Preached · December 15, 2019
Right now we're in a season called Advent. Advent is those weeks leading up to Christmas Day. The twelve days of Christmas actually start on Christmas Day and go forward from there; we're in the season that counts down to Christmas, called Advent. Advent is a Latin word that means the coming of Jesus. It means arrival. We are in this season of anticipation, remembering what Jesus did and anticipating his return.
This is Advent week three, and again we're going to be in the book of Matthew, chapter 11. We'll do a little bit of review. Last week we talked about one of my favorite definitions of Advent: it's remembering the future. Advent is remembering the future. It's about looking back, looking at those stories that we tell around the Christmas tree, around the fire, each year with our families—the stories from Scripture about Mary and Joseph and the birth of Jesus and the wise men and all of that. We remember that. But we remember it not just for the sake of sentimentality. We don't remember it just so that we can shed a good tear or have a good time. We remember so we can look forward to what Christ is going to do when he returns. The work that he started with his birth and his life and his death and his resurrection and his ascension—that work will come to its completion when Jesus returns. We are a peculiar people in that we believe not just in the coming of Christ, the first coming, but also in his return. We look forward with hope and anticipation, and that's what gives us the perseverance to make it through each day, as joyful or as hard as they can be.
Last week we took a look at Matthew chapter 3 and the story of John the Baptist preparing the way for Jesus and preparing the way for the kingdom of God—preparing the way for God being in charge. And God being in charge sounds great until we realize that there are things about us being in charge that we have to give up and let go. That preparation requires repentance—repentance from us being in charge, repentance from us being our own little kings and queens and princes and princesses of our own little kingdoms. Repenting means giving that up to Jesus and his kingdom. We talked about the fact that Jesus is going to gather his people, and the analogy John uses is that of wheat—gathering wheat into a barn, like a good farmer, like a good harvest. We want to be with that barn, we want to be with that wheat, we want to be with Jesus when Jesus gathers his people. And then there's that other side of things, where Jesus will burn the chaff—the things that rebel against God's kingdom, the things, the people, the ideas that rebel against God being in charge will burn. We talked about how that's good news, because death and grief and hunger and poverty and sickness and cancer—don't you want that to burn?
So we are skipping ahead in the story to Matthew chapter 11, verses 2 through 6. In some ways we are continuing the story of John the Baptist. Let me catch you up a little bit. John the Baptist is a prophet. He is preaching out along the Jordan River. He is calling his own people to repentance, saying that your Judaism, your religion—Pharisees, Sadducees, religious people—that in and of itself is not enough. You have to give your life to God. Jesus then comes to John. He is baptized by his cousin John. John starts preaching this highly politically charged message about King Herod and about Herod's marriage and divorce, and how it's messed up. And so King Herod takes John and throws him into prison. And then Jesus' ministry launches. So we skip ahead a few chapters to Matthew chapter 11.
Would you stand with me for the public reading of God's word? Starting in verse 2, Matthew writes:
Now when John, who was in prison, heard about the deeds of the Messiah, he sent his disciples.
John had his own disciples.
He sent his disciples to ask Jesus, "Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?" Jesus replied, "Go back and report to John what you hear and see. The blind receive sight. The lame walk. Those who have leprosy are cleansed. The deaf hear. The dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor. Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me."
This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. You may be seated.
Would you take a moment and pray with me? Spirit, Son, and Father, we thank you for the gift of your word. May we not take that gift for granted. God, the fact that we are people who have access to translation after translation after translation of Scripture, that we can go to a bookstore and see a whole shelf of Bibles, where there are many in the world who have maybe a page or a fragment and they treasure it because it's so rare—may we not take what we have in abundance and treat it as something common. God, may we hear your word today and recognize the treasure that it is. Spirit, that you would take the time to speak to your people, to inspire them to write that down, and to preserve those writings throughout the centuries and the millennia, despite some people's best efforts to see it burn—God, may we hear your words today. And not just hear, but be transformed by the power of your Spirit filling your people, filling your temple, the church, the people of God. May we hear it, be transformed by it, and exit these doors, exit this building, drive away from this parking lot, as Jesus charged people, ready to change the world, looking forward to what you are going to do. We pray this in the name of Jesus, and all God's children said, Amen, Amen.
