In the book of Matthew, John the Baptist, first comes on the scene after the story of the events surrounding Jesus’ birth. That is Matthew jumps from the angelic annunciation to Joseph that his betrothed would conceive a child by the Holy Spirit, to the arrival of wise men who came sometime after that child was born, to the terrifying escape to Egypt when Herod tries to tamp down the threat of a newly born king by slaughtering all children two years old or younger, to the holy family’s eventual return to Nazareth with a likely adolescent Jesus, to the appearance of John the Baptist in the wilderness when he and Jesus are both full grown adults.
John actually speaks his first words before Jesus does, proclaiming, “Repent for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” Matthew connects this preaching directly to the prophecy of Isaiah and John himself to the prophet Elijah, who was famously hairy, wore a similar leather belt, lived in the wilderness and was fed there miraculously. Elijah, like John, was also a prophet who understood his purpose from God to be to prepare the way for the Messiah. This was, it turns out for both of them, an often thankless task.
Messiah is a particular title in Matthew’s gospel and in the tradition and faith of Jesus and John’s ancestors. It means “the anointed one,” and links Jesus with the hopes associated with his ancestor King David, the one God chose to lead the kingdom and stabilize it after Israel’s first king, Saul, fell out of favor. One thousand years later, after their kingdom has been controlled at various times by the Assyrians, the Babylonians, and more, the Jewish people were still longing for the arrival of the Messiah, the one promised by God, who would conquer their oppressors and lead them back to a time of peace and stability.
So when John the Baptist comes on the scene saying a Messiah is on the way, one who would free God’s people militarily, and overthrow the Caesar and his puppet kings who controlled their day to day lives, that sounded great to the Jewish people. It sounded less great for the leaders of the Roman Empire. It’s no wonder they found a way to throw John in prison. Once they do, Jesus takes his cue and begins his ministry with the same words that John spoke, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”
Through word and dead, Jesus picks up his work of that proclamation by gathering his own disciples, preaching from the side of a mountain, cleansing those who are cast out, healing those who are sick, exorcising demons, and even showing his command and control of the natural order by stilling the storm on the Sea of Galilee. We don’t know how much time passes while Jesus is ministering and John and sitting in prison, but a lot of ground – geographical and metaphorical – is covered as Jesus makes his way through the cities, towns, and villages near the sea. Once in this time John’s disciples come to Jesus with a question for him about differences in practice, but we don’t see or hear from John himself directly. That is, until the story we heard today.
John, who has been in prison all this time, has been paying attention. Presumably those who have come to bring him food and clothing, as was the custom in that time, have also been bringing him news of that one for whom he was preparing the people, the Messiah. And John, well, he’s got a question for him.
John understood his ministry as one that had been preparing the people for a Messiah who will be mighty in force and strong for battle. He had helped the people get right with God so that they would be ready to be a part of building the new kingdom – a political reality as much as a spiritual one – task that would require tearing down the very kingdom that was holding him behind bars.
So his question from prison, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” – – it’s interesting to wonder in what tone he was asking this question. Is it with great admiration? Is it doubtful? Is it frustrated or exasperated? Or something else completely?
How would you ask that question, if you were in John’s place? Having heard, presumably, of these wonderful things Jesus has been doing and the things that he has been saying, but hearing them from prison – where you had been thrown on account of your own work that was unpopular to the occupying government.
How have you asked questions like these, when you thought you were on the right track, but you aren’t seeing circumstances unfold like you expected? When you have fulfilled the expectations of your family, your school, your job, or society, but things aren’t turning out like you expected? When you have been faithful to God, but your faithfulness feels fruitless? How have you raised your questions to God – with curiosity, with doubt, with frustration or exasperation?
I tend to lean this latter direction in my own life and in my reading of John the Baptist. In fact, maybe frustration and exasperation are too light of words for John’s experience. He’s not just watching what Jesus is up to from the edge of the crowd. He’s not just following behind at a distance. He is in prison. He had spoken the truth to power, and not just any power, but Herod, the puppet king serving on behalf of Rome. John had done exactly what he thought would help prepare the Messiah to challenge the oppressive Roman regime, and now John was in prison while the Messiah was out doing what? Not gathering an army. Not writing up battle strategies. Not working angles to get John out of prison, but still preaching and teaching and healing – not that these are bad things! But, John may be saying, are they really the most Messiah-y things the Messiah could be doing right this very minute?
