John the Baptist, who was in prison,
heard about all the things the Messiah was doing. So he sent his disciples to
ask Jesus, “Are you the Messiah we’ve been expecting, or should we
keep looking for someone else?” Jesus told them, “Go back to John and tell him
what you have heard and seen — the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are
cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, and the Good News is being
preached to the poor. And tell him, ‘God blesses those who do not turn away
because of me.’” (Matt. 11:2-6)
He was a child of the desert whose leathery
face, tanned skin and animal-hide clothing made him unmistakable. Everything he
owned fit neatly in his wallet. The walls of his home were the mountains, and
his ceiling the stars. But not now. His frontier was now walled out, and his
horizon hidden. The stars were but distant memories, and the fresh air of the
open plains was gone. The stench of the dungeon reminded him that he was now a
captive of the king, rather than a voice crying in the wilderness.
Frankly, John the Baptist deserved better
treatment. After all, he was the forerunner of the Christ; the cousin of the
Messiah. It was John who had braved the elements and the vitriol, calling upon
an unsaved people to repentance. But now that voice, instead of opening the
door of renewal, had slammed the door on a prison cell. And it all began when he
called out the king.
You see, while on a business trip to Rome,
King Herod fell in love with his brother’s wife, Herodias. Deciding that Herodias
was better off married to him than to his brother, Herod divorced his wife and
brought his sister-in-law home. The gossip columnists were fascinated, but John
was infuriated and denounced Herod and the marriage for what it was — adultery.
Funny thing is Herod might have let him get away with it because, well, he kind
of liked the guy. But not Herodias. She wasn’t about to have her rising social status
take a detour. So, she told Herod to have John pulled off the speaker’s tour and
thrown into jail. Herod hemmed and hawed until she whispered and wooed. And
that was it. Game. Set. Match.
But jail time wasn’t enough for Herodias. She
needed a permanent solution to the problem. So, she had her daughter strut in
front of the king and his generals at a stag party. Herod, who was as easily
duped as he was aroused, promised to do anything for the pretty young thing in
the G-string. “Anything?” she said. “You name it,” he drooled. She conferred
with her mother, who was waiting in the wings, then returned with her request: “I
want John the Baptist,” she said. “You want a date with the prophet?” “No. I
want his head,” replied the dancer. And then, reassured by a nod from her
mother, she added, “Oh, yeah, and while you’re at it, put his head on a silver
platter, if you don’t mind.”
Herod stared at the faces around him. He knew
it wasn’t fair. He knew it wasn’t right. But he also knew that everyone was
looking at him because, after all, he had
promised her “anything.” And though he had nothing personal against the country
preacher, he valued the opinion polls more than he valued John’s life. After
all, what’s more important — saving political face or saving the neck of a
crazy prophet? The story reeks with unfairness: John dies because Herod lusts;
the good is murdered, while the bad just smirks; a man of God is killed, while
a man of passion is winking at his niece.
So, is this how God rewards his anointed? Is
this how he honors his faithful? Is this how God crowns his chosen? With a dark
dungeon and an execution? The inconsistency was more than John could take. But
even before Herod reached his verdict, John was asking questions – his concerns
outnumbered only by the number of times he paced his cell while asking them. So,
when he had a chance to get a message to Jesus, his question was ripe with
doubt.
But look at what motivated John’s question. It
wasn’t just the dungeon, or even death, because he likely didn’t know what was
coming. Instead, it was the problem of unmet expectations — the fact that John
was in serious trouble and Jesus was conducting business as usual. So, is that what
messiahs do when trouble comes? Is that what God does when his followers are in
a bind? Jesus’ silence was deafening. “Are you the one? Or have I been
following the wrong Lord?”
Now, had the Bible been written by a public
relations agency, they probably would have eliminated that verse. It’s not good
PR to admit that one of the cabinet members has doubts about the president. And
you certainly don’t let stories like that get out if you’re trying to present a
unified front. But the Scriptures weren’t written by PR people; they were
inspired by an eternal God who knew that every disciple from then on would
spend time in a similar dungeon of doubt. And though the circumstances have
changed, the questions really haven’t.
