Is He the One?
Advent 3
Fr. Tim Nunez
May my spoken word be true to God’s written word and bring us all closer to the living word, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen
A friend texted me this week to ask about hell. It seemed a bit dark given the holiday season, but he had been looking at different Jewish, Christian and Muslim perspectives on it. I told him that while the history of interpretation is endlessly interesting and can be useful, I always start from the Bible, the scriptures themselves. We say, “The Word of the Lord,” because we hold them as coming from the highest authority.
Like heaven, the scriptural picture of hell is a mix of ideas and images. It’s not clear what is to be taken literally, symbolically and metaphorically. But it’s clearly the opposite of heaven and impassably distant from it. It’s clearly the opposite of Jesus, of God, of good.
I’ve been with many people at the point of death. It is quite clear that when they die, they have left. One moment they are there and another moment they are gone. It makes sense that they go on in some way along the trajectory of their lives, unless grace intervenes. Our aim can never be perfect, which is where grace comes in. Our acceptance of grace provides a comprehensive redirection toward good, toward heaven, toward our Lord.
And it makes sense that some people don’t and won’t choose grace, or choose Jesus, or choose God, or choose good even at the pain of eternal suffering. Look at the world around us. They do, obviously. The trajectory we see all too often in negative directions is apparent. Unless it is reversed or redirected by grace it assuredly produces hell in this life. (Which also happens all the time.) And it would just as assuredly lead on into hell in the next life – unless and until it is redirected by grace.
It's helpful to have heaven and hell, this tension between death and grace, in mind as we look at today’s Gospel and contemplate the blessing of Jesus coming into the world and his promise to come again. It is truly about heaven and hell, the ways Jesus helps us persevere through life today, and the promise he holds for eternity.
We may feel very much like John the Baptist as we hear him at this late point in his ministry. He has a family history with Jesus. Recall that while they were both in their mothers’ wombs, John leapt for joy when the gestating Jesus drew near. He has a literally professional history with Jesus. He professed Jesus as the Messiah. Then he baptized him, witnessing the Holy Spirit descend upon Jesus and hearing God say, “This is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased.”
Now, John is in prison and may have some sense that his days are growing short. His call to repentance has always been done in Israel, again and again, ever since they reclaimed the Promised Land. But John knew a more radical change was coming through Jesus.
His question is more likely driven by urgency than by doubt. “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” At this point, the answer is given on a “need to know” basis. John is part of the team. His role, his mission, his life is coming to a close. He needs to know for his own sake and the sake of his disciples and all the people who heeded his call to preparation and repentance. He needs to know.
What does John need to know? That the Word of the Lord as spoken by prophets generally and quite literally by Isaiah and Malachi centuries before about a messiah, a savior, is being fulfilled by Jesus. The Word John the Baptist amplified and prepared people for by repentance and baptism is being fulfilled by Jesus. He is “the one who is to come.” The one.
My friends, we are all on a “need to know” basis. We are on the team, part of the great project of Jesus coming into the world to embody God’s grace and redirect all who will heed his call toward eternal life with him. Always remember that eternity includes today. Whatever our circumstances, successes and failures, joys and woes, comforts and sufferings of the present time, that trajectory matters right now. What matters most is the grace and the love of Jesus Christ, that comprehensive redirection based on our faith in him.
We need to know that Jesus is the One.
I often think about the advantage the Apostles, the witnesses to the risen Jesus, have in time. They were right there. They saw him raised from the dead and they felt the Holy Spirit driving them to share that Good News. And the earliest Christians who heard their witness directly could testify as to what Peter, Paul and the others said and wrote. We deeply value and venerate their witness.
We also have an advantage in time. We can look back across almost 2,000 years of history and say without any hesitation or doubt that what John said about Jesus and what Jesus said about John and himself, are true.
No prophet like John the Baptist arose before him or after him. He is unique in all of history in proclaiming Jesus as the Messiah, the Christ, the one who was to come. Judaism has not proclaimed such a prophet since.
No one remotely like Jesus has come along since. This itinerant, unofficial rabbi from a tiny occupied territory of the Roman Empire has shaped the world like no one else. Even people who don’t believe in Jesus as Lord and Savior admit his profound influence for good on the world. To the extent that the Church and her leaders have done wrong, he is the standard by which we measure their failure and hypocrisy. He is the atoning sacrifice for all our sin and the hope of all generations.
What did you come here to see? I hope it was to hear a full-throated proclamation and affirmation that Jesus is the one and we are not to wait for another. I try to find a lot of ways to say it and a lot of ways to apply it, but that is all I really have to say. Jesus is Lord.
I hope that by his grace your eyes are being opened. May your limbs be strengthened. May you hear God’s Word more clearly. May our hymns and music carry you to the gates of heaven. May you find yourself drawing ever closer to God and to each other. May you receive his grace to redirect your life today and rely on his grace to redirect your trajectory for eternity.
He is the one. There is no other.
AMEN!