Matthew 11:1-11 Doubting John Sermon preached September 1, 2013 Opening Heard a story about a man who was

on trial for murder in Oklahoma. There was strong evidence that he was guilty, but there was no corpse. In the defenses closing statement the lawyer, knowing that his client would probably be convicted, resorted to a trick. "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I have a surprise for you all," the lawyer said as he looked at his watch. "Within one minute, the person presumed dead in this case will walk into this courtroom." He looked toward the courtroom door. The jurors, somewhat stunned, all looked on eagerly. A minute passed. Nothing happened. Finally the lawyer said, "Actually, I made up the previous statement. But you all looked on with anticipation. I, therefore, put it to you that there is reasonable doubt in this case as to whether anyone was killed and insist that you return a verdict of not guilty." The jury, clearly confused, retired to deliberate. A few minutes later, the jury returned and pronounced a verdict of guilty. But how?" inquired the lawyer. "You must have had some doubt; I saw all of you stare at the door." Answered the jury foreman: "Oh, we did look. But your client didnt." John the Baptist Were talking about doubt today and how to overcome it. If youve been in church for any number of years, youve heard sermons on doubt, almost always featuring the disciple Thomas who says he just cant believe that Jesus has risen from the dead. Doubting Thomas. But Ill bet very few of you have heard of Doubting John. John the Baptist that is. But thats what we have in our reading from Matthew. Things are going well for Jesus and his disciples at this point in the Lords ministry. He has just sent out the disciples on their very first mission outreach - they go through Galilee preaching and healing and its a big success. And Jesus is continuing on through the villages of Galilee, with bigger and bigger crowds following him.

But John, is rotting in a stinking jail cell. Now John is introduced at the beginning of all four gospels. Hes an important figure - hes the prophet that God sent to announce that the Messiah was just about to appear, and that youd better repent, straighten up, or he was going to open a can of righteous judgment on you. And John - had big crowds coming way out into the wilderness to hear him preach. He was a first-century rock star...he was a sensation, today hed be on YouTube with 50 million views. Everyone from the low to the high was coming out to hear him - poor peasants, Roman soldiers, the religious leaders, everyone. Even Jesus himself went out to John, and was baptized by him. But by this point in Matthew - the big crowds that followed him...are now following Jesus. Big shots had been listening to John...but John got in the face of the biggest shot around - King Herod Antipas, and called him out for stealing away his brothers wife Herodias and marrying her. And instead of being afraid of John, Herod threw him into jail. And from jail, John sends a message to Jesus - are you really the One, with a capital O - or is there someone else coming? In other words, hes asking Jesus - are you really the Messiah I thought you were? And this is odd, because when John first saw Jesus, he said, Look - the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world! No doubts then. And he had actually encouraged his own disciples to go follow Jesus - because John believed Jesus was the One. So here we have the first person to believe in Jesus...doubting him...the man who was Jesus champion...questioning if he was the One hed been waiting for. The essence of Johns doubt is about Jesus - is Jesus the Messiah that I had believed in; is he the One that I staked my life on? You see, this isnt about John doubting something trivial, or an academic pondering, like Is there a God? This, is doubt that shakes a person to his core. This is John thinking and feeling - Jesus - are you who I thought you were? Jesus, I believed in you, trusted you, where are you? Jesus, - this is John doubting the whole foundation of his life and work. Doubt is most acute, for those who have had the most faith. If ones faith in Christ is just a mental concept that there was an historical figure, Jesus of Nazareth, who taught us nice stuff like the Golden Rule, if that faith is questioned it wont really shake a person. But - if you have staked your life on Jesus Christ, if you trust him in life and in death, if he is your joy and your hope and that faith is shaken, it feels like your whole world is coming apart. Its only those who have had real and deep faith, who can doubt. And I want to tell you, if you have doubts sometimes - you have plenty of company. Not just 2

with John the Baptist. But Mother Teresa too. Her journals and letters were collected and published a few years ago, and the biggest surprise in them was how much she doubted her faith. In 1946, Mother Teresa, then 36, was hard at work in a girls school in Calcutta when she fell ill. On a train ride en route to some rest in Darjeeling, she had heard what she would later call a voice asking her to work with the poorest of the poor, and experienced a profound sense of Gods presence. A few years later, however, after founding the Missionaries of Charity and beginning her work with the poor, darkness descended on her inner life. In my soul I feel just that terrible pain of loss, she wrote, of God not wanting me of God not being God of God not existing. According to the book, this inner turmoil, known by only a handful of her closest colleagues, lasted until her death If I ever become a saint, she once wrote, I will surely be one of darkness. 1 Now Jesus hears of Johns doubts - and note that he doesnt get mad at John, he doesnt tell Johns disciples to tell John to straighten up and try harder to believe - hes kind and understanding - and says two things for Johns disciples to take back to him, to help John work through his doubts. And these two things, were going to dive deeply into them and learn how we can discover who Jesus is and how we can learn to trust him. First one were going to look at, is a beatitude that Jesus utters. You may remember the other beatitudes - from the Sermon on the Mount - blessed are the poor; blessed are the peacemakers, blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness. But this beatitude is a strange one - blessed is the one who does not take offense at me - more literally in Greek, the one who is not scandalized by me. Not, blessed is the one who does not doubt; blessed is the one who is not scandalized by me. Were not scandalized by much of anything anymore - well, Miley Cyrus losing her mind at the MTV Video Music Awards last week did - but in terms of what the Lord is saying, the idea here is to be deeply offended by who Jesus is to the point that you turn away from him. John expected and wanted a different kind of Messiah than Jesus turned out to be - and was wondering how could Jesus be the Messiah if Roman soldiers were still patrolling the streets and if Im rotting in jail due to the anger of a petty tyrant? And the Lord is saying to John, yes, Im different than you expected - but you are 3

