Writing symbolically about humanity’s way of being, a storyteller told this story. “There once was a bird that flew round and round, asking the other birds, “Could you please help me to find the sky?” I am looking for a place called the sky. “You are in the sky,” they replied. “Oh, no, this is not the sky,” the bird cried. “This is only air. I am looking for the sky.” She then flew off impatiently.” The bird’s unyielding expectation of what the sky ought to look like metaphorically describes us humans and our tendency towards unyielding expectations about who God is and how God ought to act. Doubts and questions arise when God does not fit into our constructs.
Last Sunday, we heard John the Baptist’s powerful proclamation about the One who is to come. In his passion, he boldly and fearlessly urged everyone to repent and be baptized in preparation for the Messiah’s coming. In this Sunday’s gospel (Matthew 11:2-11), John is imprisoned. His confidence in his passionate Messianic prophesy appeared to be wavering. We imagine that he heard that Jesus was healing the sick, casting out demons, and teaching that the persecuted would be blessed. He may have heard of Jesus’ teaching about love for both neighbors and enemies, and about turning the other cheek when wronged. But as impactful as Jesus’ ministry was in transforming lives, it did not quite live up to John’s expectation of a Messiah who would come in power and might end Roman domination and make God’s people right with God. John therefore sent his disciples to ask Jesus, “are you the one to come, or are we to wait for another?”
John was as human as we are! He questioned if Jesus was truly the Messiah. When did you question the reality of God’s Lordship over your life? Throughout my teenage years, I wrestled with two questions about the reality of God; “if God were real and all-powerful, why did God allow my mother to die when I was only eleven years?” “If God is real, why can’t I see Him or feel His presence?” It took me years of maturing in faith to recognize that God’s powerful protecting presence had indeed been with me.
Jesus did not get angry at John’s doubting question, and neither is He angered by our doubts and questions when He does not meet our earthly expectations. Instead, Jesus replied by pointing John’s disciples to the evidence of His Messiahship, “Go and tell John what you hear and see……the blind receive sight, the lame walk….” Jesus, the Divine One, then extolled John’s greatness and criticized His followers for failure to recognize John as His prophetic forerunner. Blinded by their human perception of the Messiah’s prophet, the disciples were perhaps expecting someone of noble, worldly standing, dressed in “soft robes.”
This Advent, Jesus challenges us to break free of our shortsighted, narrow, worldly expectations of God; to open ourselves to look deep into the landscape of our lives and the world, and see the footprints of our indefinable God along nontraditional and unpopular paths. To trust God’s superior wisdom, God’s incomprehensible sacrificial love, even when we cannot “see” Him.
May we be surprised by the joy of this Advent as we are reawakened to God’s awesome, active, living presence, that far exceeds our expectations or imagination! And in response, we gladly become apostles who “go and tell what we hear and see.” Amen
