Jesus said to the messengers, "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.”
(Matthew 11:4-6)
I have never come across a single person who made it their life’s ambition
to end up in jail. People do not grow up thinking, “When I grow up I want to be a prisoner.” America, ‘Land of the
Free’ has more people in jail than any other country in the world. Nearly 2.25 million behind bars!
Part of the radio audience that listens into
our weekly services do so from behind prison bars. Were you to visit any of them they would tell you that prison is a terrible
place to be at Christmas, at Thanksgiving, or at any other time of the year.
The majority would also tell you that the reason
they are incarcerated was not because of any pre-meditated plan, but events took over them. Guilty as charged, not protesting
their innocence, but nevertheless many speak of events that just snowballed and got out of control and as they sit and ponder
they can’t believe that they allowed themselves to follow a track that led them to such a horrible predicament.
When a person has all their freedoms taken away,
when their every move is dictated by others, it can lead to goodness knows where. Some become hardened and bitter. Others
resolve to do better if they ever get a second chance. Many doubt that there
is anybody who cares, anybody who listens, anybody who even knows they exist!
Our reading today begins with somebody who is
in prison. We find out later that he is on death row. He’ll never be released. Technically he’s a political prisoner.
His crime is one of criticizing the government. He’s a radical, a prophet whom historically we know as John the Baptist.
It seems he is allowed some freedom. He can get
messages in and out of his place of confinement. As the sits in the darkness his mind is going into overdrive. Throughout
his life he’d had a purpose and a mission. He had staked everything on the belief that Jesus from Nazareth was the promised liberator of
his people. This was not just a political aspiration, but a deeply felt and held religious conviction that he had believed
in with all his heart.
But now the doubts are overwhelming. He sends
a message to Jesus, asks a deliberate and desperate question. Verse 3 "Are you the one?” Are you really the promised Messiah?
Did I do the right thing placing all my hopes in you? Or should I tell people to start looking elsewhere for some hope?
In reply Jesus sends back the messengers with these words; "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.”
Prisons are not just places made of stones, high walls and barbed wire. Many people, though outwardly free, are hemmed
in by numerous things that keep them captive. Doubts. Fears. Addictions. Debts. Shame. Grief. Regret. Sickness. Lifestyles
that are dragging them down.
And for many people the gospel of Jesus Christ doesn’t scratch where they are itching. Some have heard it so many
times that it no longer means anything. Some have never really taken the time to listen. Some have been repulsed by the actions
of those who claimed to have had it all together. Some have asked this very question, “Is Jesus really the One who can
save us?”
To folk in prisons, be they literal or metaphorical, can the reply of Jesus offer any hope? ‘The lame walk…’ ‘the leper’s cleansed…’ what does that mean
for now? A good place to start is considering what those words might have meant to the imprisoned John the Baptist.
The words are a quotation from the prophet Isaiah, Chapter 35. It’s part of a passage that is concerned with the
restoration of Israel. It finishes up at verse 10: “And the ransomed of
the LORD shall return, and come to Zion with singing; everlasting
joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.”
John was a man who had written the words and promises of Scripture upon his heart. When he heard those words they resonated
deep down inside of him. He would hear what Jesus was saying. This was more than a simple ‘yes’. It was an assurance
that something bigger than just another religious revival or passing phase was going on.
Isaiah’s passage speaks about a new way and a new day. And at the center of it all stands Jesus Christ. Yes, He
was the Messiah. John is called to look beyond his prison walls and see how God was continuing to work out God’s purposes,
to recall that he had played a part and remember that he was not forgotten. Jesus
tells the crowds about John. “Truly I tell you, among those born of women no
one has arisen greater than John the Baptist.”
Jesus words to John stuck in prison had immense significance. They blew away his doubts. They gave him strength. He was
encouraged. He knew that he hadn’t spent his life in vain, that he hadn’t been mistaken in telling people that
God’s promised one had come and was at work in their midst.
What can these words mean to us as we head towards Christmas? How do they address the prisons of our own lives? What
freeing impact can they have on our hearts? Simply this:
They call us to recognize that Jesus
Christ, born in Bethlehem’s stable,
truly is the promised one of God.
