Third Sunday of Advent 2025, rcl yr a
ISAIAH 35:1-10; PSALM 146:4-9; JAMES 5:7-10; MATTHEW 11:2-11
Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?
It is distinctly possible, perhaps even most likely, that John the Baptist died a disappointed man. His expectation, you see, was that “the one who is to come”—in John the Baptist’s very own words—was to come with his “winnowing fork […] in his hand […] he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
John the Baptist expected that “the one who is to come” would arrive like Elijah, the Elijah who defeated prophets of Baal, the Elijah that called down fire as evidence for the greatness of Yahweh, the Elijah that had the prophets of Baal put to death. John the Baptist expected “the one who is to come” to confront Herod, to end Herod’s reign, and restore justice to the land by way of fierce judgment.
And John the Baptist, at least at first, was sure that Jesus was “the one that is to come,” that Jesus was the one that would fulfill the prophecy of judgment against the evil powers that are, the one that would make all things right by way of fire.
One “who is more powerful than I is coming after me,” said John; and John was there when the Spirit of God descended onto Jesus at his baptism, John was there when the voice came from heaven, saying “this is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well-pleased.” Certainly signs that Jesus was the Messiah, the “one who is to come,” the one who would defeat the complacent, the self-satisfied, and the corrupt.
And yet, here is John the Baptist, languishing in Herod’s own prison, yearning for his release, waiting for Herod’s defeat by the one that was to come. And waiting. And waiting in vain because John the Baptist never was released from prison; those particular barricades did not come down. And John was beheaded by Herod at the request of his sister-in-law Herodias, who was unhappy with John the Baptist’s words of judgment against her marriage.
The last words we have, in Matthew’s Gospel, from John the Baptist, are words of doubt, words of equivocation, words of uncertainty about Jesus and his messianic vocation: “Are you the one who is to come,” he asked, “or are we to wait for another?”
I imagine most of us can relate to this sort of disappointment. We get married, and our spouses have the audacity to grow and change. Of all the nerve! Children grow up and are interested in things that don’t conform to our perfectly good and fair expectations of them. Our hopes in others aren’t met, they understand their work differently than we expect them to understand their work. And sometimes we try to control, to force our own desires on others; and so frustration emerges, disappointment unfolds, and conflict erupts.
If only others were just as we want them to be, all would be well, good, and right. Right?
Even though the Gospels don’t give us much insight into the interior dispositions of John the Baptist or Jesus, we don’t have to speculate too much to say that it is just this sort of disappointment that John felt in Jesus. Because we can read the testimony to the judgment that precedes mercy in the prophets that both John and Jesus knew; we can read the testimony of the judgment that precedes mercy in John the Baptist, the last of the prophets. “Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees,” said John “[E]very tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire,” said John. The one who is to come “will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire,” said John. “His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire,” said John of the one that is to come.
And here was Jesus, the one upon John had thought was the one that was to come, the one upon whom John hung all his messianic hopes, and yet, Jesus was doing none of these things. Jesus was not following the messianic script. This story was supposed to go differently. Judgment was supposed to come with fire, there was supposed to be action, things happening, things set right, and right the way John wanted them set right.
And so John asks Jesus, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” ‘Was I wrong about you, Jesus? Because I’m sure feeling the disappointment. I thought there would be fire.’
Jesus’s answer to John was yes, and no. Matthew is at pains to paint a portrait of Jesus as the Messiah, as the one who was to come. But a portrait of a Messiah, in Jesus, that wasn’t the one who comes quite the way he was expected to come. Matthew tells a story of a Messiah in Jesus that changes the script. This is a Jesus who, as both actor in the play, and the playwright himself, can do a rewrite in real-time, no matter the disappointment, or surprise, or even the frustration in the audience who thought they knew how this was all going to go. John the Baptist included.
Because Jesus was not thinking of himself as Elijah; Jesus casts John as Elijah, and Jesus turns to Isaiah for his own Messianic inspiration. Jesus’s response to John’s question, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”, is this: “Go and tell John what you 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 Messianic referent is not so much the judgment of exile, but of the promised return from exile that we hear of in Isaiah 35, when “The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom […] [and they] shall see the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God […] ‘Here is your God. […] He will come and save you.’ Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy. […] And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.”
We’re allowed to feel a bit uncomfortable with this portrayal of disability, even as we see to the heart of the proclamation: that the Messiah comes with a judgment that is deeply, and primarily, inspired by such things as mercy, restoration, wholeness, gladness, and joy. The Messianic vocation that inspired Jesus was not about fire, but rather about the grace of God that restores us to life.
And these are the sorts of things that Jesus did: well, he argued. Let’s not pretend Jesus was anything else but a difficult person much of the time. But his ministry was one primarily of healing, of mercy, of welcoming home the ones who did not belong.
This may sound like bad news to a John the Baptist, or those that might hope that the wicked would get their just deserts, rather than an opportunity for grace and forgiveness; to that end, and with some wit, Barbara Brown Taylor adds to Jesus’s beatitudes, “and blessed is John for handling his disappointment in me.” And for some of us it should say “and blessed is me, too, disappointed as I am, because I was hoping for at least for a few licks of fire.”
For my money, though, when I’m at my best, Isaiah’s Gospel, and the Gospel of Jesus, is far greater than is the Gospel of John the Baptist. Because Jesus’s “Holy Way” is one where no traveller, not even fools, shall go astray”; there are no predators on this road, “they shall not be found there, but the redeemed shall walk there.” This road leads the lost and the exile home with “everlasting joy,” where they will find “joy and gladness, and [where] sorrow and sighing shall flee away.”
Angus Sinclair was appointed Director of Music of St. John the Evangelist on February 1, 2023. Having graduated in 1981 (Honours B.Mus.) in organ performance from Wilfrid Laurier University, he went on to distinguish himself as a church musician, recitalist and accompanist touring in both Canada and the UK. For over 40 years Angus has served parishes and congregations throughout Southwestern Ontario as director of music. He experiences his present appointment to St. John’s as a welcome homecoming, both spiritually and musically.
As our parish musician, he provides both support and leadership so that a variety of parish programs can find musical expression and attract participation. When our handbell choir is in season, he is one of our ringers. At parish dinners, he provides popular piano music for the guests to dine by. For both worship services and concerts, he will rehearse and accompany vocal and instrumental soloists from our congregation on piano, organ, or even accordion.
Angus Sinclair was appointed Director of Music of St. John the Evangelist on February 1, 2023. Having graduated in 1981 (Honours B.Mus.) in organ performance from Wilfrid Laurier University, he went on to distinguish himself as a church musician, recitalist and accompanist touring in both Canada and the UK. For over 40 years Angus has served parishes and congregations throughout Southwestern Ontario as director of music. He experiences his present appointment to St. John’s as a welcome homecoming, both spiritually and musically.