Isaiah 35: 1 – 10
Psalm 146: 4 - 9
James 5: 7 – 10
Matthew 11: 2 – 11
This is the homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania,
on Sunday, December 11, 2022, by Fr. Gene Tucker.
“THE GIVER OF GIFTS”
John
the Baptist, in our Gospel reading for this morning, sends some of his
disciples to ask Jesus, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for
another?”
It
would be difficult to peek into John’s thinking to see just what sort of a
concept he had about the promised One who would be God’s gift to God’s people.
But, I think, we might come to some fairly good conclusions as to what John’s
concept of the promised One might be.
Here
are some possibilities: Would the promised One be the one to unite all of God’s
people, who were, in that day and time, quite divided? Would the promised One
be the one to end the Romans’ occupation of the nation’s territory? Would that
One be the one to re-establish David’s royal line of kings? Would that One be
the one to usher in a new and glorious age for God’s people, and would such a
new age be an earthly kingdom that would restore God’s people to their former
glory?
Each
of these concepts seem to have had a good bit of circulation among God’s people
at the time of John the Baptist’s ministry, that same time in which our Lord
came to visit us. It isn’t beyond the realm of possibility that John was influenced
by one or more of these concepts of the nature of the Messiah, God’s promised
One.
But
-as is often the case – Jesus’ response to John’s question seems to sidestep
the answer John is looking for. His answer is an indirect one, diverting the
attention away from Himself and toward something else.
That
something else is the proof, the observable proof, of the things that Jesus has
been doing in the course of His ministry. The list Jesus provides John is this:
The blind receive their sight; the lame walk; lepers are cleansed; the deaf
hear; the dead are raised up; and the poor have good news preached to them.
At
first glance, this list seems like a list of good deeds, done to restore to
health and to life those who were severely afflicted.
But
there’s something deeper going on here: Each of the conditions having to do
with someone’s health carried with it – in that time and place – ostracization
from society and exclusion from being able to offer sacrifices in the Temple in
Jerusalem. In addition, each of these health conditions, as well as the matter
of being poor, were regarded with contempt, for – as many believed back then –
to be ill or to be poor must surely be an indication that the afflicted
individual was in their predicament because of some grievous sin. Such people
were to be looked down upon and avoided.
Jesus’
actions restore these people to wholeness, not only of health, but to their
rightful place in society, to family and to friends.
Here,
then, is the deeper, more lasting, gift to those on the margins of society. It
is a far greater gift than the earthly sort of kingdom that many dreamed of
back then, far greater than the new era of independence that removal of the
Romans would bring about.
That
wonderful gift proves God’s love and care for each and every individual. No one
is a “throwaway” in God’s scheme of things. Each person’s worth is God’s
concern. Out of such concern, God eagerly seeks to have a deep, enduring,
intense personal relationship with each and every human being.
Jesus’
gift endures today. It is a gift, freely given, but costly to God. To accept
such a gift is to have life in the truest and fullest sense of the word. Just
as lives were changed by virtue of Jesus’ healing acts and His ability to bring
new life, so, today, are lives changed, that new life can emerge.
AMEN.
