Third Sunday of Advent, cycle A

Matthew 11:2-11

A long time ago my family and I were in Palm Springs. When we came out of our room to get our car we were held up because Ronald Reagan was coming to that same hotel to address a convention of businessmen of some sort. As we strained to get a look through the secret servicemen and other dignitaries, we finally got a glimpse of him. And my first impression was, he is certainly short. I had expected him to be tall. In the movies he was tall. Whenever he made a public appearance or appeared on television, he seemed tall. But it's all optics. His handlers always saw to it that he was either photographed alone, or at a podium, or with his wife, who was quite short. Anyway, in that moment my whole image of him changed.

In today's gospel John, who last week was talking about the one who is to come, who would baptize with fire, whose winnowing fan was already separating the wheat from the chaff, who would be the one to lay the ax to the tree, is beginning to wonder whether his cousin is really the Messiah. He doesn't seem to fit the image John had, the great warrior of God who would finally set things right, who would rescue Israel and punish the wicked and bring about the great reign of God in the New Jerusalem. As far as John could tell, he was wandering around the countryside with a bunch of Galilean peasants. And so he asks, “Are you the expected one, or shall we look for another?” Did I waste my life getting things ready for you? Where are the fireworks?

Isn't that our question sometimes? Weeks and months and years go by and things don't seem to change much. It isn't obvious that we live in a time that has been redeemed by Christ, a time when Jesus is making all things new, gathering everything into himself so that he can return all of Creation to his Father. Two thousand years have gone by; saints and sinners have come and gone; and in our own time it sometimes seems that Christianity is not making progress; and our own Catholic church is fading away in the very countries in which it grew and flourished.

And our prayers. I think it's interesting that almost all the intentions people have masses offered for are for dead people. We offer masses for the repose of someone's soul. That's great, but there isn't a way to check whether they are effective or not. If we offered masses for specific verifiable interventions of God – a better job, a cure from cancer – would our faith be shaken if and when what we prayed for did not come about? And it's not just true of masses; we all know that our private prayers aren't answered – at least in the way we would hope.

Jesus replies to John's question not with a simple yes or no, but he points out that a lot of things are happening that have been predicted by the prophets; miracles of healing indeed, but Jesus emphasizes that the poor have the gospel preached to them – Isaiah mentioned all those other things but never mentioned this last fact. John, Jesus says, draw your own conclusions.

And then Jesus turns to the crowds and tells them that first of all John is indeed a prophet, in fact the greatest who has come along up to that time. But even the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than him.

And I think there is a clue in that. Jesus is not just giving us a compliment; he's inviting us to contrast John and perhaps the other prophets with a person who is in the kingdom of heaven – and that doesn't mean to be in heaven, it means to be someone who has given his life over to Jesus' leadership; someone who has become a disciple, someone who understands what Jesus is all about.

John and indeed the other prophets all hoped for an end time, a time when all the contradictions would be resolved, a time when good would win and evil would lose. They dreamed about the time, and imagined how it would be then. Just read Ezekiel or Isaiah, or even the Book of Revelation.

But the kingdom of heaven is not like that. It is exactly what Jesus says it is – a time when the blind see, the lame walk, and we might add, the hungry are fed, the ignorant are educated, the lonely are befriended, the foreigner is welcomed – and most of all, the poor have the gospel preached to them. If you and I are attending to these things, to that extent we are in the kingdom of heaven; and we will be like Christ, and just as he has been raised up, so will all of those who are in the kingdom of heaven be raised up at the end of time.

The amazing thing about the kingdom of heaven is that it is already here. To the extent that we do what Jesus did, we are already in the kingdom of heaven. And there is a connection between being in the kingdom and living forever, being resurrected at the end of time.

There are forces of evil in this world. We don't have to look past the daily newspaper to notice that. But God has given his Son the power to conquer evil, to set things right, to bring into union all that was separated. And the Son has done that. We are trapped in time, so we think in terms of past and present and future. But the will of God cannot be denied, and the victory is already won. And we who are brothers and sisters of Jesus contribute to this victory by doing what Jesus did – when a child scrapes his knee and you put on a bandage and say soothing words; when you take the time to visit your aged aunt who is in a nursing home with Alzheimers disease; when you go to work in a job you aren't too fond of because you want good things for your family – everything you do can be part of the coming about of the kingdom.

So today let us rejoice because we know what the kingdom is all about; we know that the victory is won; we know that bringing about the kingdom is something that Jesus has granted to us. Let us go forth and bring about the kingdom.