The sermon for December 15th was based on Matthew 11:2-10.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Poor John, there he is sitting in prison waiting to be executed. We all know how this story will end. He’s going to have his head chopped off and presented to the court trollop on a platter (Mark 6:17-29) and all because he rebuked the wicked conduct of a powerful man. Poor John.

But its really Zechariah and Elizabeth that our hearts go out to isn’t it. They were such good people, from such fine families. They were respectable and deeply religious and even if there had been an awkward sensation about Zechariah losing his voice while Elizabeth was expecting, it hadn’t really done anything to hurt their reputation. And then to have their son turn out like this...

I mean, we have to admit that John brought most of this on himself. Did he really have to walk around wearing camel hair and eating locust for crying out loud (if you’ll pardon the expression.) Surely what a person, even a prophet, wears is an adiaphron and that couldn’t have been the best possible choice could it? Image is important, isn’t it? Is some wild man living in the wilderness eating bugs really the face that we want to put on fledgling Christianity? Is this what’s going to appeal to people and establish our religion among the middle class? Surely not!

And what about his attitude? You brood of vipers (Mt 3:7), Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. (Mt 3:10) Are these the kind of things a Pastor ought to be saying to people? Shouldn’t he be saying things like, "Now, now it’ll all work out. God loves you and I love you and He’s not going to be upset just because you persist in believing lies about Him." That’s what brings people into the fold isn’t it? Tolerance and compassion and a winsome way with people. If ever there was guy who was rigid and extreme and in obviously off putting ways, it was John.

And what about his problems with authority? Is it really right for a man of God to publicly tear out after the rightful king just because he doesn’t think the king married the right woman? Shouldn’t some things be private? What particular business is it of John’s who king Herod marries? If he wants to marry a Jew let him marry a Jew. If he wants to marry a Christian let him marry a Christian. If he wants to marry an atheist let him marry an atheist for heaven sake. And let them raise their children in whatever religion they want. Surely God, in all His might and magnificence isn’t going to care! He loves everybody right, even the unbelievers.

To my credit or discredit, I’m not yet sure which, I am tolerant of you and your neighbors. I put up with all kinds stuff and I overlook more than you can even guess. Add to that the fact that I am genuinely compassionate. Anyone who has ever come to me for help will be able to attest to the fact I will do almost anything to help almost anyone. I likewise do my flat level best to be as winsome with people as I possibly can. Others are better at it but I try my best. Even so, the very minute I assert that you personally might be sinning or that you may be out of line with respect to the Word of God you people turn on me like I’m the main course at a Texas barbeque. And yet what does Jesus say of John the Baptist who is, in every way, a more obnoxious figure than I even know how to be? That he is a prophet, and more than a prophet. For this is he of whom it is written: ‘Behold, I send My messenger before Your face, who will prepare Your way before You.’ Elsewhere He even says this, Assuredly, I say to you, among those born of women there has not risen one greater than John the Baptist. (Mt 11:2). Of all the people that have ever been or will ever be, Jesus chose John to walk point for Him. So what does that say about Jesus?

Here’s another boy with great promise wasted; the wunderkind of the Temple scholars, the child who according to St Luke (2:40) grew and became strong in spirit, filled with wisdom; and the grace of God was upon Him. How sad that such a remarkable young man should fall into the same disgrace as his cousin John. Neither the seminary nor the synodical equivalents of Jesus’ day could have been happy with image projected by these two boyhood companions. They were all wrong for reaching out and for making a real and lasting difference in people’s lives. How sad.

You can picture the old men wagging their beards and muttering to one another about Him. You can hear the women saying to one another in tones simultaneously confidential and condescending, "They were peas in a pod those two, right from the start. And I told Mary way back when John was arrested that it would only be a matter of time until Jesus too ran afoul of the law. You mark my words I told her. Well, you see how right I was. Poor Mary, its her I feel for. She’s has such a time of it. And even if that boy did come rather early, if you know what I mean, he gave her every indication that he was going to be something great. You know when he was little I though for sure he’d be a great pharisee. When he would come out of the temple you could just see him one day up in front of the most popular synagogue in Israel. If he had played his cards right he might even have been High Priest and couldn’t his poor mother have used that? But what can you do? Instead he went around calling people whitewashed sepulchers and vandalizing the money changers. Its too bad. That’s more than a mother should have to take. And now she’s hanging around with that other John and I’ll say it again, you mark my words but that young fellow is going to come to no good. He’ll probably die alone in prison if he isn’t executed first."

