I went into a car wash about two weeks ago opting for the most expensive programme including a jet clean under the car body to clear off all the road salt after the snow. Bad mistake! Immediately, on leaving the garage, the car started underperforming. Something must have got into the electrics. Dashboard lights started flickering intermittently. I experienced the occasional loss of power. Finally, a week later, last Saturday, our car slowed to a halt and I had to be towed back home from Darlington. If only I could turn the clock back, drive past that car wash and hose it down myself! I would have saved £5 on the car wash and significantly more for the breakdown service and car repair.
But worse things happen in life than this. Don’t they? Have you ever made a career change only to say after day one, “Oh dear! This is not at all what I expected.” You find yourself unhappier than in your last job and wish you’d never changed. People get married only to say later, “No one said anything to me about fights for the duvet cover or the angst over whether the toothpaste should be squeezed from the end of the tube or from the middle.” (By the way, it should really be squeezed from the end). Men agree to have children only to say later, “I had heard about crying babies at night and having to change nappies when I am trying to watch football – but no one warned me it would be every match!” Or has anyone chosen to buy a house in a certain area only to discover their new neighbour’s energetic passion for late night parties? “Oh dear, I wasn’t expecting this.”
If you have made a serious commitment to follow Christ, the likelihood is that you will experience times when you will say, “Lord, this has not turned out like I thought it would. When I first came to faith, there was a surge of joy and my life seemed full of meaning. You answered my prayers so amazingly and everything made so much sense. But now, nothing seems to be like it was. I’m not so sure any more.” You might be saying that to yourself today. “Where has my first love gone?”
A Promising Start
It is normal to experience highs and lows in following Christ. Next week we’ll look at the good times but today I want us to think about those seasons when faith is not going well. And to do that we’re going to consider John the Baptist. As a young man he should have had a long and successful life before him. Even before he was born, his father was told, “he is going to be a great speaker and will lead many people back to the Lord.” After his miraculous birth, his mother was past childbearing age, he was tipped to be a star. People would look at him and say, “One day that boy is going to be somebody.
But… it just didn’t seem to turn out according to the script. He ended up living on his own in a solitary place. He dressed in a rough camel hair coat. He ate grasshoppers for lunch (probably fried but possibly raw). He was in his twenties now, a forgotten man, and when people saw him, they would whisper, “There’s that strange man. Whatever happened to him?” Probably that is what John was wondering. “Lord, whatever happened to me?”
But then one day, in about the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, the Bible tells us that the word of God came to John in the desert. God had heard John’s prayers over the months and years, but the time had not been right. Listen! He has heard your prayers too. He has seen your tears. He has felt the beat of your hoping heart all the way through this season of waiting.
When God gives us a promise, it may take years before we see it fulfilled. Someone had a prophecy for me about six years ago, most of which was for then - but one detail in particular was not. That detail has only just begun to be fulfilled in the last year or so. When God gives us a promise the time before its fulfilment is to prepare in faith, so that when it does come to pass, we’re ready, we’re prepared, we know it’s from God and we can step out confidently in faith.
So John had been away in the wilderness, waiting, waiting, waiting for his moment to come. When the time was right, he came out of the desert as a controversial, provocative figure. People came from all over the country just to catch a glimpse of him and hear him speak. His message was confrontational and direct: “You must put your life into reverse gear now. The fire of hell is just around the next bend, and if you don’t do a u-turn in your life, you are going to crash into it. Repent! God is about to judge. The chainsaw is already on the tree.”
People came from all around to hear this. Hundreds would fall on their knees in repentance before God. The size of the crowds kept getting bigger and bigger. He baptized so many people; they started calling him John the Baptiser. Nothing like this had happened for years. Some were thinking he might be the Messiah. But he said, “No, I’m not. There will be one after me more powerful than I am. I am not even fit to shine his shoes. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.”
The Turning Point
Then the day came which was the turning point of John’s life. John saw Jesus, and said, “That’s him! There he is! I told you one would come after me. He’s the one. I saw the Spirit come down from heaven and remain on Him. He’s the Christ, that’s the Messiah.” And the Bible says this: Some of John’s followers then began to join Jesus’ group.
