everybody; apparently, even the great sign of
resurrection itself. This is
precisely because faith is not about “connecting the dots”, and cannot
be reduced to logical proof that appeals to the reasonable mind.
Faith is a matter of love, freely bestowed; and because authentic
love is freely given, there always remains the possibility that it will
not be given. Even more, our
human ability to love is damaged by sin, which makes us reluctant lovers
of God and our neighbor. Our
hearts are hard; our love is disordered; and so we do not respond as we
should.
This is where our Gospel finds us today, in this Advent. Jesus does
more than invite the faith of those in his own time who have heard the
words and seen the works. Jesus
invites our faith; and how we respond is
crucially important. Will we
find offense in the ministry that God extends to us in the person of Jesus
Christ, or will we receive it, and with it a blessing?
God has prepared the way, by the Law and the Prophets; now in our
day they point toward our own acceptance of relationship with Jesus
Christ, and faith in him. Advent
gives us the chance to consider our own disordered hearts, our own
propensity to avoid commitment of the whole self, and the opportunity to
respond to God and receive the blessing he has prepared.
The Rev’d John Bauerschmidt is Rector of Christ Church, Covington.
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