You know that people all over Nazareth had conversations just exactly like that one. And why shouldn’t they have. Isn’t that exactly what happened? Isn’t that what the entire content of the Gospel looks like to people who don’t have faith in the person and work of Christ? And isn’t that kind of thinking par for the course among those of you who have never been specifically called by God to speak for Him? You know it is. This is the way you people talk about all your prophets all your Pastors. And this is the kind of thing that is frequently thought and said even by those Pastors who have given up the rigors of parish life and traded it in for administrative work or a classroom. This is what people always think of working prophets, of the men of God in the mud with the sheep. There’s no ivory tower for the parish Pastor. There’s no executive office building for active shepherds. Think of what Jesus says. What did you go out to see? A man clothed in soft garments? Indeed, those who wear soft clothing are in kings’ houses. But what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I say to you, and more than a prophet.

Our lives are brutal in ways that laymen can’t even imagine. I love my flock. I love you. It tears me up when I do for you exactly what God commands and you hate me for it or when I faithfully proclaim the Word of God to you and you second guess me, as if most of you were even remotely qualified to speak to me about the Word of God and Christian Doctrine. John loved his people too. You can see it in the Gospel for today. He sends them off to Jesus so that they can hear for themselves from His own lips that He is the Messiah. But there is a human and Pastoral concern embedded in his question too. John wasn’t God. He wasn’t omniscient. He was a man like me and before he could turn his disciples over to the care of anyone else, even Jesus Himself, he needed to be reassured that they really would be taken care of. That they really would be led to Christ.

St. John needs to know that Jesus will love them as he has loved them. That he won’t just give them that 9-5 time clock, I’m a professional here’s my business card attitude that we see in so many who purport to Pastors these days. Or worse still, the I’m here to see that things go smoothly so I’ll be turning you over to some cell group run by laymen kind of disposition that drives so many of the congregation even in our own synod. He doesn’t want to turn his disciples over to some guy who refers to himself as being "on staff." He wants to give them to a man who will get down in the mud with them. Wash ‘em off when necessary and wrestle ‘em back to the ground when needed. He wants to be reassured that Jesus will be the right kind of Pastor, a truly good shepherd. The kind who comes when you call him. The kind who comes when you don’t.

And how does Jesus reassure St. John? Jesus answered and said to them, "Go and tell John the things which you hear and see: The blind see and the lame walk; the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear; the dead are raised up and the poor have the gospel preached to them." Jesus sends word back to John in Prison. Don’t worry John. I’m not holed up im my study or the parish office or some classroom, neither am I distracted with meaningless administration and bureaucracy. I’m out taking care of people. When John the Baptist laid his head on the block you can bet it contained and quiet mind. He had shepherded his disciples into Jesus’ very hands.

But Jesus didn’t love John’s disciples quite the way John had did He? He loved them a thousand times more and a thousand times more even than that. When John the Baptist saw his beloved people sinning he called upon them to repent. When Jesus sees us sinning He lets Himself be punished in our stead. When John’s people approached death, he consoled them with the Gospel. When Jesus saw us in the Valley of the Shadow of Death He died for us and lets us go straight to heaven. Jesus takes personal responsibility for you and your sins in a unique way.

Salvation has to be that way though. We’re talking about being rescued from sin, death and the devil. The condition of being trapped in sin is awful beyond expression and that means that even our redemption will be messy and intensely personal. It comes with much anguish and many tears. I’m not talking about being converted. That happens in an instant. I’m talking about that long walk of seventy or eighty years during which Jesus tends us with both His rod and His staff. Some of you, I know, think that the Christian life should be one beautifully touching hallmark card moment after another culminating a death that moves people to tears of joy and admiration. Did it work that way for the Patriarchs? Did it work that way for the Prophets, for Jesus, for the Apostles, for the Saints? That’s not how the fight is fought. That’s not God’s way.

God’s way is to come down from heaven and be born in a barn because that’s where we are. His way is to suffer and die for us because that’s what we’re involved in. His way is to get even messier than we are and at the end of all things to have more mud under His finger nails than we do. His way is to forgive us. Not to excuse us. His way is to keep us faithful, not dismiss us from reality. His way is to work through the Word and through the Sacraments, apart from which He has given absolutely no promise to create faith. His way is to send plain ordinary men, charged with the duty to speak only His Word, to administer these Means of Grace. His way is to see to it that you are never alone, that you are never required to save yourselves, that you are always in the care of the most John the Baptist like Pastor available. And it is so worth it. I’m Christian enough to know that a Jesus who’s all light a sunshine is as bogus as those plastic Santas who do the hula dances in the department stores. But a Jesus who looks at me with mud on His face, blood on mouth and tears in His eyes is one that can take without my permission or my help my whole heart, my whole soul, my body and my mind. Jesus words to John the Baptist are for me and they’re for you too. Blessed, blessed in every possible way, is he who is not offended because of me. Amen.

Last Updated: 7/15/2008