"are You the One who was to come, or should we expect someone else?" matthew 11:3john the baptist, the most powerful and effective witness for Jesus Christ that the world had ever seen, was languishing in prison, awaiting certain death by execution. john had testified with such conviction and power that Jesus was the Son of God. yet as he wasted away in prison, and "heard what Jesus was doing", he began to waver in his faith and doubt his own message. he sent his disciples to ask,
"are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?"
john had certain expectations of what he thought Jesus would do, but none of these expectations were met by Jesus's actual ministry. i suspect that this happens to us as well, especially when we are going through a hard time. we put our faith in Jesus and place certain expectations on Him. isn't He supposed to deliver us from our difficulties or solve the problems in our lives? when He doesn't do these things, we too begin to doubt Him. inwardly we say, "are you really the one who was to come--are you really who you say you are?
i think our problem is that we keep "expecting someone else". we don't accept Jesus on His terms, only our own.
Jesus responds to john in this way: "go back and report what you hear and see: the blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor". by His coming, and through His healing of diseases and His raising of the dead, Jesus was giving a foretaste of what God's kingdom would be like one day--no disease, no death, no sin.
Jesus may not have met john's expectations, just as He doesn't always meet ours. but He is changing all of us deep from within, opening our blind eyes, causing our deaf ears to hear, raising us from the dead, and forgiving us of our sins, so that we might be able to meet our problems and difficulties without being crushed by them. i don't think Jesus minds our doubts and questions. but we need to accept His answers and trust that He knows what He is doing.
the danger is that because our expectations of Jesus are not met, our faith weakens and our hearts get hardened. that is why He says, "blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me". i think if we see Him and love Him for who He is, we will find that He will more than exceed our expectations and be "immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine".
1 comment:
Thank you, Dulla, for your explanation. I was slightly confused as I read this passage because I was actually shocked by John the Baptist's reaction and doubt to who Jesus was. Like you said before, John the Baptist was a heavy hitter, paving the way for Jesus, but when I read verse 3, it took me by surprise. This passage reminded me that even the best of God's people had their doubts when it came to believe that Jesus was the Messiah.
In a way, it is kind of encouraging to know that even the best of the best fail, but it seems more like a rude awaking, as well.
Honestly, I don't know what I expect Jesus to be like. Is he like the white knight who comes and rescues me in my time of need, or is he like a judge who comes to condemn me instead? I don't know, maybe he's both. I realize that I have yet to know and believe who he really is and that I have a lot to learn about him.
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