John 1:6-8, 19-28 and Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11
Today’s Gospel reading features John attempting to explain to the Jewish religious leaders by what authority he was testifying about the coming Messiah. It is important to know that, according to historians of the time, John the Baptist had developed quite a large following among the people. The Roman historian Josephus even wrote of John as being a more important figure that Jesus. Quite clearly, John’s pronouncements got the religious leaders wondering if he was claiming to be the Messiah himself. So they sent some officials to ask him. John told them that he was not.
The officials then correctly perceived that John was announcing that the Messiah was near. Now the Jews believed that the Messiah would be preceded by a return of the prophet Elijah. If you know your Old Testament, you would know that Elijah did not die, but was taken up into heaven by God, and the Jews thought that his return would presage the coming of the Messiah. So they ask John if he is Elijah, but John denies that also. Well this perplexes the officials and they finally just ask “Who are you?” They want to know what John’s credibility is.
The reason for their confusion is that the Jews had a very fixed idea about what the Messiah would be like. I came across one Jewish website describing what Jews expect to see in a Messiah. According to this site, the Jews believed that the Messiah would be a great political leader descended from King David, well-versed in Jewish law, a charismatic leader, a great military leader who will win battles for Israel, a great judge, and above all, a human being, not a god.
So think about it. The Jews were expecting the Messiah to be preceded by one of Israel’s best known prophets, Elijah, returning to earth announcing his coming. And surely, it would be pretty hard to miss a great charismatic political and military leader. People like that don’t just appear out of the woodwork. Just think if someone began to declare to Republicans that their long awaited 2012 presidential candidate had finally arrived. Most pundits would be asking themselves who this person was – would it mean that one of the star candidates who had previously declined to run, changed their mind? Or perhaps, a successful general, businessperson or Senator had decided to run after all. Most pundits would be able to draw up a list of 25 people tops, and they would know that the mystery candidate would have to be one of those people.
Well, you can imagine why the Jewish leaders of the time were puzzled by John and why they wanted to know who he was. They must have thought that John was either a dangerous fraud or else that John knew about a potentially very powerful rebel leader that they didn’t know about. Of course, neither was true.
John replied by claiming Old Testament prophecies to substantiate his claims. Specifically, he refers back to the prophet Isaiah, who authored many prophecies that looked forward to the Messiah’s coming. However, the Jewish religious officials ignored this response by John and continued to press him for his identity. Then John makes a truly remarkable statement. He says to them “among you stands one you do not know. He is the one who comes after me…” In other words, John tells the religious officials that the Messiah is among them, but that they don’t recognize him.
As we learned, it would have been impossible not to have known a Messiah who was going to be a charismatic political and military leader. Such leaders don’t just appear out of thin air. If such a person was reputed to exist, you would have had to either know the person, or know of them. But John declares that the Messiah is among them but that they don’t recognize him. How can this be? The problem is that the Jewish leaders ignored John when he pointed them back to Scripture. Had they been willing to go back and re-read Isaiah with fresh eyes, they might have realized how mistaken they were. So if we want to learn about who Jesus really is, we need to follow where John is pointing – back to Isaiah’s prophesies. What does Isaiah tell us about Jesus Christ, the coming Messiah?
Well, I could stand here all day and talk to you about this subject, but we only have a few minutes. So let’s just look at a couple of passages. First, let’s look at John’s actual quote from Isaiah – “I am the voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way for the Lord.’” This comes from Isaiah chapter 40. Chapter 40 begins saying “Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for.” Then the words that John speaks are included as the voice of the Lord’s herald, after which Isaiah writes “the glory of the LORD will be revealed, and all people will see it together. For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.” Thus, what John was declaring was that he was indeed the herald to the Messiah’s coming, but that the foretold Messiah would come to pay for Israel’s sins.
