3rd Sunday of Advent

Remember the job seeking manual by Richard Bolles, What Color is Your Parachute? If you do remember, Bolles doesn’t give you tips on the perfect resume, or the best answers to interview questions. Bolles advises job seekers to figure what kind of work makes them the happiest. And when you look for that which drives you out of bed in the morning, and pursue it, then the right job will eventually come your way.

In fact, Bolles, an Episcopalian, has recently added a little religious advice lately, quoting from Frederick Buechner who wrote: “The kind of work God usually calls you to is the kind of work (a) that you need most to do and (b) that the world most needs to have done....The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness [passion] and the world's deep hunger [need] meet.”

Others have simplified that statement to the effect that one's vocation in life is to find that place where your individual passion meets a genuine need in the world. In that sense, there is no difference between a greeter at Walmart, a ditchdigger, or a prophet. As Christians, and as human beings, that is what we all want for the work we do, whether in the church or in the world outside the Church.

John the Baptist, who we heard from last week, certainly was not lacking in passion: “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come…Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; and every tree that does not bear good fruit is thrown into the fire…But one who is more powerful than I is coming…He will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” (Matthew 3:7-12)

What was John's passion? From where would his gladness come? It would come when the people of Israel were once and for all righteous under the Law of Moses. John's gladness would be realized when the people of Israel were vindicated against their Roman oppressors and the puppet kings like Herod who only ruled over the Jews because Rome put them there.

And for standing against King Herod, John was in prison. He baptized Jesus. He pointed to Him as the one more powerful than he. But today, we read in chapter 11 that “John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing.” What had he heard about the Man who would throw the fruitless trees and chaff into the fire? He partied with the chaff, the tax collectors and sinners. He had even healed the servant of a Roman centurion, and said that this agent of the Roman Empire had shown more faith than anyone in Israel. This didn’t sound like the Messiah John was talking about last Sunday.

And so, John sent word by his disciples and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” John has longed for righteousness. He has longed for vindication. But Jesus now asks him to go deeper. Jesus asks John to look for a deeper gladness in his heart, and a deeper hunger than vindication and punishment: “Go and tell John what you hear and see. The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.”

To take offense; or in Greek, skandalizo, to be scandalized. From his deep dark cell, John certainly desired vindication. But Jesus is about reconciliation; and his judgment brings repentance and forgiveness, not wrath and punishment. And John was in danger of being scandalized because the Messiah was not satisfying what he thought was his deepest hunger. What neither John, nor any of Jesus’ disciples understood at this point was how much Jesus longed for reconciliation. And His longing, His deep hunger, would lead Him to the same place that John was in: a dark prison, awaiting the inevitable execution.

What do we most long for? Do we long for preservation, the way it was, the way we were? Do we long for something new and different, new people, new experiences? Do we long for vindication and justice? What do we do when those longings seem to go on and on unfulfilled? Perhaps then we can finally say to God, "Let Your longing for me be fulfilled."

We can either try to fill our own hunger and fail; or we can let the world's deep hunger into our hearts so that it becomes our deep hunger as well. After all our failures, all our disappointments, and all the ways in which we die to this world, there remains Jesus the Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed of God. He remains for He has died and has risen. And in this season of Advent, or coming; He is always coming to us, longing for us to not be scandalized by Him. He is always ready to be born again in hearts that are open to the world's deep hunger; and in feeding that hunger find their own to be fed as well.