blessed if you feel the offense of that, but are able to work through it and trust in me. So heres the first way you deal with doubts about Jesus - you feel the offense of who he is, and you go straight at the offense because in the offense you learn who he is, rather than who you want him to be. Thats going to take some unpacking. Have you ever heard of the Jefferson Bible? I read it when I was working on a degree some years back. One day, Jefferson took a New Testament, and a pair of scissors, and set to work creating a portrait of Jesus that he liked better than what Matthew, Mark, Luke and John had portrayed. Jefferson cut out all Jesus miracles, the Virgin Birth, anything that referred to his deity, or heaven and hell. And then he pasted together the remaining bits into a book with blank pages, and voila - he had the Jefferson Bible. You can see several early versions at the Smithsonian. And what was left in Jeffersons bible was a Jesus who met Jeffersons specifications - a great moral teacher. Well...one obvious criticism is that nobody crucifies a great moral teacher...who wants to kill Mr. Rogers? And another is, Jefferson just created a Jesus in his own image. But you see, Jefferson was offended by Jesus claims of who he was, offended by his miracles - so he never got to know the real Jesus. Today, we also want a cut-and-paste Jesus - like everyone loves the Jesus who said Let the one without sin cast the first stone; or Let the little children come to me...for to such belongs the Kingdom of God. Or a Jesus who exists to help you actualize your potential and be a success in life. Or who gives you prosperity and blessing and wealth and health. But a Jesus who makes claims on us like, Deny yourself, pick up your cross and follow me, a Jesus who whether we like it or not talked about the real possibility of hell...the Jesus who said, I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me, well, wed rather edit that stuff out and come up with our own cut-and-paste Jesus. Its like the scene Ive mentioned before from Talledega Nights. The driver Ricky Bobby, kind of a dim bulb, has constructed a Jesus just to his liking. And he says grace to his Jesus: Dear tiny Baby Jesus in Your tiny baby crib, with Your tiny little hands and feet, watching Your tiny little Baby Einstein Development videos, use Your tiny little superpowers to keep me winning on the racetrack. Amen. His wife objects to this, says he ought to pray to grownup Jesus, and Ricky Bobby says, I dont want to pray to that Jesus. I like praying to the little Baby Jesus, because it makes me feel good... 4

And I would go so far as to say, that if you have not found Jesus to be offensive at some point in your journey of faith, if you have not thought, this is just too much... then youve never really considered how strange and wonderful and terrible and majestic he really is. I mean, wouldnt you expect God come in the flesh to be a little - challenging? A little - different? A tame and safe Jesus is no Jesus at all. And a faith that is never troubled by doubt and questions is it really faith at all? So what do we do with our offense? The Greek verb tense indicates that Jesus meant that blessed is the one who doesnt stay stuck in offense, doesnt stay stuck in being scandalized. You move past it, by moving towards it. If its a matter of intellectual understanding, you ask God to help you understand, and you start exploring who Jesus is by reading and thinking and talking and studying. And I am confident you will find that while faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior is not always easy, it is reasonable and makes sense. Let me recommend one book in particular - Tim Keller is the author, its called The Reason for God. Its excellent. Ultimately, creating faith is Gods work - but we have to take a step of faith - which means to tell the Lord like the man in Luke - I believe, but help my unbelief! Ask, and you shall receive! And if life hasnt turned out like youd expected, and you doubt the Lord, you doubt yourself - thats what Jesus addresses in the second thing he tells Johns disciples to tell the imprisoned prophet. John had done exactly what God had called him to do...and his mission had gone exactly as planned - as John himself predicted, Jesus became greater and John became less...but for John, the Messiah was supposed to win a great military victory over Rome and all the rest of Israels enemies. And John expected that Herod would be the one in jail, and hed be the one on a throne, helping rule the world. And so Jesus re-writes Johns expectations - says look at what Im doing - healing the lepers and the blind and the deaf and the lame, preaching good news to the poor - Jesus is saying, Look John - the healing and transforming work of God is being done in these small ways among poor and forgotten people...I didnt come to impose a military victory from above but start a revolution from below, among the poor and forgotten of the earth. Im not about power, Im about serving. If you doubt the worth of your life and therefore doubt the goodness or even existence of God take a look at how Jesus measured his own life. Service to the poor and hurting. Not accumulating a lot of money or status, not raising an army, not being called a success...his metric of success was touching the lives of others with Gods healing grace and love. 5

If we like John grieve over a life that didnt turn out like we expected and doubt the Lord...maybe our metrics of success need to be re-written to be in line with Jesus. If you have tried during your life to follow Jesus...a life of what Eugene Peterson calls a long obedience in the same direction, with the usual stumbles and screwups, you have done more good than you imagine. You have touched more lives - your children and other family, your friends in church, those you taught in Sunday school, your neighbors and co-workers - than you know. You have done more good than you can see. Your life has meant more than you know and realize and one day, one day in the life to come, youll see it clearly. And if you want to begin, well, all you have to do is to look for and serve hurting people. Closing There was a famous mathematician, philosopher and atheist named Bertrand Russell, who died in 1970 who was once asked, What are you going to say if when you die, you find out that youre wrong, that there is a God? And Russell said, Well Ill just say, you didnt give us enough evidence, Lord! And Ill bet thats just what happened! If you doubt...there may not be evidence to satisfy an empirical mathematician...but if you ask the Lord to show you, if you follow the Lord, youll find in Jesus Christ everything youve been looking for. Amen. Endnotes 1. A Saints Dark Night, by James Martin, in The New York Times, August 29, 2007.