Isaiah chapter 53 tells how the Messiah will pay for our sins. This chapter tells us how Jesus will accomplish the great promises that we will hear about in chapter 61. And it is in chapter 53, that we see how it was so easy for the Jewish officials not to see the Messiah when he was right in their midst. They were looking for a dashing and charismatic leader, while Isaiah tells us that the Messiah “had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by others, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.” People like that typically don’t get noticed. But Isaiah doesn’t stop there – he continues beginning at verse 4 “Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.”
The final passage in Isaiah that we will look at is today’s Old Testament reading. We read from Isaiah 61, a passage that Jesus made a point of selecting to read from in Luke chapter 4, after which he declared “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” Jesus was identifying this passage from Isaiah with himself. This passage tells us that Jesus came to proclaim good news to the poor, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives, and to comfort all who mourn. He has come to bestow on those who grieve a “crown of beauty instead of ashes”, the “oil of joy instead of mourning” and a “garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.” In other words, the purpose of Jesus coming is to put things right again and to bring us joy.
There are many prophecies looking forward to the Messiah that can be found in the Old Testament. We talked about a few of them today. I have passed out to you today, the lyrics to Handel’s Messiah. The Messiah is truly an Advent masterpiece and I would encourage everyone who has never yet done so to attend a performance of the Messiah this Advent. And pay close attention to what is being sung. The lyrics are taken completely from the Bible, and include many of the Old Testament references to the coming of the Messiah. So I would encourage you sometime this Advent to either attend a live performance, or listen to it on CD or the radio and read the lyrics while you enjoy the wonderful music.
Advent is the time that we look forward to the coming of our Messiah and prepare our hearts and lives for his coming. This, the third Sunday of Advent, is known as Gaudete Sunday. Gaudete is Latin for “rejoice” and is the Sunday in Advent that we focus on joy. We read in Isaiah 61 that Jesus has come to bring us joy. On reading Isaiah 61, I thought of a passage near the end of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, after the hobbits Frodo and Sam have just destroyed the evil ring of power by casting it into Mount Doom. They are caught in a sea of lava that the ring’s destruction has brought about and pass out thinking that they are about to die. But in the next scene, Sam wakes up in a sunlit room and sees the great wizard Gandalf, who he thought had died, standing over him. Gandalf asks him how he feels, and listen to what happens then:
But Sam lay back, and stared with open mouth, and for a moment, between bewilderment and great joy, he could not answer. At last he gasped: ‘Gandalf! I thought you were dead! But then I thought I was dead myself. Is everything sad going to come untrue? What’s happened to the world?’ ‘A great Shadow has departed,’ said Gandalf, and then he laughed, and the sound was like music, or like water in a parched land; and as he listened the thought came to Sam that he had not heard laughter, the pure sound of merriment, for days without count. It fell upon his ears like the echo of all the joys he had ever known. But he himself burst into tears. Then as a sweet rain will pass down a wind of spring and the sun will shine out the clearer, his tears ceased, and his laughter welled up, and laughing he sprang from bed... "How do I feel?" he cried." Well, I don't know how to say it. I feel, I feel" --he waved his arms in the air-- "I feel like spring after winter, and sun on the leaves; and like trumpets and harps and all the songs I have ever heard!"” (J.R.R. Tolkien (2009-04-17). The Lord of the Rings (pp. 951-952). Harper Collins, Inc.. Kindle Edition.)This is what Isaiah 61 points to in Jesus. Jesus came to the world to take away the great Shadow of sin from our lives, and to bring us great joy by making everything that is sad come untrue by reuniting us with God our Father. Rejoice!
Let us pray:
Lord, we are commanded to Rejoice in you always. Advent is the time for us to prepare ourselves to receive your Son, our Savior. On this Gaudete Sunday, we ask you to prepare our hearts and remove the sadness that hinders us from feeling the joy and hope which His presence will bestow. Whatever our circumstances, give us the joy of your Son Jesus Christ, as we look forward to the great celebration of His coming to earth as one of us. We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
