Bible Text: Isaiah 35:1-10, Matthew 11:2-11 | Preacher: Rev. Jenn Geddes
We have all received or given one of those gifts. A gift that displays a lot of thought but isn’t what you had asked for. I know I have given those gifts. I remember one of the first gifts I ever bought my mother. She had asked for a 4 cup Pyrex measuring cup. You see she had a 2 cup and an 8 cup but had broken her 4 cup. I was maybe about 10 years old. I was so proud of myself that I managed to go to the store without the assistance of my father and knew what brand Pyrex was and picked up the awfully heavy measuring cup. I could not wait for my mother to open it. On Christmas day she opened it, smiled and used that measuring cup in her baking for years. It was not until a few years later that I realized she had two 8 cup measuring cups. It’s also sometimes awkward to be the one who receives that gift. Mike and I have a deal that if he is going to get me jewelry that it must come from a thrift shop or fundraiser. Apparently a friend of ours had pointed at a necklace at the St. Andrew’s Christmas Bazaar and said, “Ohhh, Jenn would love these pearls.” They were raw “pearls” spray painted gold. It basically looked like I was wearing a necklace of gold teeth, roots included. It took me a couple of weeks to admit I was never going to wear that necklace. We all have those stories of receiving or giving a gift that was a little less than expected. But imagine if that gift was something you had been waiting for your whole life, imagine if it was a gift that generations had talked about, imagine if you were told that the gift had arrived- only to discover that the gift was nothing like you had expected. The messiah, Jesus, was not at all as the people had expected and today in Matthew’s Gospel, we hear even John questioning.
The prophecies in Isaiah that we have heard the last few weeks both help and hinder this same thought. The words from Isaiah 35 were originally spoken to the people of Judah who were mourning the loss of their land and temple. The lives of the Israelites had not turned out the way they had expected. Here they have this deeply rooted history about how God had brought them out of Egypt, to this land of milk and honey. The land was a symbol of the covenant that God had made with them and the temple was a symbol of God’s presence among them. To have the temple destroyed and them taken out of their land was totally unexpected. They are overwhelmed with despair and weariness and Isaiah has to preach to them in amongst this pain. They feel the sorrow of exile in their very bodies. They have weak hands and feeble knees, they are afraid and yet Isaiah has to tell them to get up and move in the world. He has to tell them that, despite this major change in their life as a people, God has not and will not abandon them in their despair. “Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God.” This sorrow will come to an end.
Isaiah continues to give them hope stating that “the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with singing!” They expected that someone would come and bring vengeance on the ones who had done this to them. Isaiah and many of the prophets declared that the Israelites would regain power through a mighty leader- who would overcome the oppressive powers-to lead them into victory. They all expected not only a true king but a military general. As a result when Jesus shows up and begins to demonstrate his messianic powers they are eliciting different reactions. John has just spent a good many years declaring that the Messiah is near- that the messiah will bring the spirit and fire and judgement. John finds himself in prison because of what he believes and then Jesus turns around and only subtly demonstrates the presence of the spirit, and certainly rearranges his understanding of judgement.
We find ourselves in a passage from Matthew in which the masses wonder, the Pharisees malevolently associate Jesus with the forces of evil and John the Baptizer has his misgivings; even he is beginning to doubt that Jesus really is this gift that they have all been waiting for. John believed and anticipated that Jesus would be a great separator, dividing the repentant from the sinners, separating the righteous from the unholy, casting out the oppressors and reinstating the Israelite lineage . John assumed that Jesus’ judgement would include violence. We heard it last week when John said that Jesus’, “winnowing fork is in his hand and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” Therefore John is struggling to reconcile what he said would happen with the subsequent “works of the Messiah.” Things are not turning out as he had expected.
Luckily the words we hear from Isaiah also help Jesus’ case. Isaiah declared that restoration of all things would occur upon the arrival of God’s leader. That not only would the temple be restored and the people returned to their land, but the blind would see, the deaf would hear, the speechless would sing for joy. Herman Waetjen reminds us, “The eyes of the blind will be opened, the eyes of the both spiritually and physically blind. The ears of those who hear but really do not hear and therefore do not understand will be unstopped. The psychologically crippled as well as the physically lame will leap into freedom like gazelles; and the tongue of the mute will be loosened to sing. These are the realities that Christmas anticipates. These are the very conditions that Jesus will begin to fulfil in his ministry. Opened eyes, hearing ears, and people in communication with each other will constitute a society of free people, who in community and communion will collaborate to achieve justice and equality of all its members.” You know in our times, as we see friends and family have continued issues with their health- strong people becoming frail, intelligent people losing their memory- I can’t help but think we are experiencing some backward results. But in truth- the restoration that Jesus did was maybe not in our living but in our dying. That in God’s kingdom we are restored to who we were meant to be.
Jesus responds to John’s enquiry from prison by referring and demonstrating the works of healing and restoration. Jesus gives the list of things that have occurred thus far. There is no denying that Jesus does state that he will come to bring separation. In fact, just in the previous chapter Jesus stated that he did not come to cast peace but a sword, and that families will be torn apart and separated through him. But Jesus also points out that while separation and division belong to his messianic role they are not the priority, they in fact, are not the last step in Jesus ministry, but only the beginning. The last steps are reunion and restoration. Throughout the Gospel we hear the Good News that Jesus is the one to restore us and we see that in his healing ministry. Amen