"The One Who Comes After Is the One Who Is Before" Third Sunday in Advent Gaudete Commemoration of Lucia, Martyr December 13, 2015 Matthew 11:2–10
What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is he of whom it is written, “Behold, I send My messenger before Your face, who will prepare Your way before You.” Jesus here is talking about John the Baptist. But, really, what Jesus is doing is using this opportunity to talk about Himself. But the thing is, the more you dig into the Scriptures, the more you ought to see that every person in the Scriptures, every event recorded there, every bit of information, is always and ultimately about Jesus Christ. When John the Baptist is in prison and he hears about the deeds of Jesus he sends his disciples to Jesus to ask Him if He is the one or if they should look for another. Not surprisingly, Jesus tells them what He has been doing. The blind have received their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them. He recounts these things not so much as to say, look at all these things I’ve been doing, what do you think?, as to say that everything that was foretold in the Old Testament about the Messiah, has been fulfilled in Me. Them going back to John and recounting these things would tell John all he needed to know. There was no need to look for another. So John the Baptist’s disciples go back to John with this report. But then Jesus seems to change the subject. He starts speaking to the crowds about John the Baptist. It seems that instead of telling the crowds about Himself, building on what He had said before about Himself, He now shifts the focus back to John. What did you go out to see? A reed shaken by the wind? A man dressed in soft clothing? A prophet? Yes, that’s who he is. He is a prophet. And yet, he’s even more than a prophet. He is the one of whom it is written, “Behold, I send My messenger before Your face, who will prepare Your way before You.” John the Baptist is the one who was prophesied to be the one paving the way for the Messiah, the Savior of the world. Jesus is showing even more so how He is the one. The one who was to come before has come, that was John the Baptist. Now that he has come, the one who was to come after has come as well, that is Jesus Himself. The signs are all there. The one who was to come to pave the way for Jesus came. Then when Jesus came, He carried out all the deeds the Messiah was foretold to carry out. John did what God had called him to do. When he was in prison he wondered, though. That he was now in prison, did it mean he was wrong about Jesus? If preparing the way for Him meant that he himself would end up in prison, maybe Jesus wasn’t the one. But even though Jesus is the one who came after John, Jesus is the one who is before John. John ended up in prison and then ended up being beheaded. Jesus was born, and died also, but He is the one who has always been. He is eternal. It is only in the flesh that He was born. He was born in order to die on the cross to accomplish salvation. So Jesus does here what He always does. He shows how everything of who He is and what He does is in order to carry out what was promised would be carried out when the one who came before Him prepared the way for Him. John prepared the way and then Jesus carried out His work of salvation. He is the one who actually was before John. You and I live in this world as John did. But while he came before Jesus we have come after Jesus. When we point people to Jesus we show them what He did. We point them to His life and His death and His resurrection. We show them a God who has come into this life as we have, by being born. Many people may not think much of the notion of a baby born in a stable and laid in a manger. They might wonder why God would have to do something like die. And when it comes to the resurrection, many people just don’t give much credence to the notion of someone coming back to life from the grave. But this is because when people think of Jesus they think of Him simply as a human being like all the rest of us. When John was in prison, the man whom he had prepared the way for, he was beginning to see was a man, just like him. Now he was locked up in prison. If Jesus was a man just like him, what would become of the promise of the Messiah? So many people today think of Jesus as just a man. If He was a man just like we are, then there’s not a lot to talk about. People seek God in ways that seem more God-like to them than God becoming a baby, or living in a relatively obscure area of the globe, and especially suffering and dying. Many people simply can’t see how the person of Jesus is relevant to their daily life. How do we respond to them? How do we come to terms with our own doubts or struggles? How do we resolve the tension of the sin that continues in our lives and our too-often powerlessness to overcome temptation? We respond with the Gospel. It’s the only thing that will answer people, including ourselves, with what they really need. Don’t worry if it doesn’t seem like it. Just do it. The answer to the question about whether Jesus is the one is what Jesus gives: tell them what you hear and see. Then He lists all of His works. That’s what we do. We point people to what Jesus has done. If they don’t seem convinced, it’s not our job to convince them. If we ourselves don’t seem quite allayed in our own struggles, it’s not our job to straighten up our own lives. There is only one who can and He is the Holy Spirit. Tell them what you hear and see. The Holy Spirit works through the Gospel that is made known. When you tell others who Jesus is and what He has done the Holy Sprit is the one who does the work, not you. The Holy Spirit is the one who will turn their hearts, not you. Think of it, Jesus could have gone straight over to the cell John was in to tell him Himself. But He didn’t. He didn’t need to. It’s enough for ordinary people to do it. Jesus didn’t stick around but for thirty-some years. He didn’t need to. We have the Gospel continued to be proclaimed and made known. If people don’t think of Jesus as anything more than a human being that’s because they aren’t looking at Him as the one who in the flesh is the one who always has been. In Colossians 2 we are taught that the whole fullness of the deity dwells in Christ bodily. Everything of who God is, His power, glory, and grace, is all wrapped up in that person who is Jesus. It is in the person of Jesus that the dividing line occurs. Either He is just a man or He is God in the flesh. There will come a day when God will disclose everything in the heart of every person, we learn that from the Epistle reading. Until that time we repent. We live under the grace of God, in the forgiveness given in Baptism and that we are nourished in in Absolution and preaching and the Lord’s Supper. The grace we receive is the grace we freely give. Tell others what you hear and see. The one who is flesh and blood, the one who is before and will be forever, is the one who took on Himself the sin of the world for the salvation of the world. Amen. SDG -- Pastor Paul L. Willweber Prince of Peace Lutheran Church [LCMS] 6801 Easton Ct., San Diego, California 92120 619.583.1436 princeofpeacesd.net three-taverns.net It is the spirit and genius of Lutheranism to be liberal in everything except where the marks of the Church are concerned. [Henry Hamann, On Being a Christian] _______________________________________________ Sermons mailing list Sermons@cat41.org http://cat41.org/mailman/listinfo/sermons
