What Do You See?
Elaine Poproski Download: Audio
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Scripture
Isaiah 35:1-10
The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad; the desert shall rejoice and blossom… Read more…
Matthew 11:2-5
When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” Read more…
Looking to Sunday
by Elaine Poproski
One of the things I really like about the Bible, is how imperfect so many of the people, especially the heroes, are. I appreciate prophets who lament the state of things, even as they promise God’s deliverance. I appreciate poet’s who cry out for vengeance. I appreciate disciples who lose faith and evangelists who want to throw in the towel because their job is so hard and so unrewarding. In short, I appreciate that the people who show up in the pages of Scripture are fully human, with all the same struggles and foibles as you and I exhibit. I don’t need perfect examples. I need men and women who continue with God – who keep choosing faith – despite everything. I think that’s why this week’s story about John the Baptist is one of my favourites.
In Matthew 11:2 – 6 we read that John the Baptist sent his disciples to ask Jesus if Jesus was the Messiah for whom they’d been waiting. This is John the Baptist – Jesus’ cousin, miraculously conceived, passionately preaching repentance in the wilderness as if he were the great prophet Elijah returned from the dead. This is John the Baptist, who baptized Jesus, even while declaring that it was Jesus who should be baptizing him. This is John the Baptist, who believed so absolutely in his mission to prepare the way for the Messiah, that he didn’t cower from challenging the Pharisees and Sadducees or even King Herod himself. This is John the Baptist, now in prison, facing his own death, struck by doubt in a way I’m sure many of us have experienced at one time or another.
John the Baptist in prison, wondering if it was all for nought, questioning whether or not Jesus really was who he’d thought he was, is a sad, fragile man as I imagine him. I picture him huddled in a cold, dank prison cell, dejected and in danger of despair, sending his disciples to Jesus, in need of reassurance.
I appreciate this picture of John the Baptist. He tells me it’s o.k. for me to have my own moments of doubt. It’s o.k. for me to need some reassurance every once in a while. It’s o.k. if sometimes I question whether or not Jesus really is everything I believe him to be. After all, we live in the “Time Between – between the first coming of Christ and the second coming, between darkness and dawn, between the kingdoms of this world and the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ.”[i] We live in the time of faith. And faith, by its very nature, is sometimes shaky. What matters is not whether or not we sometimes doubt. What matters is whether or not, when we doubt, we go to Jesus and ask him for the reassurance we need.
How’s your faith these days? In this time of waiting, are there questions you can’t silence? Are there doubts you can’t answer? You don’t need to be perfectly confident all the time or even most of the time. I promise that Jesus never turns away a doubter or a questioner. I promise that as we seek Jesus in those times of doubt and questioning, he always shows up and he always has room. As you prepare for Sunday in this Time Between, perhaps spend some time with these questions above. Maybe you’re not in a place of doubt at the moment, but you have been at some previous time. How did Jesus answer those doubts? How did you weather the questions? How might you encourage someone else who is experiencing their own doubt and questions?
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[i] Fleming Rutledge. Advent: the Once and Future Coming of Jesus Christ. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans, 2018), 268.