Gaudete Homily

[Isaiah 40:1-8 / 1 Cor. 4:1-5 / Matthew 11:2-11]

He had confessed Him already in his mother’s womb, for in the very instant when Elizabeth heard the sound of the Blessed Virgin’s voice, John lept for joy within her.

He stood with Him in the river Jordan, tried to argue Him out of a sinner’s Baptism, and finally acquiesced when our Lord insisted this was how all righteousness would be fulfilled. And there, amidst the flowing waters, he had seen the heavens torn apart above his head, the Spirit as a dove descending and resting on the Lord, and had heard the Father’s voice announce: “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased.”

He pointed others to him and said: “Behold, the Lamb of God! Behold, Him who takes away the sin of the world!”

When his own disciples began to diminish in number as the Lord’s increased, he had uttered words of deep faith: “You yourselves bear me witness that I said, ‘I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before Him.' The one who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice. Therefore this joy of mine is now complete. He must increase, but I must decrease.”

What, then, are we to make of John’s message to our Lord in today’s Gospel: “Are you the one who is to come, or do we look for another?” I confess that for many years I thought St. John the Baptist simply must have had a crisis of faith – something not uncommon to the saints of God, especially in the circumstances he was in. Yet I have always been deeply troubled by the fact that the fathers of the Church, including the fathers of the Lutheran Reformation, to a man, insist that nothing of the sort took place. St. John the Baptist, they say, was not having a crisis of faith at all. Instead, he had the problem of disciples who were clinging to him. He wanted to attach these disciples to Jesus. More of the “He must increase” until John became a zero in the service of the Lord.

So, hearing the works of the Lord, and knowing that these works provided irrefutable proof of who the Lord Jesus actually was, John sends his disciples with the question: “Are you the one who is to come, or shall WE look for another?”

Jesus responds to the troubled look in their eyes with kindness and love. “Go” he says “and tell John what you hear and see.” Thus he made them witnesses of the works that John already had heard of, so that in seeing and witnessing those works their faith would come to rest in Jesus. And when John’s days were done, they would know where they needed to go.

“The blind” says Jesus “receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up and the poor have good news preached to them.”

How the disciples of John needed to hear that last bit: that in Jesus they were encountering the Defeat of Death. In Jesus, they meet the One who raises the dead and that is good news to all the poor and oppressed. Our Lord’s eyes already see the grizzly scene of St. John’s martyrdom. He sees the head upon the platter, and he sees John’s disciples, these very men here before him, coming to take away his body, their hearts breaking that the one they had loved and learned so much from was now snatched from them by such a senseless and cruel death. Knowing how much they needed to hear this, Jesus sends them back as witnesses to His power over death, with the Good News that the Life that is in Jesus is stronger, the Light that is in Him shines brighter, than any darkness of this world.

“Lighten our hearts by Your gracious visitation” we pray in today’s collect, because we have known the devastations of death too. We have known the sadness of losing those we love. We have seen death devour them, and some of us are watching death do its ugly job even now. And in the midst of that darkness, that steals over the heart and weighs it down, we pray for the Lord to visit us with His light, with His good news that in Him death has meet its match, and that this holds good for all who are baptized into His life, who believe His gracious promises.

When the disciples of John head back with the message they had received from the Lord Jesus burning in their hearts, we are not told what John said to them. But I imagine it was with a knowing smile he greeted them and told them to hold tight to what they had heard, and to remember that he had always told them that the Lord Jesus must increase, while he must decrease.

But if John is little in his own eyes and growing ever smaller, we see that he is anything but little in the eyes of the Lord Jesus. When John's disciples have gone back, Jesus turns to the crowd and begins to talk from his heart about St. John the Baptist, and what words of love come tumbling out: “What did you go out to see? A reed shaken by the wind? A man in soft clothing? What then? A prophet? Yes, I say to you and more than a prophet. This is he of whom it is written: ‘Behold, I send my messenger before your face to prepare your way before you.’ Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist. Yet the one who is least in the Kingdom of heaven is greater than he.”

High praise from our Lord for His fore-runner. He says of all that have been born of women, you’ll not find St. John’s match anywhere. Because St. John was little in his own eyes, the Lord saw him as great indeed.

And yet he calls you greater, you who know and taste the Kingdom of heaven already now – for though St. John got to announce the Dawn of the new age in Christ, he was in his grave before it was fulfilled – forerunner of the Lord in death even as he was in life. He never had the joy of experiencing what you know: He died before the sufferings of the cross that wiped out the sin of the world. He died before the joy resurrection from the dead that broke death’s power forever burst forth into the world. He didn’t know the joy that is yours in your Baptism. He never heard the words of Holy Absolution. He never knew the unfathomable mystery you partake of week by week as the Lord Jesus comes to you, enters you with His body and blood, and brings to you the blessedness of sins forgiven, joining His immortal life with yours, giving into you a light that no darkness of death can ever quench.

St. John the Baptist awaited it. He announced it, he long for it, but he didn’t get to share it. He was the last of those whom the writer to Hebrews described: "And all these, though commended for their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect." And that makes you great indeed. So great, that you can be lifted up to the humility of the Baptist in these Advent days and make His words your prayer: “O Lord, increase in me and may I decrease to the glory of Your name.” Amen.