Homily for Gaudete - 2007

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

We would be quite mistaken if we supposed that people only asked questions because they wanted to obtain information that they wouldn’t otherwise have. I spend a bit of my time teaching, and to do so, I ask questions. And there are plenty of times when I ask a question that I already know the answer to. I do so because I want my students to discover the answer for themselves.

Such an instance meets us in today’s Gospel. A surface reading might have you thinking that St. John the Baptist had fallen into doubt about the Christ. After all, what other reason could he possibly have for sending from prison his disciples so to ask Christ: “ARE you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?”

But stop and think for a moment. This is the man who, unlike any of us, was filled with the Holy Spirit from his mother’s womb. This is the man who confessed his Lord even before birth. This is the man who baptized our Lord, saw the Spirit descend upon Him, heard the very voice of the Father say that Jesus was His Son, His beloved, in whom He was well-pleased. This is the man who pointed to Jesus and cried out: Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. This is the man who freely acknowledged: “He must increase, and I must decrease.” And now, just because he is in prison and hears of the miracles of Christ, he’s in a crisis of faith?

No. The fathers of the Church together with the fathers of the Reformation tell us we’re barking up the wrong tree if we suppose that. St. John the Baptist was NOT in doubt. But he had disciples who stuck to him like burrs to a dog. He was in prison. In Herod’s prison. I don’t suppose he ever expected to get out. And he knew he was the Lord’s forerunner - the forerunner of Him whom he named “Lamb of God.” You remember what they do to Lambs, don’t you? And he was to be forerunner. Do you understand?

I suspect it was because he was anticipating the moment of his own death that he sent his disciples to Jesus after he heard what Jesus was up to. He put a question to the Lord through their mouths. He didn’t need to hear what Jesus would say - remember, he’d already heard about what the Lord was doing. But they needed to hear it. Needed to take to heart our Lord’s answer.

And what an answer it was. Jesus sends them packing back to John with these words: “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind 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. And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.”

What a message to carry back! Jesus could just as well have said: “Isaiah’s prophesies are unfolding before your very eyes, every last one of them.” And in that long list there was one word that they needed to hold to more than any other.

Our Lord doesn’t see the way we see. He knows the future. He sees already these men, weeping brokenhearted at the death of their beloved John, so cruel and so utterly senseless. So in the midst of all the rest was the crown jewel: “and the dead are raised up.” John would rejoice at that word to, and maybe they were the last words he whispered to himself when the sword was raised. “The dead are raised up.” But with their beloved John dead, where else could they turn, but back to the One who raises the dead? Back to the One whose every deed disclosed the secret that He was Yahweh in our flesh and blood, the Eternal Son of the Father come to save us from sin and death?

Do you need to hear that word too? I suspect you do. I know I do. A friend wrote me this week about how the grief was like a sucker-punch. Hit him out of nowhere. He’d lost his dad this past year. The grief weighs heavier in these days, I think, than at any other time. We remember those we have loved, and whose presence brightened our days and filled them with laughter. And they’re gone. And we feel sometimes as cold and dreary inside as a December day.

Is it any accident that the holy Church on this day cries out: “Lighten the darkness of our hearts by your gracious visitation!” We beg the Lord Jesus not to leave us, but to come to us so that His light would chase the darkness away.

John asked his question because he knew that those disciples he loved so much needed more than he could ever give them. So he sent them to Jesus. And his question has done the same for us this Gaudete morning. John has sent us to Jesus, to the Only One who CAN lighten our darkness, because He comes bringing good news that He is the forgiver of sinners and the resurrection of the dead.

In today’s second reading, St. Paul warns us against pronouncing judgment before the time. We’re always tempted to do that on others and on ourselves - and, sad to say, on God Himself. But the Apostle urges us to wait and be patient. He tells us that the Lord when He comes will bring to light the things that now are hidden and that He will disclose the purposes of the heart. Not just our hearts, but he purposes of His own heart. We’ll see clearly then what now is such a blur and befuddlement.

But amid the many things we can’t be certain of, this we can be sure about: the one St. John sends us to meet is the One whose deeds reveal Him to be indisputably God come in our flesh, not to wipe us out and give us our just desserts, but to love us, to hold us, to heal us. The God who came to know all our sorrows, even the sorrow of death itself.

Risen from the dead and ascended in glory, He comes to you again today - the very same Lord who shouldered your sin on Calvary and who left your death crushed in the dust beneath His feet on Easter morning - He comes to you and feeds into you His body and blood. “For you” he says. “For the forgiveness of your sins.” As though he said: “This is the light that I will shine into your darkness. You are mine and I am yours and I will never let anything part you from my love. Come, child, take, eat and drink. I will be Your all. And I WILL bring you home. Promise.”

And so we confess: You are the One who is to come, and we look for no other, for You alone, Lord Jesus, with Your Father and Your all-holy, good, and life-giving Spirit, are the only true God to whom be all glory and honor, now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen.