2 When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples 3 and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” 4 Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: 5 the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, those with a skin disease are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. 6 And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.”
Matthew 11:2-11
7 As they went away, Jesus began to speak to the crowds about John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to look at? A reed shaken by the wind? 8 What, then, did you go out to see? Someone dressed in soft robes? Look, those who wear soft robes are in royal palaces. 9 What, then, did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. 10 This is the one about whom it is written,
‘See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way before you.’
11 “Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist, yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.
My sermon from the Third Sunday of Advent (December 14, 2025) on Matthew 11:2-11.
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Now for the last few weeks, I’ve been drawn to the passages from Isaiah our lectionary – the three year cycle of readings we use in worship – has given us. I see within these words a hope our lives and our world often needs. The prophet Isaiah, who lived 700 years before Jesus’ birth, made the word of God come to life in a community that felt like it was turning in on itself as it anxiously watched the Assyrian Empire destroy ten out of the twelve tribes of Israel. The people assumed the hope they needed was in simply finding the right kind of soldiers, technology, wealth, and friends to stop what was just over the horizon. And so in the race to win, they hoarded for themselves whatever they could, turning their backs on the most vulnerable in their community. God, though, refused to let their lack of care and justice be the end of the story and so Isaiah was sent to announce how accountability was on its way. Isaiah’s words lingered long after his ministry and people used those words to process the challenges, struggles, and opportunities they were living through. That’s why, 160 years or so after Isaiah’s death, the Jewish community who had been exiled by another empire – the Babylonians – and realized they might soon return to Jerusalem used Isaiah’s words to speak into their current reality. The words we heard about deserts blooming and a highway being built probably came from this later period. The community used words forged in a time of fear, anxiety, and worry, to find hope when things were hard. The hope they longed for was more than trying to manifest or wishcast a future where everything was okay. What they needed was a word and a promise that could hold them even when they couldn’t even imagine what okay might be. Isaiah, who had no problem pointing out the community’s need to make welcome, mercy, and grace the core of who they were, also knew what this kind of hope might do. It was a hope that could push them into a future they couldn’t see. And it was that kind of John, in our reading today from the gospel according to Matthew, also needed as he waited in prison to hear if Jesus was who he wanted him to be.
Now as we heard last week, John’s ministry involved dressing in camel hair, eating bugs, and baptizing folks by the River Jordan while embodying the fullness of who God called him to be. John’s words weren’t always the most pastoral and he wasn’t above name calling to get someone’s attention. Folks, however, listened to him and he soon formed his own group of disciples who followed him wherever he went. John in our Bible never identified himself as the Messiah but he hoped the One who would fix everything would soon be on their way. John imagined the Messiah would, in a very real way, upend the relationship we had with our God and with one another. Our lack of kindness, justice, and our unwillingness to be for one another would be replaced by something more. Yet here, not long after we watched Jesus visit John in the wilderness, everything changed. King Herod Antipas, one of King Herod the Great’s children, arrested John and put him in prison. John, it seems, wasn’t afraid of calling out negative behavior by those in power. After being targeted by John’s words and actions for quite awhile, Antipas threw him in jail. Even though the Roman Empire decided who would rule in all the territories they called their own, people would do all they could to gain power and influence. Herod’s family long had a history of using violence, corruption, and inheritance laws around marriages as a way to convince Rome they were the ones who could keep taxes and soldiers freely flowing into the arms of the Empire. Ancient sources tell us that, at some point, Antipas and his brother’s wife Herodias, decided to marry even though they were already married to other people. From what we can tell, their divorces went through even though a woman being the driving force behind her own divorce was seen as very strange. Rumors, though, persisted and many thought their arrangement was unethical, unlawful, and wrong. John was one of those who was very against what Antipas was up to and that quickly got under the skin of those in power. Antipas, I think, was a ruler who cared about what other people thought of him and his power, wealth, and status mattered more than anything else. When he couldn’t quiet John, he thought shutting him in prison might get him to change his tune. Yet while John waited behind bars, visitors told him about how his arrest kicked off the ministry of a man named Jesus. These words probably gave John a sense of hope since it looked like God was on the move. And so he sent his disciples to Jesus to see if he really was the hope John needed him to be.
And it’s at that moment when something very heartbreaking happened. The disciples found Jesus and he told them to report back everything they saw and heard. From our perspective, it appeared as if Jesus was merely letting his actions do all the talking. But what Jesus told them was very specific since it was the same thing the prophets and Psalms used to describe who the Messiah would be. Their words were very formulaic and those who knew their Bible would have easily recognized what Jesus was saying. The One who John believed would fix everything would make the blind see, allow the deaf hear, help the lame walk, cure those with skin diseases, and set the prisoners free. We can almost imagine John, sitting in prison, checking off each word in the formula while his disciples shared everything Jesus said. But when they got to the end, John would have noticed Jesus said nothing about those in prison being set free. Jesus, in other contexts, talked about setting prisoners free so we know he knew the formula. Yet here, at this particular moment and while talking to someone in prison, Jesus stayed quiet. Both John and Jesus knew the power of what wasn’t said and I imagine it broke Jesus’ heart to not share what John wanted to hear. And while we might want to explore, in detail, why Jesus didn’t say what John assumed he would say, I wonder if – during this season of hope – if it might be more fruitful to just sit with the experience John had. We all, I think, know what it’s like for hope to change. Life has a way of moving forward but that doesn’t always mean everything will get immediately better. The hope we want is a hope that will fix whatever crisis, sorrow, or heart break devouring our souls. Yet the hope we need is, I think, a hope big enough to hold us when going through – rather than getting better – is the only thing we really can do. This kind of hope doesn’t pretend as if life doesn’t happen or imagines our life to merely be some kind of straight line defined by us getting better physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Rather the hope of Isaiah, the hope of John, and the hope embodied by the crucified One is meant to hold us even when our hearts remain unmended. It’s a hope that trusts every part of our story – the good, the bad, those moments when our tomorrow looks bright and those times when there’s no going back to being okay – when all of us are wrapped up in the story God is already writing for you and the world. You, no matter what, belong to God even if we can’t quite see what our immediate tomorrow might be. And while living with that kind of hope is hard, our hope is always connected to the One who – in spite of all kinds of violence, fear, pain, and even death – still lives which means we – today and tomorrow – will live too.
Amen.