"When John, who was in prison, heard about the deeds of the Messiah, he sent his disciples to ask him, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?”
Jesus replied, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor. Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me.” Matthew 11:2-6
I am so glad that the gospels show John the Baptist from two such contrasting angles. You see him, earlier, meeting Jesus with awe and humility, expressing that he should not be baptizing Jesus, because Jesus is the Messiah. And here, after imprisonment and suffering, he has lost this assurance and confidence. He needs reassurance.
There have been so many times in my life, where after many stumbles and falls, I begin to doubt God's faithfulness, or the things I clearly heard in prayer months or years before. I often think that if there is not immediate reassurance from God, or if His answers are not forthcoming, that I was wrong - I didn't hear Him, He didn't speak.
I can imagine how John the Baptist felt - had Jesus really been the Son of God, how did he come to be imprisoned, abandoned? Wasn't Jesus supposed to be the King of the Jews? Shouldn't He have some sway over the evils that led John the Bapist to this point?
And I do the same thing - God, if You are really there, why haven't You answered? Why did You allow _________ (insert terrible thing) to happen?
One of the hardest things about having an authentic faith is that I am a human being. I see the world (and God) from the ground. My faith is affected by gravity, the 3-dimensional nature of my vision, and the reality of death. What I see as good outcomes of my prayer, or proofs of God hearing me, are often very human answers. What I can imagine as a realistic "King of the Jews," "Son of God," is much different from who Jesus is. I would never imagine a King of the Jews who would be so hated in the end, so stripped of power in the world. I would never imagine this because I am human, and to some extent, I still see death as the end, and still look for the great goodness of God to be supremely evident in how He is received and manifested in the world.
Seeing from the ground, seeing from the world, is like not having the entire story, but expecting the fragmented story that I see to be enough. I imagine what it would be like only to watch half of a favorite movie, like The Lord of the Rings. Let's say that the movie ended right at the point when Frodo is in the middle of the journey, and nothing makes sense. The story appears meaningless - the bad things that are happening don't seem to be leading anywhere. Frodo is losing hope that his mission matters. I feel that this is where John the Baptist was at the time that he asked this question - searching for the answer that would make everything okay - searching for an answer to complete the story. And yet, we know what happened next - he was put to death for a very silly reason.
When we are going through a "middle-of-the-story" time, a dark time when answers are not clear, it is so tempting to look for God to answer our distress in an immediate, tangible, (easy), way. Think of what would have happened to the story if Frodo was given immediate relief in his "middle-of-the-story" time, when it appeared that evil had won. Wouldn't the overall story be compromised? Wouldn't it lose part of its value? Wouldn't it also lose its power?
Having an authentic faith means putting trust in the completion of the story "somewhere over the rainbow"; past our vision, past our limitations, past death. That is the great challenge, and I believe the greatest figures in the Bible encountered it - Peter, when he said that Jesus must not undergo death, Abraham, when he had to wait decades to see the descendants God had promised him; and John, challenged to believe in Jesus as the Messiah as he faced the end of his earthly story.
We can trust that the answer God gives will always be good; but the answer I am coming to today is that we may need a larger vision to see good in what appears bad.
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