There are three main things I want us to pay attention to in this passage today.
Skeptics and doubters, your questions are welcome
I love that this passage begins with John in prison, daring to ask, "Jesus, are you who you say you are?" Think about it from John's point of view. John had spent the better part of his ministry proclaiming that someone greater than him was to come—someone he was not even worthy to pick up his shoes for. While John was going to baptize with water, the one who is to come is going to baptize with the Spirit and with fire. John famously says, "I must become lesser. He must become greater." Jesus comes along. John recognizes Jesus. He says, "Here comes the Lamb of God to take away the sins of the world." Jesus comes to John to get baptized, and John says to Jesus, "I shouldn't baptize you. You're Jesus." And Jesus says, "No, no. Let all righteousness be fulfilled. Go ahead and baptize me."
John is then thrown into prison. John has disciples who are the ones financially responsible for his care, because in those days the prison didn't care for your food or your clothing or your provisions. That was up to your friends and your family. So John's disciples are caring for John the Baptist, giving reports of what this Jesus of Nazareth, this Jesus son of Mary, is up to. And John is hearing these reports, and he's not impressed. Remember, John's in prison. He expects the Messiah to launch a political revolution to get rid of his imprisoners. John is expecting the Messiah to gather an army so he can throw out the conquering force, so that the Jews can be their own free people, reigning and ruling over themselves again. John is in prison, and he is proclaiming the message that the kingdom of God has come. Jesus is proclaiming the same message, that the kingdom of God has come—and John is still in prison. And so John becomes a skeptic. "Jesus, are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?"
I love the fact that this question is in Scripture, because I've been there. Jesus, is this all there is? Jesus, is this as good as it gets? God, are you really who you say you are? I've read the Scriptures, I've read the promises, I've read it again and again, I've read it in three different languages—is this as good as it gets? And that's kind of a good nutshell of what Advent can be for a lot of us, as we march hour by hour toward Christmas and think we're just doing the same old thing again and again.
So I know that I know that I know that in this room, and in churches across our county and our state and our country and our world, we've got skeptics and we've got doubters—people who have bumped up against the hard, prickly parts of life, and they turn to God and they say, "Is this it?" I want you to know that if you are in a place of doubt or skepticism, if you're in a place of worry or despair, you're welcome here. I was recently reading some statistics—and all statistics you have to take with a grain of salt, but it's from a reputable place—and they said that of people who deal with doubt and skepticism, less than one out of five, so about 18%, go and speak to their pastor or a spiritual authority in their life. That's sad to me, because it means we've set up some sort of system where I've got all the answers, you're in a place of doubt, you're afraid of your doubt, and you're afraid of letting me know what those questions are. I never, ever, ever want to set up a system like that, where you're afraid that if you have a question or a doubt or a fear, or some place where your beliefs are bumping up against life, you can't speak to someone about it. Because the other statistic is that 60% of people who encountered strong amounts of doubt, when they came out the other side, their faith was stronger. Their faith was better served, because they faced their doubts and their questions head on. They were willing to ask the hard questions. They were willing to go to Jesus and say, "Are you the one we're expecting, or should we expect something better? Because I'll tell you what, this kind of sucks right now."
So if you're willing to deal with those questions, to wrestle with them, to speak to a pastor or a trusted friend or a trusted mentor, you might come out better on the other side. Actually, I think you will. Because when our faith is unable to deal with questions and doubts, I don't think we're looking for faith. I think we're looking for certainty. And I'll tell you, on this side of heaven, certainty is an illusion. The opposite of faith is not doubt. The opposite of faith is certainty. And we were never promised certainty. So wrestle with the doubt. Ask the hard questions. Come to people like me, or Brandon, or one of your elders, or somebody, and say, "Man, I feel like I'm in prison right now, and you're not doing anything about it, God. How can we deal with this?"
