Matthew 11:2-15
You would think that John the Baptist, having been raised by a father who had met an angel and a mother who the spirit had revealed that her nephew would be the promised Son of God, would have no doubt about the identity of his cousin Jesus. You would think that John, had there been any doubt left, would have had no questions left when he baptized Jesus and heard the words “This is my beloved son, listen to him”. And yet, here we find John sending some disciples to ask Jesus, “Are you the one we expect, or shall we look for another?” It’s a human thing. We can be faced with miracles and never give our hearts to God. I have a friend who had a silver medal turn into a gold medal as she visited a holy place. Her conversion was amazing -- from an indifferent Catholic, she began attending daily mass, studying her faith, indeed, sharing her faith boldly. But after a few years, she was back to being indifferent -- in fact, she more or less abandoned her faith entirely. No miracle can change us if we don’t want it to do so. It’s true of you and I, it’s true of John the Baptist.
Jesus doesn’t say, “I’m the one.” He says, look at what is happening! And he quotes the prophet Isaiah, who talked about how those days of the Messiah would be. And Jesus has been traveling through Galilee, leaving behind a trail of remarkable events, healings, even raising the dead; collecting large crowds of the poor and outcasts, and telling them the good news -- God had not forgotten them.
If you are like me, and many of you are, I’m sure, your faith gets a little shaky sometimes. When things are going well, it’s not hard to believe that God exists, that he loves you. When things start to go poorly, sometimes it’s easy to believe there is no God. We all have a tendency to say “Why me, God?” I think John the Baptist felt that way, and that prompted his doubt. And Jesus is saying to John and to you and I, look around, there are miracles everywhere, if only you have eyes to see. I heard a sermon not long ago in which the miracle of Cana was discussed. Water into wine, spectacular, right? But it happens all the time, water falls from the sky and nourishes a grape vine; grapes grow, juice is extracted and fermented and there is wine. A friend of mine lost his job, applied everywhere, nothing was happening, then out of the blue someone who needed his skills called him up and all of a sudden he had a much better job than previously. Look for miracles. We can choose to believe that God is behind everything that happens -- and that’s a miracle -- or we can just believe in odd coincidences or natural processes and leave God out of the picture. Our ancestors in faith, including Jesus, saw the hand of God in everything. We recently celebrated the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe -- her appearance to Juan Diego led to the conversion of 8 million souls in a matter of a few years. A miracle!
Jesus then turns his attention to John the Baptist. Who did you go out to see? He reminds the crowd that they had gone out to the desert to see a prophet, and the saw one -- the one who was predicted by the scriptures, again from Isaiah -- the messenger who would be the last and greatest of the prophets, but who would pale in comparison to the least one in the kingdom of heaven. That’s a hard statement to reconcile. But I think the hint is in the words of Jesus -- John is the greatest of those born of a woman. John lived and died before Jesus suffered, died and rose from the dead, and established his church. Jesus tells us in John’s gospel that “unless you are born again of water and spirit, you cannot enter into the kingdom of God. You and I have been born again of water and spirit in our baptism. We are in the kingdom, we start out capable of more on the spiritual level than John was. Using God’s grace given to us in that sacrament, we have the potential to be saints. Jesus said that through water we are born again -- our births into the human race are accompanied by water, and the same is true -- our bodies are born again through water. Our spirits are infused by God at conception; and when we are born again in Baptism, those spirits, our souls, are brought into a new relationship with God. And we are given entry into the kingdom as a free gift. And if we never reject God’s gift our salvation is assured, Does that mean John isn’t in heaven? No. But you and I, unlike John, are already in the kingdom of heaven.
So let us look at the world around us and see the hand of God in everything that happens, and rejoice because we share the kingdom of the one who is to come, the Christ.
