December 14 | Introduction 3, Yr A
Isaiah 35:1-10
Psalm 146:4-9
or Canticle 15
or Canticle 3
James 5:7-10
Matthew 11:2-11
In a manner, this season of expectation is identical in each the secular world and the Church. Christmas buying, adorning the home, and partying are all about making ready for the occasion of Christmas Day. Expectations are excessive and the longer term is perceived via the sepia tones of our imaginations. “Ah, this Christmas will deliver love, pleasure, and peace—the white fluffy snow, the hearth within the hearth, and the soul-warming cocoon of all my relations having fun with one another’s firm. Christmas will probably be fantastic with me on the middle of the festivities.” In fact, this isn’t actuality. No surprise when Christmas departs on the afternoon of the twenty fifth, many people hunch into some measure of despair.
Within the Church, Introduction provides us the hope that extends past the Christmas season to Jesus’ Second Coming. But as within the secular world, we too are weak to unrealistic expectations of our personal understanding or imagining that can by no means be absolutely realized.
Jesus is the surprising Messiah, however not as a result of he was a contradiction of prophecy. Jews rejected Jesus as their Messiah as a result of he didn’t match their expectation of who the Messiah could be. Even the 12 disciples and John the Baptist had questions on Jesus.
Each the disciples and the prophet are human beings and, though privileged for use by God to disclose his nature and can to the world, they’re fallible and weak creatures. They too see via a glass dimly in relation to the mysteries of God, as a result of mysteries are these truths that may solely be identified via revelation. Even essentially the most open and obedient human thoughts can’t grasp the depths of the information of God. Like Elijah, John the Baptist skilled doubt when actuality turned out to be totally different than he understood his prophecy to disclose. The place was the judgment that the Messiah would deliver—the winnowing fork separating the wheat and the chaff?
All through historical past, the individuals of God have had their issues with the surprising workings of God. Even within the wilderness, the Israelites reacted to unrealized expectations by grumbling towards Moses and doubting his prophetic name. Their expectations had develop into their god. As disciples we now have the identical drawback with unrealized expectations. We have to bear in mind, nevertheless, that we stay in a relationship with God—not with an icon or statue. In a relationship each events comply with be identified and to know each other. In our relationship with God, to ask questions shouldn’t be an absence of religion, however reasonably the indication that we want to develop in our religion by coming right into a larger information of God.
Jesus responded to John’s query by pointing him to God’s Phrase. The revelation for John was that the Messiah won’t come as an anointed spiritual chief and choose of the individuals, however he’ll come doing the acts of God and revealing his nature and can to the world. He would do what the prophets stated God would do on the finish occasions. The disciples of Jesus all through time want to know his true identification and notice that he’s the God who comes within the Final Days with each blessing and judgment. If we actually ask the questions and are open to God’s solutions, the thriller will probably be revealed. In any other case, Jesus not fulfilling our expectations will develop into an obstacle to our faithfulness to God and our obedience to his will. A helpful beatitude could be: Blessed is the one who asks questions—and listens to God’s solutions—for he’ll know God.
Look It Up: Isaiah 35:1-10
Assume About It: In line with human understanding, God does the surprising.
The Rev. Dr. Chuck Alley, former rector of St. Matthew’s Church in Richmond, Virginia, teaches anatomy at Virginia Commonwealth College Medical Faculty.