What I hear in John’s question is despair. Someone who is losing hope for the mission, for freedom, for his very life. What I hear is someone who looks out at the larger landscape and wonders if God is doing or going to be able to do anything about what he sees at all. What I hear is hope slipping from John’s fingers, his heart, his spirit. It’s almost a sort of spiritual anxiety or panic.
I see something like this around me some days, maybe you do. Heck, I feel something like this inside me some days. Maybe you do, too. I look at the world in ideological gridlock that I see on the news, or I think about the people I know who are suffering in body, mind, and spirit, or I drive the streets of the community in which we live and see people who are cold and hungry and without houses, or I read about wars and conflicts between nations, within nations, among neighbors and families, and I start to worry that we’ll never find our way out of this violent mess we seem to find ourselves in. I ask in prayer, in frustration and exasperation and despair and panic, “Aren’t you the Prince of Peace or is there someone else we’re supposed to be waiting for?”
Jesus’ answer to John reminds me of a technique I have heard of called “grounding.” A friend of mine first introduced me to it when he witnessed a social worker in a group of his colleagues use in when one among them got the sudden and shocking news that a loved one had died. They were far from home on a business trip together and the bereaved friend was overwhelmed with emotion, when the social worker gently took her by the hands and spoke in a calm voice. She invited her friend to take calming, cleansing breaths, and then asked her, “Tell me five things you see.” The grieving woman looked around and named some – a tree, a car, a cloud, the grass, you in front of me. Then the helper asked “Tell me four things you can touch.” Then three things you can hear, two things you can smell, one things you can taste. Grounded in what she could see and hear, touch, smell, and taste, the woman wasn’t rid of her grief, but she was present in the moment, and could move forward to face the world and situation in front of her.
This is how I hear Jesus’s words carried back to John – grounding words, words that remind him of what is real and true and in front of him, words that bring John to the present reality – the blind are receiving their sight, those who haven’t are able to walk, people with diseases are being healed, the poor are receiving good news. The world may be rattling around them all, the movement may not be going as fast as John wants, and his own situation is definitely not what he would have hoped for or wanted. And yet, God is still at work. God’s spirit is still moving in the world. The kingdom of heaven is being built in real and meaningful ways. In this, John can be grounded. In this, we can find hope.
What can ground us? What can help us move from fear and spiritual panic to a feeling of connection with Jesus, the Messiah, and others, so that we can face the realities around us? I find incredibly helpful to find my own spiritual 5-4-3-2-1 technique to turn to. My first night serving in a hospital as a chaplain on call for major emergencies, my technique was to recite the 23rd Psalm. Along in my sleeping room, waiting for the beeper to go off and my presence to be needed, I read it and prayed it over and over. When my children were infants and crying inconsolably, it was the Doxology that I sang in my heart and out loud to find us to a peaceful moment. For some it’s the creeds of our faith that connect them to the generations and the traditions, “I believe in God, the Father Almighty…” or maybe the Lord’s prayer. A song may ground you, As Errika offered to the children, “Jesus Loves Me,” or “Amazing Grace.”
Our grounding techniques, though, don’t just need to look back to what we remember, what we have known, but can also look around us to what is true now. In the way that Jesus told John what was happening, how God was at work in the world right that very moment, we can name the places where the hungry are being fed, reconciliation is taking place, peace is being made – the children we saw playing with joy on the playground, the whole breadth of generations playing and crafting and serving and singing next to each other last Friday night in our Advent for All evening, the visitors who check in with those members of our church who can’t be with us in worship on Sunday, or the Stephen Ministers who walk with care receivers through times of change and sadness, the staff and volunteers of places like the Warming Center, Ripple church, Daybreak, and the Allentown Food Bank. The sacrament of Holy Communion, that we will celebrate that, drawing on all five our senses, can be a powerfully centering and grounding experience in worship. We can look for and to these and more to see that God’s Spirit is at work in the world through God’s people. I encourage you this week, when it all seems like too much and you wonder if peace will ever come, to look for the signs of Jesus’ kingdom of peace that are peeking through the veil. In small and large ways, Jesus is here; the Messiah is breaking through that which binds us, and building a kingdom of peace and love.
Where can you look to find signs that God is at work in the world?
Scripture:
Isaiah 43:19-21 & Matthew 11:1-11
Preached at First Presbyterian Church of Allentown on December 7, 2025 by Pastor Stephanie Anthony