“THE MESSENGER GIVE YOU THE MESSAGE”
Saint Matthew 11. 2-10
GAUDETE-the Third Sunday of Advent: 13 December Anno Domini 2009
Fr Watson S.S.P.
The Baptizer was a messenger of God; the Baptizer was a Messenger of his kinsman Jesus of Nazareth. Saint John was a Spirit-created Voice of God. He had been imprisoned for preaching the Law to Herod and Herod's wife. For giving God's Law on sexual purity, John was soon to lose his life.
You also, like Herod, have committed sexual misconduct. You have not been pure and chaste in thought, word, and deed. If you have not cheated on your spouse, if you have not polluted the Temple of the Lord with carnal adultery, then most assuredly you have cheated on your Holy Spouse the Lord. You, like all of Israel before you, have whored after other gods, other Lords, other priorities.
And some, just like you, try to do to other messengers of the Lord, what Herod, did do, to Saint John.
But you are not heathen sinners who have no concept of the full counsel of the Lord's Divine Writ. You know the Commandments. You have in your face and in your ears, the Holy Spirit's fiery indictment. After killing you with the Stones from Sinai, the Lord lifts you up in the clefted Stone which is the Keystone, the Corner stone, the Rock of Ages.
Just like Jesus came to Saint John by way of the Holy Spirit, using Mary's Magnificat Gospel, so too the Paraclete came to you when you were an infant. You might not have been jumping for Christian joy in-utero, like John did, but you jumped in adoptive assurance in the thrice poured waters of life. You have the faith that John had because you have the same Lord Christ. You have been called, gathered and enlightened by Christ the Word. Do you ever have bad days? Sure you do, and so did John. Do you ever get tired and weary of a life under the cross's heavy struggle and strain? Well of course you do. And so did John, probably. But just because you are a weak and fickle follower of Messiah DOES NOT MEAN JOHN WAS EQUALLY HESITANT AND UNCERTAIN. He was executed for his adamant confession-will you be? So be careful in casting quick aspersion to the Baptist's good name-a good name IN CHRIST.
So did John send his two disciples to inquire of Jesus' identity because John himself was uncertain, wavering, and despondent over his treatment in the prison of Herod? Who is John? Is he a soft man, an ivory-towered professor or foundation head, or is he a man clad in camel hair, leather girdle, and sweat? Is John a weasel synodicrat or "fill-in-the-blank" district executive, or is he a HERALD, an Angel, a MESSENGER? John is who is Lord has made him to be, and declared him to be: A PROPHET! John is a God-Speaker.
John tells his follower to leave him, his fame, his preaching oratory, and all of their sentimental attachments to this fore-runner and to go to the source: THE WORD MADE FLESH.
The disciples of John ask Jesus, in essence: WHO ARE YOU? Who really are you?
The Christ answers with His words, of course, that is the way God in the Flesh speaks, that is the way God's messengers in the flesh communicate, then & now! But hear the answers! The answers are Jesus' own works of restoration and redeeming. They began, in brief flashes, quick stabs of salvation in His miracles and signs, but they came to fuller fruition at the Tree. When the Christ said "It is finished," why even the tombs and graves surrounding Jerusalem burst open. Death and Satan can hold no dead bodies back for hellish damnation when Christ the Word Speaks; when Christ the Word Does; when Christ the Word Atones!
Look to the works of Jesus for they point to the identity and true nature of the carpenter's Son. Look to the works of the parish, her pastor, her people, for they too point to the Person and Passion of the Prince of Peace.
The blind see and the lame walk said Jesus. He gives spiritual sight to all by His Word of creative Grace. He gave blind men sight and he gives spiritually pagan men like you the eyes of faith-to behold Him in humility and suffering and cross.
He straightened palsied limbs so that men could skip like lambs. He gives you better than new leg bones; He gives you a whole new body. Here in time He gives you His Body the Church-Apostolic and Catholic, and He gives you in eternity a glorified, resurrected and eternally perfect body like unto His own. And He gives you this very morning His Very Body given on Calvary and His actual Blood shed from the Tree. He straightens your limbs every day in His word of Law & Gospel so that you don't curve in on yourself but rather lift up your heads and behold your Salvation-for it draweth nigh.
I forgive you His + Name all your sins: all!
I tell you, that today your leprosy is gone. You are clean. You will sup and dine with your King.
In the Name of The Father and + of The Son and of The Holy Ghost