They are asked anytime the faithful suffer the
consequences of the faithless; anytime a person takes a step in the right
direction, only to have his or her feet knocked out from under them; anytime someone
does a good deed but suffers evil results; anytime a person takes a stand, only
to end up flat on their face. And the questions fall like rain: “If God is so
good, why am I hurting so badly?” “If God is really there, why am I here?” “What
did I do to deserve this?” “Did God slip up this time?” “Why are the righteous
persecuted?” So, does God just sit on his hands, choosing to do nothing in
response to our circumstances? Or, does God simply opt for the silent
treatment, even when we’re screaming our loudest?
Disappointment sometimes demands a change in
command. When we don’t agree with the one who calls the shots, our reaction is
often a lot like John’s: “Is he the right guy for the job?” Or, as John put it,
“Are you the one? Or, should we look for another?” John couldn’t believe that
anything less than his release would be in the best interests of all involved.
In his opinion, it was time to exercise some justice and get some action. But
the one who had the power was, apparently, just sitting on his hands.
We can’t believe that God would sit in silence
while a pastor is awaiting execution in Iran, or a Christian loses a promotion
because of his beliefs, or a faithful wife is abused by an unbelieving husband,
or 300,798 people have died from a pandemic that some believe was an
out-of-control science experiment. These are just a few of the thousands of things
we have either heard or experienced. And our prayers for them? They seem to
have gone unanswered. It seems like the clouds of doubt always form when the
warm, moist air of our expectations rise to meet the cold air of God’s silence.
However, if we’ve heard the silence of God
while in a dungeon of our own doubt, perhaps, as John did, we, too, will discover
that the problem is not so much God’s silence but our ability to hear. “Go back
and report to John what you hear and see: the blind receive sight, the lame
walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and
the Good News is preached to the poor.” This was Jesus’ answer to John’s
agonized query from his dungeon. But before looking at Jesus’ response, consider
what he didn’t say.
First, Jesus didn’t get angry. He didn’t throw
up his hands in disgust. He didn’t scream, “What in the world do I have to do
for cousin John, anyway? I’ve already become flesh! I’ve been sinless for the
past three decades. I even let him baptize me. What else does he want? Go and
tell that ungrateful locust eater that I’m shocked at his disbelief.” He could
have done that. Maybe we would’ve done that. But Jesus didn’t. God has never turned away the questions of a
sincere searcher. Not Job’s; not Abraham’s; not Moses’; not John’s;
not Thomas’. Not yours.
But Jesus didn’t save John, either. The one who
walked on water could have easily walked on Herod’s head, but he didn’t. The one
who cast out demons had the power to nuke the king’s castle, but he didn’t. No
battle plan. No S.W.A.T. teams. No flashing swords. Just a message — a kingdom message:
“Tell John that everything is going just as planned. The kingdom is being
inaugurated.” And Jesus’ words are much more than a statement from Isaiah.
(Isaiah 35:5; 61:1) They are the description of a heavenly kingdom being
established. A unique kingdom. An invisible kingdom. A kingdom with no walls
and three distinct traits.
First, it’s a kingdom where the rejected are
received. “The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are
cured, the deaf hear ….” None were more shunned by their culture than the
blind, the lame, the lepers and the deaf. They had no place. They had no name. They
had no value. They were kind of like canker sores on their culture. You know, excess
baggage on the side of the road. But those whom the culture called trash, Jesus
called treasures. That must have been what the Psalmist had in mind when he
wrote: “You knit me together in my mother’s womb.” (Psalm 139:13)
Think about that. We were knitted together. We
aren’t an accident. We weren’t mass-produced. We aren’t an assembly-line
product. We were deliberately planned, specifically gifted, and lovingly
positioned on this earth by the Master Craftsman. “For we are God’s
workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in
advance for us to do.” (Eph. 2:10)
In a society that has little room for second
fiddles, that’s good news. In a culture where the door of opportunity opens
only once and then slams shut, that’s a revelation. In a system that ranks the
value of a human by the figures on his paycheck, or the shape of her body,
that’s a reason for joy. Jesus told John that a new kingdom was coming — a
kingdom where people have value not because of what they do, but because of whose they are.
