{"id":548,"date":"2019-12-15T14:56:24","date_gmt":"2019-12-15T14:56:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/?p=548"},"modified":"2019-12-15T19:59:33","modified_gmt":"2019-12-15T19:59:33","slug":"third-sunday-of-advent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/2019\/12\/15\/third-sunday-of-advent\/","title":{"rendered":"Third Sunday of Advent"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Matthew 11:2-11<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Come, Lord Jesus!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\nnever ceases to amaze me! You would think that those who were blessed with the\nopportunity to see and to hear Jesus and maybe also witness his miraculous\nhealings and feedings would have absolutely no difficulty in believing that\nJesus was the Messiah of God. You would think! But that wasn\u2019t the way that it\nworked then and it is not how it works now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This\nisn\u2019t the time of the year when we hear the stories of Jesus\u2019 resurrection, but\nfor the moment think about some of those resurrection stories. Jesus appeared\nagain and again to his Disciples and on almost every occasion there was this\nsubtle expression of doubt. Most of the Disciples did not recognize Jesus, but there\nwas always one of them (usually just one) who would hesitantly announce that it\nis the Lord and then another disciple, usually Peter would perform some act\nthat showed he believed, but the truth is they did not necessarily believe all of\nthe things that were said about Jesus as the Messiah of God, for the most part they\nbelieved only that the person that they were seeing was Jesus. It was not\ncertain that the Disciples fully believed that Jesus was God\u2019s Son and our\nSavior, at least not until the Holy Spirit appeared to them and gifted them with\nthe Spirit\u2019s gifts of faith and wisdom and healing and speech and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m\namazed every time I read those resurrection stories, but it was not just the\nDisciples who struggled with belief. John the Baptist who was the man called upon\nby God to prepare the way for the Messiah, wasn\u2019t so sure. He had made some\noutstanding statements of faith regarding Jesus as the Messiah, before Jesus\u2019\nbaptism, at the time of his baptism and right after his baptism. At those times\nhe had no doubts that Jesus was the one for whom he was preparing the way, that\nJesus was the Messiah of God. He even directed some of his own Disciples to go\nfrom him and follow Jesus. And, if the birth stories in Luke\u2019s Gospel are\ncorrect, John the Baptist may well have known Jesus, he was a part of his\nextended family; he even seems to have witnessed to Jesus as the Messiah of God\nbefore he and Jesus were born. But today, in our Gospel reading, the great John\nthe Baptist, the man who was sent to prepare the way for the Messiah, who\nproclaimed Jesus the one who comes in the name of the Lord, was not so sure. John\nwas at this time in prison; I guess, having so much time to think and maybe contemplating\nhis own death, he just wanted to make sure that he had not failed in his God\ngiven mission. Well, John sent a couple of his remaining disciples to Jesus\nwith a most direct question, \u201cAre you the one who is to come, or are we to wait\nfor another.\u201d In other words, give me the answer, plain and simple! A simple\nyes or no, would have been preferred, but Jesus doesn\u2019t give such simple\nanswers, and maybe it would not have been right to do so. Those who were to\nbelieve would all have to look at the same evidence, the same events, messages\nand experiences and believe or not; John was no different. Jesus, in his\nanswer, went back to the prophets, to Isaiah in particular comparing them to\nhis own life and activities. Jesus\u2019 answer was as follows: \u201cGo and tell John\nwhat you hear and see; the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers\nare cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised and the poor have good news\nbrought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me. John,\nknowing the Scriptures would have heard in Jesus\u2019 response the voice of Isaiah\nand understood that Jesus was answering, that the prophesies of Isaiah were\nbeing fulfilled in him, Jesus. And so, the answer, yes. John certainly lived on\nknowing that he had fulfilled his ministry and John faced death without regret.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If\nJesus were to have his way, John the Baptist would be remembered as a great\nman. With John\u2019s disciples gone from him, Jesus turned his attention to the\ncrowds and spoke to them about John. Again, Jesus doesn\u2019t speak plainly, but\nspeaks in the words of Isaiah about John. \u201cSee, I am sending my messenger ahead\nof you, who will prepare your way before you.\u201d John the Baptist was the\nprophesied messenger. But in stating this Jesus was also telling them who he\nwas. Jesus was the one for whom the messenger, John, was preparing the way. You\nwonder, all these people heard Jesus\u2019 message; crowds of others heard Jesus\npreach, saw Jesus heal the sick, some received the fulness of a meal from him\nand yet when it came time to standing up for Jesus, they were no where to be\nfound. They once seemed to believe in Jesus; maybe they did believe in Jesus at\nthose times, but they did not have the strength of faith to stand up for Jesus\nand to share his word after his arrest. There is an old saying, and maybe it\nanswers why people so easily fall from faith; the saying is \u201cwhat have you done\nfor me lately?\u201d It seems that the Disciples faith wavered after Jesus was\narrested. It seems that John the Baptist\u2019s faith wavered when Jesus was\narrested. And it seems that the faith of the people who once followed Jesus wavered\nafter Jesus was arrested.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nchallenge for us is different. Our faith is not built upon experiences of Jesus\nas he walked among us, talked to us and performed great deeds before our eyes. Our\nfaith rests on the words and experiences that we relate to Jesus. Yet, I see\nJesus, not physically, but I see him working in each of your lives and through\neach of your lives. But, can we each of us sustain our faith when confronted\nwith struggle, or illness, or grief? Jesus is always with us, but when he seems\nfar away, then we need to reach out to him, just like John the Baptist did; ask\nfor words of reassurance; listen to Jesus\u2019 response whether in your heart or\nbrought to you by messengers. You, like John the Baptist, will not be\ndisappointed and your faith will be restored stronger than ever.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Matthew 11:2-11 Come, Lord Jesus! It never ceases to amaze me! You would think that those who were blessed with the opportunity to see and to hear Jesus and maybe also witness his miraculous healings and feedings would have absolutely no difficulty in believing that Jesus was the Messiah of Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons-and-services"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=548"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":549,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548\/revisions\/549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}