Readings:
- Isaiah 35:1-6a, 10
Psalm 146:6-7, 8-9, 9-10 Response: “Lord, come and save us.” - James 5:7-10
- Matthew 11:2-11
Reflections on the Gospel Reading
Each year on the third Sunday of Advent the gospel reading deals with John the Baptist. Today’s reading is an especially rich passage in which Matthew reflects both on who Jesus is and on who John the Baptist is. Of the many themes in the reading I would like to concentrate on the question John asks Jesus through his disciples: “Are you the one who is to come, or should we wait for someone else?” After nearly two thousand years we still puzzle over the meaning of that question and the meaning of Jesus’ response.
First, the question. It is important to note that the question is asked from prison. Matthew tells us that in prison John had heard of the works of the Messiah. From Jesus’ response, which recapitulates events narrated from chapters 4 to 10 of Matthew’s Gospel, we have some idea of what they were. “Jesus healed blind men in Mt 9.27-32. He cured a lame man in Mt 9.1-8. A leper was cleansed in Mt 8.1-4. A deaf man regained his hearing in Mt 9.32-4. Mt 9.18-26 recounts a resurrection. And Mt 4.17, 23; Mt 5.3; Mt 9.35; and Mt 10.7 record preaching to the poor.” (Davies & Allison 1991, 242)
Remarkable as these deeds are, if we reflect on last Sunday’s gospel reading (Matthew 3:1-12) we can see that they do not match John the Baptist’s expectation of “the one who is to come” as the bearer of fiery judgment. If “the one who is to come” was the Messiah, at the time of Jesus and John the Baptist there was no expectation that he would be a wonder-worker. (Davies & Allison 1991, 243)
We don’t know for sure what John was waiting for. In Israel around the year 30 there were many different ways of being an Israelite and many different messianic expectations. The prophets spoke mostly about the coming of God to save Israel. Traditions about a particular human forerunner crystallized only later in the century among the followers of the risen Jesus and the followers of the Pharisees, who eventually became what we now know as Jews.
Was John, then, asking whether Jesus was God, the one who is to come? Or was John asking whether Jesus was the herald of God’s coming? If the latter, why does Matthew apply the herald imagery and the Elijah typology to John, rather than to Jesus in his Gospel? Why does Matthew present John as a forerunner of Jesus instead of a forerunner of God?
After centuries of critical scholarship we have to admit that we don’t know what lies behind the tradition of John’s question, which Matthew and Luke incorporated into their Gospels: “Are you the one who is to come, or should we wait for someone else?”
Then, the response. Jesus’ reply to John’s question is also puzzling. Jesus does not answer John directly. He refers to what God is doing through him and his followers: “the blind regain their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have the good news proclaimed to them.”
At best, Jesus’ response is a selective reading of the Isaiah tradition. (See Is 26:19; Is 29:18-19; Is 35:5-6 [this Sunday’s first reading]; Is 42:7, 18; and Is 61.1.) Many have noted that in the gospel traditions Jesus edits out Isaiah’s references to vengeance, vindication, overthrow of tyrants, etc. However, in this passage Jesus also omits any reference to the liberation of captives and prisoners, something that seems to be central to Isaiah’s message of hope. For example:
I am the Lord, I have called you in righteousness,
I have taken you by the hand and kept you;
I have given you as a covenant to the people,
a light to the nations,
to open the eyes that are blind,
to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon,
from prison those who sit in darkness.
(Isaiah 42.6-7 NRSV)
Notice here that for Isaiah opening the eyes of the blind is equivalent to bringing prisoners out of the darkness of their dungeon. If Jesus is the one Isaiah is talking about, would it be unreasonable for John to hope that Jesus would deliver him from prison?
Thus says the Lord:
In a time of favor I have answered you,
on a day of salvation I have helped you;
I have kept you and given you
as a covenant to the people,
to establish the land,
to apportion the desolate heritages;
saying to the prisoners, “Come out,”
to those who are in darkness, “Show yourselves.”
(Isaiah 49.8-9 NRSV)
Once again Isaiah connects the day of salvation with the release of prisoners.
The spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me;
He has sent me to bring glad tidings to the lowly,
to heal the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives,
and release to the prisoners,
To proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor,
and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn;
(Isaiah 61.1-2 NRSV)
Here, “to bring glad tidings to the lowly” parallels “to proclaim liberty to captives.” Once again, if Jesus is calling upon Isaiah to witness that he, Jesus, is “the one who is to come,” why don’t “the deeds of the Messiah” include liberation of captives such as John the Baptist?
There is no easy answer to the question: “Are you the one who is to come, or should we wait for someone else.” Perhaps, we need to heed the advice of Thomas Moore in Care of the Soul to live with the question rather than attempt to answer it. Perhaps we need to ponder the fact that nowhere in Matthew’s Gospel, or any of the Gospels, does Jesus ever free anyone from prison.
In Matthew’s Gospel, the blind regaining their sight, the lame walking again, etc. are signs that the future reign of God is breaking in to the present. Liberation of captives, on the other hand, remains on the level of a metaphor for the over-all work of salvation. However, in the Acts of the Apostles Luke relates instances where the risen Lord frees prisoners. (See Acts 12.11, 17; Acts 16.25-34) Also, in the last supper discourse in John’s Gospel Jesus says: “Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father.” (John 14.12 NRSV)
Perhaps as followers of the Messiah we are called to do those greater things. Perhaps our task is to change liberation of prisoners from an abstract metaphor for good works to a concrete sign of the coming reign of God.
As we ponder anew John’s question, we should ask it from the perspective of those who are unjustly imprisoned. For many years, hundreds of detainees were held without charges in American military prisons at Guantanamo Bay, Iraq, Afghanistan, and at various “undisclosed locations” throughout the world. Thousands of Palestinians endure the same fate in Israeli prisons without charges brought against them and without any date for a trial. Throughout the world untold numbers of nameless prisoners of conscience suffer years on end in prison because of their religious beliefs or their political positions.
From prison John heard about the works of the Christ, the Messiah. Many of today’s prisoners have heard about the works of Christians, the followers of the Messiah. Can we blame them if they ask us: “Are you the one who is to come, or should we wait for someone else?”
In preparing these reflections, in addition to the biblical texts, I consulted the following works:
Brueggemann et al. 1995 – Walter Brueggemann, Charles B. Cousar, Beverly R. Gaventa, James D. Newsome, Texts for Preaching: A Lectionary Commentary Based on the NRS, Year A. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1995), pp. 25-27.
Davies & Allison 1991 – W. D. Davies and D. C. Allison, A Critical and Exigetical Commentary on the Gospel According To Saint Matthew, Vol. II [Chapters 8-18], The International Critical Commentary on the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, J. A. Emerton, C. E. B. Granfield, and G. N. Stanton, General Editors (London: T&T Clark, 1991), pp. 238-252.
Fuller 1984 – Reginald H. Fuller, Preaching the Lectionary. The Word of God for the Church Today (Collegeville [MN]: Liturgical Press, 1984), pp. 7-11.
Funk et al. 1993 – Robert W. Funk, Roy W. Hoover, and the Jesus Seminar, The Five Gospels: The Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1993), pp. 177-179.
Harrington 1991 – Daniel J. Harrington, S.J., The Gospel of Matthew, Sacra Pagina Series Volume 1, A Michael Glazier Book (Collegeville [MN]: Liturgical Press, 1991), pp. 154-163.
Malina & Rohrbaugh 2003 – Bruce J. Malina and Richard L. Rohrbaugh, Social-Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels, Second Edition (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2003), p. 67.
John P. Meier, Matthew , A Michael Glazier Book [1980] (Collegeville [MN]: Liturgical Press, 1990), pp. 118-124.
Moore 1992 – Thomas Moore, Care of the Soul. A Guide for Cultivating Depth and Sacredness in Everyday Life. (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1992), p. 4 and passim.
NRSV – New Revised Standard Version – Bruce M. Metzger and Roland E. Murphy, Editors, The New Oxford Annotated Bible containing the Old and New Testaments. New Revised Standard Version. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994)
Pilch 1995 – John J. Pilch, The Cultural World of Jesus, Sunday by Sunday, Cycle A. A Liturgical Press Book (Collegeville [MN]: Liturgical Press, 1995), pp. 7-9.
Senior 1998 – Donald Senior, Matthew , Abingdon New Testament Commentaries, (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1998), pp. 125-129.