“THE GOSPEL PREACHED TO YOU”
Saint Matthew 11. 2-10
Gaudete: 11 December Anno Domini 2011
Father Watson SSP
John was in prison for standing up and preaching the Law to a corrupt pagan. But John was also in prison for holding that Jesus was Messiah, the Son of God. Had the Baptizer been a syncretist, moderate, pluralist, or a squishy piece of jell-o (but winsome and happy jell-o) he probably would have avoided jail and simply been ignored.
John was in chains for believing, teaching, and confessing that the Christ is the only way to the Father; the only way to eternal salvation, John would have also preached the pure blessed Evangel of free forgiveness in the Anointed One to Herod, had the stiff-necked Idumean not rejected the condemning Law; and had not cowardly silenced this messenger-prophet by having him beheaded.
You were in prison too. You were in the darkness and dankness of your own jail cell of unbelief. A modern day John came to you in the person of your pastor, in the person of your parents who brought you to your own Jordan to be born again in purity and light.
You were regenerated in the cleansing + flood and made a believing brother. John may have leaped for joy, while still in the womb, to be in the presence of the God/Man, but you leaped not all that much later as infants Whom He would take up in His arms and bless!
Believers are not perfect. Believers in Jesus are still tried in the prison house of temptation and even doubt.
As great as the Baptizer was, the greatest born of woman, he too could succumb to sin, sadness and weakness. Did he doubt that His blessed and holy kinsman, Jesus of Nazareth was the Promised One? Or, was he sending his own two faithful followers to Jesus for their comfort and benefit? Was he trying to finally "cut the tie" with the last few stragglers who were loathe to abandon him and do what he had told his other former disciples (such as Andrew and James) "behold, The Lamb of God… He must increase but I must decrease."
Either way, they all were going through a long, dark night of the soul; they were all living under the shadow of the cross. There was going to be little secular fame and good fortune for the two disciples: "blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you and, and cast out your name as evil" [Lk. 6.22]. Being a Christian, far more so than following John son of Zacharias, would mean: "they shall lay their hands on you, and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues, and into prisons." [Lk 21.12]. Leaving the Baptizer in that dungeon to follow the Galilean Rabbi, who was God in the Flesh, would ensure that those two would wind up in a similar dungeon. Being the forerunner of Christ had guaranteed John a place on the chopping block.
You are followers of the same Jesus, the same Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. You too struggle, slip, fall, and sin…daily. You too are beset by doubts and moments of weakness. You too cling to the past, the familiar, the comfortable, and "drag your feet" in leaving John to follow Jesus. John is known for forceful finger pointing, and unvarnished Law-giving, "repent," and "O generation of vipers!" You love tough talk. Every one of you loves the law (i.e. your "version" of the law: morality) because you think it's being addressed to all those other bad people: perverts, liberals, socialists, democrats, illegals, weirdo-charismatics, synergists, and those you just don't trust. YOU REPENT.
The heretics preach a twisted satanic law of works righteousness. The heathen also preach a devilish doppelganger of the law. The Pharisee in you loves the Law because it places you in a Kingdom of Glory: working and earning; doing and accumulating; criticizing and judging. YOU REPENT. The real Law says you are unclean and a traitor. The real Commandments say you don't love God and you don't love other people.
John is at his true greatest when he is at his weakest. John no better models, preaches, and shows-forth Christ than when he is in prison-helpless, impotent, and vulnerable. John's "picture" is best remembered not in the manly, "out-doorsy," camel-hair & leather wearing wild prophet, but in a caged and death-awaiting martyr. Your bulletin cover shows you the Way, John's face behind cross-bars…the bars of a Cross. In pain and suffering he was closer to Jesus than he had ever been. When you are in a cruciform, you too are in the outstretched arms of the "pierced One."
There is no crown without the Cross of Jesus. There is no peace without the warfare exacted against Jesus' pure and sinless body. There is no covering for you without the stripping of Christ; no food and drink for you without the hunger for righteousness of Him; no cleansing without Him being made black-sin for you; and no life without the shedding of His Blood.
John understood the true Gospel, the only good news there is. The Evangel is not in your earthly wealth and success. The good news does not consist in your kids being successful and you being happy. The Kingdom of Grace is not in your "will," which is fallen, but in His will which is in giving. You will be given what you need for your body; not what you want. You will be given everything for your soul, more than you think you want, more than you could ever ask for!
"The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them."
Jesus gave visual acuity back to those who suffered from cataracts, glaucoma, macular degeneration and "black as night" total blindness.
Jesus gives you the 20/20 perfect heavenly vision of faith. You see your Savior in His Church, His Body, and you see His works of love in your own love for your neighbors.
Jesus gave physical mobility and restored limbs to the halt and crippled.
Jesus gives you the agility, fluidity, endurance and grace to walk the Path of Faith, to dance the divine waltz of Grace, all the while being carried by the Holy Spirit who "does all the leading." With Paul you are endowed with all Christ's gifts to run the race to finish the course and to receive the prize.
Jesus cleansed the lepers,
Jesus gives you an everlasting scrubbing from the filth of original sin and the shame and smell + of daily sins. You remember your baptisms, and thus, you constantly seek to forgive your neighbors of their trespasses against you.
Jesus raised the dead.
Jesus gives you resurrection and new life in His own Body and Blood which He raised from the dead. Jesus raises you to the High Table of Royal Priests to eat and sup with Him as brethren, as dearest friends. Jesus will raise you incorrupt and glorified at the final Advent.
Jesus preached the Gospel to the poor.
Jesus preaches the Gospel, the only Gospel to the poor.
"Your burdensome chores, tasks, obligations, work-loads, and obedience have been all taken care of. I have obeyed and thus you who are in Me have been good and dutiful sons and daughters. Your misdeeds and non-deeds, and horrible deeds and crimes have all been paid for. I have been convicted, sentenced, punished, and killed, and thus you who are in Me have been declared free and innocent.
I love you and I give you Myself; I give you God; I give you Peace."
In the Name of The Father and of + The Son and of The Holy Ghost