Self-Doubts - Part III

Luke 7:24-30

I read this passage and the first thing that comes to mind is, Why didn't Jesus send THIS message to John the Baptizer? John, in prison and about to die, needs reassurance. He is reeling, wondering if his life is pointless. In answer to John's question, "Are you the One my life has been all about, Jesus?" the answer is to show him all the great things he, Jesus, is doing. What is really in John's mind is, Is he (John) really who he thinks he himself is - a prophet and the Forerunner to the Messiah?

What Jesus doesn't tell John, but instead tells everyone else who is observing the conversation between Jesus and John's friends, is that John is the real thing. You didn't go out in the desert, Jesus tells them, to see some wishy-washy, tell-them-what-they-want-to-hear kind of a guy. Jesus uses a simple metaphor his agrarian listeners understand: John is no weak reed that will bend in whatever wind is blowing. Moreover, John is not dressed up in fine, expensive clothes or indulging in other luxuries -- in other words, he isn't in this for himself.

Jesus affirms to all who will listen that John has indeed been a prophet, one willing to speak God's message plain and openly regardless the outcome. In fact, Jesus adds that John is more than just an ordinary prophet; he is the one that the prophet Malachi had said would come to prepare the way for the Lord. Malachi speaks specifically that this Forerunner-Prophet will prepare the way for the God of Justice, which is exactly what John has been hoping is the case and that Jesus avoids in his answer to John. For it is the message of Justice that John's ministry anticipates.

I wonder why this isn't the answer that Jesus gives John and I realize that John's self-identity has got to be anchored in the reality of Jesus, not in what people think of him (John) as a prophet. I recall years ago David Wilkerson, who had become well-known as an evangelist among New York's down-and-outers, started sounding more and more like a prophet, the result of which was that people began backing away from supporting him. Actually Wilkerson was also acting in the role of a prophet when he went to the down-and-outers others were avoiding, but helping "them" tends to make givers more charitable than saying things like "the end of your lives of comfort is near."

A mentor at that time shared with me an insight he had about evangelists and prophets. Evangelists, he said, are supported by the people who send them out, whereas prophets are taken care of by God himself. I see now that any prophet who depends on his support from people is either going to starve to death or be tempted to modify his message to generate better support.

To his audience, Jesus is quick to affirm that John was very much a prophet -- and no ordinary prophet at that. John is greater than all who have come before him, because he has opened the door onto a very different age, the Age of the Spirit, which Jesus is in the process of ushering in. And yet, in the strange dynamics of this new age, in this kingdom Jesus has come to establish, John -- as great as he is -- is less than the least of those in this new kingdom. Paradoxical and hard to understand until you realize that order and priority and importance in God's reign are all mixed up as far as we humans are concerned. What we think is important is not so to God, and vice versa. The first are last and the last are first, Jesus says elsewhere.

We see this mix-up in the response of the crowd. Luke writes parenthetically that the common people, odious tax collectors even, are affirming Jesus' words about John, because they themselves have been baptized by John -- they who have accepted John's message so they are equally eager to accept Jesus'. But the Pharisees and experts in the law, those who have rejected John, are now totally opposed to Jesus. In fact, Luke writes that these kinds of people, in rejecting the baptism of John and the message of Jesus, are actually rejecting God's purpose for themselves.

John lost his life for speaking truth -- and for the same reason Jesus would eventually lose his. God takes care of the prophets, perhaps, but he doesn't promise them a long and luxurious life -- at least not in the here and now.