In John’s day, much like our day, there was no shortage of people and philosophies claiming to be the ones with
the answers. Jesus wasn’t the only one claiming to be able to redeem the people. They had every persuasion of religious
leaders from the liberal Sadducees to the ultra-conservative Pharisees, from the intellectual teachers of the law through
to the mystics like the Essen’s community out in the desert.
They had other religious options to pursue than Judaism. There were the surrounding Samaritans; there were the new influences
of Grecian and Roman cultures. There were those who suggested violent revolution, the zealots who thought that the sword was
the only force to drive out the occupying Roman forces from the land. They were those who felt the best policy was to keep
your head down, not make waves, go along and compromise for a peaceful life.
They had their ruling classes, the wealthy and the powerful, and they always had the poor with them, many whose main concern was getting by as best as they could and could not afford the luxury of
philosophizing why they were here or what life may be about.
Today we swim in a sea of ‘isms’! Rationalism, the belief that we can work it all out with our minds and
through scientific deduction; Skepticism, which doubts that is the case… indeed doubts anything is the case; Pragmatism
that suggests it doesn’t matter what we believe as long as it works for us. Existentialism, “Well how do you ‘feel’
about things?” Then there’s Materialism, “He who has the most toys wins;” Humanism, “The world
revolves around me;” Hedonism, “If it feels good do it;” Atheism, “There is no god;” Agnosticism,
“We can’t know if there is a God;” Deism, “There is a God but don’t get excited because God
has left the building.”
And religions? There is a veritable smorgasbord of choices. Buddhism, Hinduism, New Agisms, Scientology-ism, Mormonism,
Islamic-isms, and of course Christianity where you can take your choice of over 300 major denominations with thousands of
subdivisions.
So, amongst all of that how can you know? When it is hard enough just to get through the day and keep your head above
water what can we do? When we are imprisoned by doubts and fears and worries and goodness knows what else, what can get through
to us?
Jesus answered them, "Go and tell John what you hear and see: 5 the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers1 are
cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.
6 And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me."
I’ve seen people who were blind, not physically but blind to where their life is going and what on earth has happened
to them, be embraced by the grace of God and find a whole new way of seeing life.
I’ve witnessed people, not whose way of walking was disabled, but who in almost the whole of their life were lame…
be influenced by the gospel message in such a way as they now walk through their lives with a fixed purpose and a solid stride.
I’ve encountered people whose testimony is that they were complete outcasts, ‘lepers’ so to speak to
their families and friends, had been cut off, and despised, usually through their own actions. But then the light of Christ
has broken through to them and it’s cleansed them of their shame and they are on track to being whole again.
I’ve watched people who have ignored the Bible all their life, thinking it was just a bunch of outdated prejudicial
mumbo-jumbo, go through a crisis or some challenge to their way of being, and in that situation they have turned to its ancient
writings and found that God is speaking right into their situation in a way that has melted their hard hearts so dramatically
that they now claim God speaks to them through the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments.
I have observed people who were on a road to nowhere but the emptiness of a cold, dark grave, being embraced by the life
that is Jesus Christ and become such different people that you just can not believe they were ever in such bad shape.
I know of folk who lived in the poorest of circumstances, sometimes materially, but more often spiritually, who have
discovered in the Christian message something worth more than gold.
“And blessed,” says Jesus, “is
anyone who takes no offense at me.” That’s a strange way to finish
off that list of things, but putting it into the context of today’s world where there are numerous voices who address
those of a Christian persuasion and suggest they go away and be quiet, I feel like saying…
“Look I’m so sorry that there is
a God, and that through their belief in Jesus Christ God has been doing some beautiful things in people’s lives by the
power of His Holy Spirit, but that impresses me and that’s why I am all excited about this thing called Christmas…
because despite what other voices may be bellowing in my ear, the reason for the season is the Good News of God’s love.
And if you find that offensive… then it’s an offence I am happy to cause!”
The Good News that turned the darkness of John’s prison into a place of peace?
Jesus Christ, born in Bethlehem’s stable, truly
is the promised One of God.
Whatever we are going through, wherever our lives are right now, whatever we may be facing, such a realization can change
the way we look at everything around us. That’s how it worked for John as he sat in prison. That’s what can happen
for us!
