2 When John heard in prison what Christ was doing, he sent his disciples 3 to ask him, “Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?” 4 Jesus replied, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: 5 the blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor.” – Matthew 11:2-5
It is difficult to accept the miraculous. There is to be a forever wrestling bout between belief and doubt. This is all too prevalent when we think of the recounted stories in Scripture. The overstated sermon by many is these are true and reliables. Yet to believe any of it, one needs a tremendous amount of faith. The reader must not only lay down their assumptions of how reality works, but also make room for the Spirit to teach and recreate us. I would suspect God wants it to be like this – a full reliance on the Trinity – in order to get to a place of grounded and near immovable faith.
“Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?”
This seems like an obvious question to ask. John was pretty sure of the answer – he was in prison in part for his faithfulness. Yet, at the most dire period of his life, he wanted to check in once more. Remember, the majority of Jesus’ ministry, including all the miracles the disciples would recount to him, happened out of his view. His life and ministry was largely in the wilderness – a contrast to that of Christ’s. For him, faith was something he was born into. His parents recounted his own birth and the birth of his savior through the years for certain. John walked in this daily.
If anyone had cause to belief, it was John the Baptist. Yet Jesus asked him not to believe what he alone had saw – the miracles he could testify to from his own perspective – but to hear with staunch faith the views of his new found visitors.
When life reaches the point of incarceration – whether of bars or circumstance – faith reaches its end. It is here where doubt floats to the surface. This is where it needs to be in order for faith to grow. If faith dies in the mundane, then it grows in the chaos – the heaving, desperate breath of the end. It was here, in prison preparing to die, that John had the most extreme and needed existential crisis.
Jesus points to story. Both yours and theirs carry significant clout. Treat both with holy reverence and esteem.
For us, we would be best served to remember the stories we share.
Matt simon blog 