Sermon for December 14, 2025
Readings:
This morning’s gospel passage records a very peculiar moment in the life of John the Baptist. I won’t call it a moment of doubt, though it could be that, but I think I would prefer to call it a moment of wonder. Wonder in the sense of being perplexed. Hopeful, but slightly unsure. Wonder in the sense of not having complete certainty. John is wondering about who Jesus really is.
Now you may recall that John and Jesus are cousins. And you may also recall that John is well aware that Jesus is special. When Jesus comes to be baptized by John in the Jordan river, it is John who says to Jesus “I ought to be baptized by you!” John saw the spirit descend upon Jesus like a dove at his baptism. John said that Jesus was “the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” John knows that Jesus is special. John knows that Jesus is greater than himself. But in the gospel this morning we get a very different image of John the Baptist. Now John is in prison. His own ministry is about to come to an end, but he knows that Jesus is still out in the world doing work. So John who is in this very dark place and who has reached the limits of his own abilities, wonders. Is Jesus really the messiah or is he another prophet? John’s ministry has been about pointing people to Jesus, but now he is sitting in prison, powerless. Maybe he is wondering what kind of power Jesus really has. Is Jesus really the messiah? John knows that he is probably going to die very soon at the hands of Herod, what then? Is Jesus really the messiah? Or is the coming of the messiah still a distant dream? Is Jesus going to save us, or is the saviour someone else?
That is the message that John, through some of his followers, sends to Jesus: Is it you? He doesn’t ask him for any specific assistance; he doesn’t ask his cousin to come and bail him out of jail; he just asks, is it you? Are you the messiah, or are we still waiting for another? John, in his distress, is wondering.
Jesus responds in a way that he often does, not with a direct answer, but with an illustration. He tells John’s followers to go and tell John what they hear and see. The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. Jesus’s response to the question “are you the messiah?” is a list of miracles. The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. It is as if Jesus knows that that question needs more than a yes or no answer. It needs proof, but it needs more than proof. It needs illustration, illumination. Jesus isn’t just affirming his status as the messiah, but he is also coloring in the picture of who and what the messiah is. The messiah isn’t about one miracle. The messiah is about all miracles. The messiah brings good news and encouragement to the poor and the hopeless. The messiah heals the sick and mends the broken. The messiah opens eyes and opens ears. The messiah raises the dead. Jesus doesn’t just point to one proof, he points to all of them. The messiah isn’t about one miracle. The messiah is about all miracles. The messiah isn’t just the greatest prophet; the messiah is the power of God.
The prophets, they do amazing things. The prophets can work miracles. Jesus honors John as a prophet this morning, but even the greatest prophet is nothing compared to the power of God. John, as a prophet, is a messenger of the kingdom. His job was to announce and prepare the way for the kingdom. But Jesus is the kingdom. Jesus is God’s kingdom on two feet. He isn’t just someone who can perform A miracle, he is the power and the force behind ALL miracles. Jesus is the grand miracle. The miracle of God becoming a human to break the power of sin and death and to restore all creation to glory. That is the grand miracle that gives all other miracles meaning and force. He isn’t one miracle. He is all miracles. That is frankly more than some people are hoping for; more than they are expecting.
That might be more of a messiah than even John was expecting, and John knew that we needed to be saved. Many of us don’t really know that, or we are prone to forget it. We may pray for miracles now and then, but then how much time do we spend trying to fix the world and everyone in it on our own? I know that as Christmas approaches, some of you are out there trying to make miracles happen on your own. You are trying to turn a dime into a dollar. You are trying to get through meals with relatives that don’t like each other. You are trying to find the perfect gift. You are trying to juggle too many obligations with too few resources, all while trying to imagine peace on earth and good will towards men. I’m guilty of all that I know. So Jesus’s message to John comes at just the right time for us. God does not expect us to do this on our own. The salvation of the world, and all the necessary miracles that that entails, that is the messiah’s job. This messiah, whose birth we are about to celebrate, HE is the miracle worker. So let Jesus do his job. Let Jesus do his job.
It is ok to prepare. It is ok to work for the kingdom, to point to it and hope for it. And it is ok to wonder what God is up to. John the Baptist did all of that. But at a certain point, like John, you are going to come to the end of your abilities and what you can do, and that is when you just have to step back and let Jesus do his job. He is the messiah. Miracles, all miracles, are his department.
Inwardly Digest 