Jesus is often not what we expect
Jesus is quite often not what we expect. Again, John the Baptist is expecting this revolutionary Messiah to come and launch an army and kick out the opposing force. So John is in prison, he's waiting, and he keeps hearing these stories that we've maybe gotten used to, maybe are a little bored of—but from John's perspective, it is completely the opposite of what he expects. Let me give you a quick summary of what's happened in Matthew chapter 4 through chapter 11. I'll throw that list on the screen.
Jesus calls the fishermen to be his disciples. Fishermen were stinky, dirty, mouthed like sailors kind of people. They were not the sorts of people you asked to be your disciples. That's why they dropped their nets and followed Jesus—because a rabbi had come along and said the thing they never thought they would hear: "Follow me." That was the highest calling you could expect as a Jewish boy. The fact that they were out fishing meant that they went to rabbinical school, they learned what they had to learn, and no rabbi had called them. So Jesus calls fishermen. He starts healing disease—well, that's interesting; I thought Jesus was going to launch an army and kick out the Romans. He starts casting out demons. He's a teacher; he spends a lot of time lecturing and talking and teaching and preaching. He cleanses a leper—specifically, not just cleanses, but touches a leper, a big, big no-no in Jewish law. He heals a centurion's servant. Remember, a centurion would be the opposing force, the occupying Romans; the centurion goes to Jesus, and Jesus doesn't chop off his head, he heals the guy's servant. He calms a storm. He heals more Gentiles. He claims to forgive sins, something only God can claim to do. He dines with tax collectors. Nobody likes tax collectors today; nobody liked them back then either, because they're taking money from their own people and giving it to the Romans, the occupying force, and keeping some on the side. He heals the dead, again by touching the dead—big no-no. He touches the unclean, he heals the blind, and he casts out more demons.
John hears this list and says, "That doesn't sound like Messiah to me," because that's not what Messiah was expected to do. Messiah was meant to be an army-leading king. So Jesus is not what John expects. Matthew 9:35 gives a good summary. It says that Jesus is proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction. John hears this news, and it's less than his expectations.
How many times do we come to Jesus with our own expectations—to fix this, repair that, make my instant gratification come true? And instead of getting rid of the sick people, he heals them. Instead of getting rid of the people who drive us nuts, he makes them better and asks us to live in community and go to church and sit in a pew next to them. What if, instead of answering all of our prayers in the way we wish he would, there's an element of waiting and sorrow and prayers not being answered? Don't we often come to Jesus and say, "It's not what I thought it was going to be. This is not what I expected"?
So John asks, "Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?" And Jesus gives this message: "Go back and report what you hear and see. The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the good news is proclaimed to the poor. Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me." In other words, if you can see what I'm doing and not get tripped up by your own expectations, you might enter into a kingdom that's far better than anything your own imagination could dream up. Because Jesus is not in the business of getting rid of the enemies in our life; he's rather in the business of healing the enemies. Jesus is not in the business of kicking out every form of heartache and difficulty; he's rather in the business of transforming them into something beautiful.
Jesus burns the chaff by drinking the cup
We're mixing our metaphors right now. Jesus burns the chaff by drinking the cup. In Matthew chapter 3, we talked about this idea that Jesus gathers and he burns. He gathers those who belong to him and he burns the chaff—that which doesn't belong to him. He gathers those that bear fruit according to repentance—that if you give your life to Jesus, you ought to look more like Jesus—and then he burns the chaff, that which does not look like God and his character and the fruit of the Spirit and spiritual gifts.
So how does he do this? Because, again, this is John's message. This is John who says of Jesus, "He will gather and he will burn." John is in prison. He starts hearing about this healing, and the healing of Gentiles and Gentile servants, and the touching of the dead and the unclean. And I'm sure John is scratching his head, saying, "Where's the fire? Where's the burning? Why is the chaff not going away?"
So let's mix our metaphors a little bit. In the Old Testament there was this idea of the cup of God's wrath. The cup of God's wrath is what the prophets proclaimed would be poured out onto both Israel and the nations to get rid of all that was evil and wrong with the world—that which did not recognize Jesus as king. Here are three good examples:
Psalm 75: "It is God who judges. In his hand is a cup full of foaming wine. He pours it out, and all the wicked drink it down."
Isaiah 51: "Rise up; you have drunk from the hand of the Lord the cup of his wrath."
