Green Baggins

Matthew 11:1-6

4/6/2008

Audio Version

 A Christian was witnessing to a Jewish rabbi in New York City. The Christian was telling the Jewish rabbi that Jesus was the Messiah, the Christ, the one that the Jews were expecting. The Jewish rabbi shook his head, went to the window, looked out, and pointed to the city, and said, “No, when the Messiah comes there will be justice.” I have a hunch that many of us occasionally look out at the world and wonder if Jesus really came and did what He did. What difference has it really made? Where is justice against wickedness? These are key questions that our text answers for us very clearly, if we have the eyes to see.

Chapter 11 marks a break from Jesus’ second sermon in chapter 10. This chapter was full of commands that Jesus gave to His disciples. When He had finished commanding them, He went on about His business in the rest of the countryside teaching and preaching. But this raises a significant problem for Jesus’ forerunner, John the Baptist.

You might remember that John the Baptist had prophesied that Jesus was the lamb who takes away the sin of the world. That is in the beginning of John’s Gospel. John’s message was very clear: repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. The baptism by fire and Spirit of which John spoke was a reference to judgment. John the Baptist was a preacher of judgment as all the great OT prophets were. In fact, that is what finally got him into trouble (again, like all the great OT prophets!). John preached to Herod that Herod could not have his sister as his wife. Herod threw him into prison as a result. However, John could still hear news about Jesus. John would have been put in the prison at Machaerus, which was connected to the rest of the country by a very well-constructed access road. So, John was hearing about all the things that Jesus was doing and saying. After all, John still had his faithful disciples. They were telling John what Jesus was doing (I’m sure at John’s request). The problem that I mentioned, however, was that Jesus’ words and actions were not measuring up to what John was expecting. John is a lot like us in this regard. We expect God to do and to be certain things, and then when God doesn’t do those things, we doubt whether God is really God.

In any case, although John still believed that Jesus was the lamb of God, he was getting impatient. After all, John was a man of the desert, and here he was, cooped up in this prison. Wasn’t justice supposed to happen? What about the tyrants who had put John in prison? What about freeing John from prison? Why wasn’t Jesus doing these things?

So, John does what we all should do when we have doubts about our Lord. He asked Jesus about them. John sent his disciples with an important question.

Now, there are different interpretations of why John asked this question. There are those who think that John didn’t have any doubts about Jesus at all, and that he is only asking for the sake of his disciples. Some important names have held to this opinion, including John Calvin. However, Jesus tells the disciples to tell John what the answer is. Furthermore, it is still John who is said to ask the question. It is quite natural for human beings to doubt. Remember that Jesus said that John the Baptist is Elijah, who was expected to come before the Messiah. Well, Elijah had his doubts, even immediately after his greatest success on Mount Carmel. It was immediately after the Mount Carmel incident that Elijah fled for his life from Jezebel, and wondered if he was the only one left in Israel who still worshiped God. Elijah was the forerunner of Elisha, who was said to have done twice the number of miracles that Elijah did. So also, John the Baptist was the forerunner of Jesus Christ, who did many more miracles than John.

But what is the answer to John’s question? John’s question has the same point as the rabbi’s objection referred to at the beginning of this sermon. There doesn’t seem to be any justice in the world. So, how can Jesus be the Messiah? Should we look for another? That word “another” means “one of a different kind.” John was expecting Jesus to be something else. So, what is the answer? Jesus gives us the answer. I am going to phrase it in somewhat unusual terms, but I hope the point will be clear. The answer lies in the realm of eschatology. Eschatology is a long word that means the study of the end times. Now, Jews expected a very sharp break from the old age to the new age. That is clear from the rabbi’s statement mentioned at the beginning of the sermon. When the Messiah comes, there will be justice and judgment of the wicked. However, when Jesus came, this justice and judgment did not come upon the whole world right away. It did come upon Satan, who is now said to be bound by the Strong Man, Jesus. Judgment did come upon death in a preliminary, though decisive, way with the resurrection of Jesus Christ. However, there is a delay in the final judgment. Judgment Day is still future. That creates a window of grace. Jesus came and brought grace. That is what He says here when he talks about the blind receiving their sight, the lame walking, the lepers cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead raised, and the poor evangelized.

There are some very fascinating details here in Jesus’ answer that I do not want us to miss. First of all, notice that Jesus is referring to Isaiah 61:1-2, which was our call to worship. Notice that in Isaiah, it is God who does these things. Now, here in Matthew, it is Jesus who does these things. This plainly says that Jesus is God, and was sent by the Father to do these things. Secondly, notice that only a prophet can do these things. Curing leprosy, for instance, was something that was as difficult as raising the dead, according to the Jewish rabbis, and only a prophet who had the Spirit of the Lord upon him, could do that. Elisha did this with Naaman, and now Jesus, the anti-type of Elisha, cures leprosy. Thirdly, notice that preaching to the poor is last in line, and is therefore emphatic. It is the most important of all of them. The good news is now, says Jesus, but the judgment is put off, so that many can come to Christ. The end times have started now, but they have not yet come to fulfillment. John the Baptist preached that there was grace and there was judgment. There was grace for those who believed, and there was judgment for those who do not believe. Jesus is saying that the grace comes now, and the judgment will come later. What John has preached as the same event, Jesus separates into two parts. This is what was confusing for John. But Jesus’ answer is that the grace has truly come. All of these things are, in fact, happening, and that means that the judgment will infallibly come. Jesus merely tells John to be patient. That is hard for John to bear, since he is languishing in prison, thinking to himself, “You know, in Isaiah, the text says that those in prison will be set free. You’d think that the Messiah would at least have freed His own forerunner, and judged those tyrants who were over him. So why doesn’t Jesus do that?” John was left in prison so that we would know that judgment upon the wicked, although it is delayed, will still surely come. And it doesn’t have to come in our lifetimes. Many things will not be made right until the final Day of Judgment.

So it is in our own lives as well. Many of us want judgment to come upon the wicked. We cry out to God, “How long? Why do you wait? How come our lives have to be difficult? How come we are treated so unjustly?” Jesus tells us to come always back to Him. He will tell you, after your HONEST prayer to Him, that your blind eyes have received their sight, your lame legs now walk, your spiritual leprosy has been healed, your spiritual deafness healed, and your spiritually dead soul has been made alive. Most importantly, you have had the Gospel preached to your poor soul. Wait patiently to be made right. After all, you don’t want justice to be done on you yet, do you? It reminds me of the story of the lady who walked into a beauty salon, wanting her hair cut. She told the barber that she wanted him to take his time, so that he could do her hair justice. The barber said, “Lady, your hair doesn’t need justice, it needs mercy.” That’s exactly what we need in life. We desire mercy from God, not justice. Otherwise, we would all be lost forever. But thanks be to God, who has not only created such a window of salvation in time, but has filled that window with grace, so that we might be saved, and therefore might not need to fear Judgment Day. For there is now therefore no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. Will there be justice? Yes, there will. Justice has gone forth, although cloaked, all the time from Christ’s first to His second coming. Justice will spring forth in all its glory, as the glory of the Lord Jesus is revealed, when He comes back, to judge the living and the dead. Amen.