For the sake of this sermon, I was looking for an example of frustration but the recent turn in the weather provided me with a first-hand experience. The morning after last Wednesday night’s snowfall looked beautiful as the pristine white blanket covered the ground. In the parish garden, it was my dog who broke the unspoilt beauty by leaving tracks with his paws. My white-snow-inspired awe didn’t last long though. Soon I set out on an adventure; clearing the car park of snow before it would get compacted and consequently much harder to remove. The safety of people coming to St Joseph’s is paramount. The snow was thick and wet which made for a tough workout. Nevertheless, over two hours later I looked smugly at the black tarmac with a sense of a job well-done while trying to catch my breath – I incidentally realised that I’m not as young as I used to be. My satisfaction didn’t last long… The temperature plummeted alongside light rain, and the two combined turned the car park into a nasty ice rink. But what do we have the Super-Priest for? It was an easy task: grab the grit spreader, fill it up with grit, have a wee walk up and down the car park pushing the spreader and then let chemistry finish the job. Except that the spreader turned out to be completely bust, which then turned out to be completely irrelevant as some water from recent downpours had managed to get into the grit container and turned the grit into a sludgy mash unusable with any mechanical gritter. I didn’t need to look for an example of ‘frustration’ anymore… I had just had it, and of the highest order at that.
In today’s gospel we heard about some followers of John the Baptist sent to Jesus on a reconnaissance mission: “Are you the one who is to come, or have we got to wait for someone else?” The question clearly indicated serious doubts that troubled John’s mind. Where did such uncertainty come from? As always, we need to look at the wider picture. Some time earlier, before Jesus embarked on his public ministry, John had announced His close arrival as we heard a week ago. Without knowing Jesus at that moment, John painted Him in terms used by the Old Testamental prophets as a powerful and uncompromising judge: “the one who follows me is more powerful than I am[…]; he will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing-fan is in his hand; he will clear his threshing-floor and gather his wheat into the barn; but the chaff he will burn in a fire that will never go out.” This agricultural description – alien to many of us – was an obvious, clear and fear-inducing metaphor. Shortly afterwards Jesus came to John to be baptised by him in the river Jordan. The proceedings were accompanied by some signs that John interpreted as the divine affirmation of Jesus’ status as the long-awaited Messiah. Assured in such a way, John made his discernment public and even pointed Jesus out to some of his own disciples who quickly followed Jesus and became his disciples. John considered his mission done and turned his attention to a public denouncement of King Herod Antipas’ moral choices, which landed him in jail, where he heard worrying news that the Messiah he had publicly proclaimed wasn’t acting as he had expected him to. Not so much a case of fire and brimstone to wipe sinners off the face of the earth; much more of meeting people of dubious reputation or outright miscreants. Locked up by one of such, John’s doubts must have grown as to whether he had made a massive mistake and pointed at the wrong person. If so, his entire ministry would have turned out to be wasted. Moreover, he couldn’t really sort it out because of his imprisonment. Frustration must have reigned supreme.
Jesus’ response to John’s question wasn’t a straightforward declaration one way or another. He presented His credentials not in words but by his actions: “Go back and tell John what you hear and see; the blind see again, and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised to life and the Good News is proclaimed to the poor.” Although to our ears it might sound like something uttered by a boastful, self-proclaimed miracle-worker, Jesus in fact recalled Old Testamental images of consolation provided by many prophets, particularly Isaiah; images that John the Baptist was undoubtedly familiar with. In such a way, Jesus intelligently nudged John towards a different way of thinking, to revise his concept of the Messiah not as a fierce and fearful judge but as a compassionate liberator. It was a revolutionary idea that many Jewish contemporaries of Jesus, as well as John, struggled with. When John’s messengers had left, Jesus publicly endorsed his demeanour and stance as genuine and honest: “I tell you solemnly, of all the children born of women, a greater than John the Baptist has never been seen.” However, John’s greatness belonged to the past: “the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he is.” Those who have accepted the new way of thinking have achieved a different position: “I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father.” (John 15:15)
Was John the Baptist reassured by Jesus’ answer? Did he endorse in his mind the new messianic vision offered by Jesus? There’s no written record of such a change of heart. Based on what we know about John, we can safely assume that as a genuine and honest man of God he was open to the prompts of the Holy Spirit. We can learn a couple of things from this episode. Firstly, doubts and frustration play an indispensable role in developing as human beings as well as Christians. When we question the fairness or logic of things happening to us or around us we look for answers and explanations. In the process, we have a chance to gain a better and deeper understanding; this opportunity is incomparably greater than for those who have no doubts. Of course, it might be a dangerous process if we seek answers from the wrong sources. But rigid dogmatic certainty is much more dangerous than a doubts-driven search for answers. John wasn’t afraid to express his doubts and challenged Jesus, who in response gently challenged John’s ideas and rewarded his openness with a moving vision of compassion at work. And here is the second thing we can take from this gospel reading: freedom of choice. John wasn’t forced to accept Jesus’ explanation; its indirectness created space for John to make up his own mind and decide whether he was satisfied with it. Similarly, when we look at our lives in the light of the gospel we too are left with a choice. Just remember: “happy is the one who does not lose faith in me.”