Jeremiah 25: "Take from my hand this cup filled with the wine of my wrath, and make all the nations to whom I send you drink it."
So this is a big, big message. Now, Jesus takes this idea and makes it his own. In Mark chapter 10, two of the disciples go to Jesus and say, "Can we rule and reign with you? Can we be seated at your right and on your left?" And Jesus responds, "Don't you know what you're asking? Can you drink the cup that I drink?" In Mark 14, Jesus goes into the garden and starts to pray before his crucifixion, before he's arrested, and he says, "Abba, Father, everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me." In John 18, Peter takes his sword and lops off the ear of one of the servants of the guard who is going to arrest Jesus, because Peter has bad aim. And Jesus says, "Put your sword away. Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?"
So Jesus is taking this Old Testament language of the cup of God's wrath, and he is saying it's the cup that he's going to drink. In other words, God drinks the cup of his own wrath so that we can drink the cup of his covenant. God in Jesus—because remember, Jesus is God—God drinks the cup of his own wrath so that we can drink the cup of his covenant. Because remember, there's a second idea of what the cup is. There is the cup that Jesus offers at the Last Supper. He says, "This is the cup of the new covenant in my blood. Drink it whenever you gather, whenever you eat and drink, and do it in remembrance of me." So Jesus takes the cup of God's wrath, takes the cup of the natural consequences of when we bump up against God's rule and reign; Jesus drinks that cup and offers us the cup of the covenant.
I love the way Romans 5 puts all this. Paul sums it up well. He says:
God demonstrates his own love for us in this: that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. For if, while we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through Christ's life? Where sin increased, grace increased all the more.
For God, he loves us. And one of the natural consequences of love is boundaries—saying that when you bump up against the way the world works, there are consequences. That's God's wrath. That's what God's wrath is: the natural consequence of God's love, because love is not fluffy and soft. Love defends and protects and wants the best for you. That means there must be a wrathful side of love—the side of love that says, "Not here you won't." And that wrathful side of love, God takes onto himself. When we look at the cross, when we look at Jesus hanging and bleeding and dying there, what we are seeing is the natural consequences of sin that God takes onto himself.
What I love about the message of Romans 5, when Paul is summarizing all this theology for us, is that he's saying: if God cared for us like that before we even knew who God was, knew what Jesus was like, knew what Jesus was doing—if God loved us while we were still his enemies—how much more do we have to look forward to in the greatness and the bigness and the grandeur of God's love now that we are his friends?
This takes us back to Advent. We remember what Christ has done. He drinks the cup of God's wrath. He does things in ways we don't expect. He doesn't get rid of the sick; he heals them. He doesn't get rid of the occupying force; he brings them to his side. And if Jesus did all that before, while we were still the enemies of God, then we look forward with hope and anticipation to what Jesus will do when he makes all things new.
The way of Jesus is the way of Jesus' people
Now, what does this have to do with us today? Here's the application: the way of Jesus is the way of Jesus' people.
Jesus called to him his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out and to heal every disease and every affliction. And these twelve—the word in the Greek is "apostolo", sent out—he made them into apostles, emissaries, ambassadors of his kingdom. It goes on in verse 24. Jesus says, "Disciples are not above their teacher, and slaves are not above their master. Disciples are to be like their teacher, and slaves are to be like their master." In other words, if you dare call yourself a follower of Jesus, don't think you can do things differently than Jesus did and still call yourself a disciple. Don't think you can reject and get rid of that accepting, loving, wrath-drinking way of Jesus and still call yourself his follower. The way of Jesus is the way of Jesus' people.
So this Advent, we celebrate that love of God—a love so true and so real and so remarkable that it takes on the consequences of sin on our behalf. That's what the cross is. When Jesus says that he will be lifted up and enthroned, the throne looks like a cross. We remember and we celebrate that kind of love. We look forward to the consummation of the kingdom, when Christ finally returns and we all cry, "Maranatha—come quickly, Lord. Make that return speedy, please." But until then, we follow in the way of Jesus. And that's the best way to live out Advent, to celebrate Christmas: to be the kinds of people who love, love, love.
Would you stand as the worship team comes forward? Would you pray.