The second characteristic of the kingdom is just
as important: “The dead have life.” In other words, the grave has no power. Jesus
looked into the eyes of John’s followers and gave them this message: “Report to
John … the dead are raised.” Jesus wasn’t oblivious to John’s imprisonment. He
wasn’t blind to John’s captivity. But he was dealing with a greater dungeon
than Herod’s; he was dealing with the dungeon of death.
But Jesus wasn’t through. He passed along one
other message to clear the cloud of doubt from John’s heart: “The Good News is
preached to the poor.” And no other world religion offers such a message. All
others demand the right performance, the right sacrifice, the right chant, the
right ritual, the right séance or the right experience. Theirs is a kingdom of
trade-offs and bartering. You do this, and God will give you that. The result?
Either arrogance or fear: arrogance if you think you’ve achieved it; fear if
you think you haven’t.
But Christ’s kingdom is just the opposite. It’s
a kingdom for the poor. A kingdom where membership is granted, not purchased.
You are placed into God’s kingdom. You are “adopted” into the family. And this
occurs not when you do enough, but when you admit you can’t do enough. You don’t earn it; you simply accept it. As a
result, you serve – not out of arrogance or fear, but out of gratitude.
That is the unique characteristic of the new
kingdom. Its subjects don’t work in order to go to heaven; they work because they’re going to heaven. The
late Steve Jobs said in a 2005 Stanford commencement address: “Remembering that
you’re going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you
have something to lose.” What do you have to lose when you have an eternal life
to gain? In the new kingdom, arrogance and fear are replaced with gratitude and
joy. That’s the kingdom Jesus proclaimed: a kingdom of acceptance, eternal life
and forgiveness.
Frankly, we don’t know how John received
Jesus’ message, but we can imagine. I’d like to think that a slight smile came over
him as he heard what his Master had said. “So that’s it. That’s what the
kingdom will be. That’s what the King will do.” Now, he understood. It wasn’t
that Jesus was silent; it was that John had been listening for the wrong
answer. John had been listening for an answer to his earthly problems, while
Jesus was busy resolving his heavenly ones. That’s worth remembering the next
time you hear the silence of God.
If we’ve asked for a miracle, but are still
waiting … if we’ve asked for healing, but are still hurting … don’t think God
isn’t listening. He is. He’s even answering requests we’re not even making. The
apostle Paul was honest enough to write, “We do not know what we ought to pray
for.” (Rom. 8:26) The fact is, John wasn’t asking too much; he was asking too
little. He was asking God to resolve the temporary, while Jesus was busy
resolving the eternal. John was asking for an immediate favor, while Jesus was
orchestrating an eternal solution.
Does that mean that Jesus has no regard for
injustice? No. He cares about persecution. He cares about inequities, and
hunger, and prejudice and pandemics. And he knows what it’s like to be punished
for something he didn’t do. He knows the meaning of the phrase, “It’s not
right.” Because it wasn’t right that people spit into the eyes of the very one who
had wept for them. It wasn’t right that soldiers ripped chunks of flesh out of
the back of God. It wasn’t right that spikes pierced the hands that formed the
earth. And it wasn’t right that the Son of God was forced to hear the silence
of God. It wasn’t right. But it happened.
And while Jesus was on the cross, God sat on his hands. He turned his back.
He ignored the screams of the innocent. He sat in silence while the sins of an entire
world were placed upon his son. And he did nothing when a cry a million times more
horrible than John’s echoed in the pitch-black sky: “My God, my God, why have
you forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46) Was it right? No. Was it fair? No. Was it love?
Yes.
Grace,
Randy
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