Today’s reading is from Chapter 11 of Matthew’s gospel.
Jesus’ ministry of teaching, preaching and healing,
which started when John was arrested, is now well underway.
John is still in prison, and is hearing what Jesus is up to.
John did what he was called to do: he prepared the way.
For this, he did not need perfect knowledge of who he was announcing.
Maybe Jesus-in-action wasn’t quite as John expected….
Who is Jesus?
A question for everyone who takes Jesus seriously,
right down the ages – to today.
The question the gospels were written to address –
not so much by trying to give a direct answer
but by giving those who listen their own Jesus-encounter.
The Hebrew scriptures generated various expectations
about the coming of the Messiah, the Christ.
Some anticipated the Messiah
at the centre of the restoration of the nation and its worship.
Others anticipated the Messiah
manifesting God’s judgement and ushering in the end of history
– maybe this is what John the Baptist’s was expecting.
It is also easy to imagine that John expected a wilderness-based Messiah.
So, John sends disciples to question Jesus about his identity.
Are you the one who is to come? …
Jesus doesn’t answer directly.
Instead he invites the questioners to use their eyes and ears,
and gives a quick summary of his ministry of preaching and healing,
from the preceding chapters of Matthew’s gospel.
A hint there that, before they got around to asking their question,
these disciples of John have been following Jesus around.
Jesus’ summary of what he has been up to
recalls Isaiah’s promises of healing, both those in our first reading today,
the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame dance,
and those elsewhere in Isaiah. (29:19; 29:18; 35:5,6; 42:7; 42:18; 61:1)
So, Jesus is giving a very oblique ‘yes’ to the question,
whilst, at the same time, interpreting the scriptures concerning himself.
John’s disciples are encouraged to refine their scriptural understanding of
the one who is to come.
Within Judaism,
God incarnate, God becoming human, was surely unthinkable –
an afront to the holiness, the otherness, the singleness of God,
revealed in the Hebrew scriptures.
So, it is safe to say that, whatever expectations people had,
no one anticipated the Messiah, the Christ, would be God incarnate –
that is that, in Jesus, God is entirely with us, truly human –
which is the mystery of Christmas.
The particular phrase from today’s gospel
that has been going round in my mind is the beatitude Jesus pronounces:
blessed is the one who is not offended by me;
or in another translation, not scandalised (greek:skandalisthē) by me.
Not just words for John’ disciples. Words for all time.
Jesus, in his person,
is a complete upheaval in the understanding of ‘God’
and, though this is less obvious, also of ‘being human’.
We are truly blessed
when we embrace this mystery of the Incarnation:
the mystery that in the person of Jesus,
Son of God and Son of Mary,
God is revealed as love,
and God and humanity are bound together.
We are truly blessed …. and our hearts rejoice.