Sermon: Gaudete (Advent 3) - 2019

15 December 2019

Text: Matt 11:2-11

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

“Are You the One who is to come, or shall we look for another?”

This was John the Baptist’s question about Jesus.

Who is Jesus?  Is He just one more prophet?  Is He yet another rabbi, another preacher?  Is He a great moral philosopher or teacher?  Is He an example of kindness?  Is He a mythological figure whose followers turned into a legend by retelling His story and putting in exaggerations over and over?  Maybe He never existed at all, but is more like a super hero in a story.

Or maybe Jesus was a crazy man who suffered delusions of grandeur.  Maybe He was a schizophrenic cult leader.  Maybe He was invented by the ruling class to hold down the workers.  

All of these theories have been floated by those who hate the Church.

John the Baptist, who heard from his own mother that when both he and his cousin Jesus were in the womb, and when the two mothers met, John leapt in the womb.  John received a vision from God at the Jordan River that Jesus was the Messiah, and John baptized Him and sent his own followers to Him.  John said, “Behold the Lamb of God that takest away the sin of the world.”  But now, John is in prison.  Things just aren’t working out the way he planned.  Maybe there has been some kind of mistake.  John is looking for some clarity.

“Who are You, Jesus?”

Jesus tells the followers of John to look at the evidence.  “Go and tell John what you hear and see.”  Jesus doesn’t make claims for Himself, rather He points to His miracles: “the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them.”

Jesus points out just what was happening, the things that were witnessed by thousands of people during His ministry.  Everyone knew that these miracles were happening.  Even our Lord’s enemies freely admitted it.  We even have a written record of Jesus’ arrest warrant.  His accusers charged Him with “sorcery” – in other words, He really did miracles.  Their explanation for them was not that He was the Messiah, the Son of God, God in the flesh, or the fulfillment of the prophecies of Scripture.  No, indeed.  They charged Him of working miracles by means of the devil.

But to answer John’s question, Jesus points to what everybody knows is happening.  And the things that are happening, as John the Baptist, John the preacher, John the prophet knows – were prophesied in the Scriptures.  

The messengers went back with these words to John.  Jesus is working the very miracles that the Old Testament says the Messiah will do.  Nobody can explain these marvelous deeds; all that His enemies can do is claim He is acting on behalf of Satan.

Of course, as Jesus points out, this is ridiculous.  Satan wishes evil on mankind.  He does not heal.  He does not restore.  He does not reconcile.  He does not revive from the dead.  He does not forgive sins.  None of the miracles of Jesus reflect the work of the devil, but rather oppose the devil.  And when the high priest proposes that Jesus be put to death, creating a conspiracy to carry it out – he says that the problem is that people are believing in Him.  

Dear friends, John’s question is still the most important question in the history of the world: “Who is Jesus?”  The great writer and professor C.S. Lewis, who converted from atheism to become one of the greatest defenders of the Christian faith of all time, put it like this: Jesus is either Lord, liar, or lunatic.

And His greatest miracle of all would happen after His death.  Because our Lord’s execution was such a politically sensitive matter, and because of the holiday that was approaching at sundown, the Romans made extra sure that Jesus had died on the cross.  The soldier plunged his spear into the heart of Jesus, and blood and water flowed from his side.  This is because the pericardial sac around His heart was pierced.  And this is one technique that the death squad had to make sure that the condemned person was indeed dead.  His body was put into a tomb quickly, a large stone was rolled over the entrance, and because of the political sensitivities, a government seal was placed on the tomb.  Breaking it meant a death sentence.  And just to make sure, guards were placed at the tomb as well.

But Jesus rose from the dead.  The angel rolled away the stone.  The guards fell into a coma.  Jesus walked out of His tomb and was seen by witnesses for forty days – including the apostles themselves.  Eleven of the twelve would suffer death for their testimony.  And there are records of historians outside of the Bible, written by non-Christians, that record this weird turn of events – the empty tomb and the claims of resurrection.  

And this threw the entire establishment – the leaders of the Jews and the Romans – into chaos.  The Christian Church would almost overnight grow by the thousands as the Word of God was preached to these early witnesses of these events.

And they were just getting started.  Even members of Caesar’s household converted to the faith.  There are records that the wife of Pontius Pilate, who condemned Jesus, became a Christian.  The Jewish leaders persecuted the Church, and that just made it grow.  The Romans also persecuted the Church, and its numbers exploded.  It was like a raging fire that nobody could put out.  By the year 315, the Emperor himself, who converted to Christianity, made the worship of Jesus the official religion of the empire.  

Jesus continued, and continues, to work miracles through His Word and His sacraments.  Lives are changed.  Even nations are changed.  And no matter how hard dictators and tyrants try to burn the bibles and destroy the churches, this only makes us grow.  The Church of Jesus Christ is unconquerable.  And great minds continue to convert to Christianity – because it is true.

And so the Church continues to do what Jesus did: point to the works of Jesus.  We preach.  We teach.  We search the Scriptures.  We baptize.  We celebrate the Holy Supper.  We forgive, and we are forgiven.  We bring people to Jesus so that they too can enjoy forgiveness, life, and salvation.  And we look forward to His coming again.  To this day, dictators and tyrants are afraid of Jesus.  

People still ask who Jesus is, and we are happy to tell them.  He is indeed God in the flesh, the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world, the Messiah, the King of the universe.  “And blessed is the one who is not offended by [Him].”  Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.