With Jesus’ ministry taking off, John’s audience started to dwindle. One of John’s disciples got upset about this and he said so. “Teacher, everybody has started going to Jesus to be baptized. What are we going to do about this? This is not quite what we expected would happen.” And John said this; “Look, I only came to clear the obstacles off his running track. He must become more prominent, and I must fade out.”
John took it well, but I wonder if inside something inside him died that day. Following Jesus means counting all things as loss. It might mean the end of certain dreams. He must increase, I must decrease.
Downhill From Here
Not long afterwards, John preached a topical sermon about marriage, and he used the private life of King Herod as an illustration for one of his points. Herod was married, as it happened, but there was a scandal going round the palace and beyond. The king was having an affair with his brother’s wife, Herodias.
He forced his own wife out of his flashy palace, so he could shack up with his sister-in-law. Quite apart from ditching his first wife and breaking up his brother's marriage, sleeping with your brother’s wife was forbidden under their law as incest. But Herod had money and power and influence. So while the spiritual establishment disapproved, they said nothing, because they wanted to keep their privileged status.
But John? He feared no one. He knew the risks but he had counted all things as loss. He didn’t care about position and reputation. He publicly called sin “sin.” And once word got around that John had publicly denounced Herod’s marriage-of-convenience, the new bride was outraged and she determined to get even with him.
“Fundamentalist Preacher Slams Royal Wedding.” Things were coming to a head, so Herod had John arrested and put in prison.
After being there for a few months, how do you think John must have been thinking? The large crowds he had preached to were just a memory now. “This is not quite what I expected either.” We’ve all been through times like this. It’s not fair! It’s so unjust! It’s hard to believe God is really in control or really cares. You may want to cry out, “How long, o Lord, will you forget me.”
John must have been riddled with self-doubt. He was starting to get reports, through his last loyal followers, about Jesus. “I’m sure he’s the one God pointed out. Well, at least I was sure. Maybe I’ve been mistaken all along. I don’t know what I believe anymore.” So he got a couple of his friends together and said, “Go to Jesus and ask him, if he is the one or should we expect someone else?” So they did. Which is where our reading picks up the story in Luke 7.19.
Everybody here will have times when faith wobbles. Let’s not go into denial about this. Everyone says to themselves from time to time, “Well, how can that be right, Lord?” It comes at moments of illness or tragedy when God does not appear to us to be loving. It comes at moments of trial or temptation when God does not appear to us to be real. It comes at times of failure or unfulfilled dreams when God does not appear to us to be in control. These are the low ebbs of following Jesus.
Send Your Doubts to Jesus
I want you to notice this: John had two choices here. First, he could have kept it all inside and allowed it to eat away at his soul. “How come Jesus is enjoying blessing on his ministry while I’m stuck here literally at his majesty’s pleasure?" That’s the first option, but John rejected it. The second option was to send his doubts to Jesus – and that’s what he did. That’s what we’ve got to do; send our doubts to Jesus, saying “Why, Lord? What about this? How can this be right? Open my eyes to see your plan in this.”
So in v20 they arrive and ask John’s question on his behalf. “Are you the one who was to come or should we expect someone else?”
Jesus knew that John could have used a bit of encouragement right then. Look how he responds. In reply, Jesus basically says in v22-23, “Look hard at the plus column and not just the minus. Look! There are changed lives. There is healing. There is something to shout about - at last - for the poor.” And then a personal note of encouragement for John; “And blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me.”
God knows all about our times of self-doubt, nights of confusion, the sense of loneliness, being a single voice calling out in the wilderness. He understands our displeasure at having locusts for tea again, the frustration at the unfairness of it all… “Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me.”
It’s not because you’ve got it all together, or have perfectly behaved children, or enjoy wonderful health, or live a carefree and prosperous life that people will see Christ clearly in your life. God’s grace works best in and through all life’s unexpected twists and turns, and all our bad surprises.
The Bottom Line
Jesus could have done a great miracle to get John out of prison, but he didn’t. Why not? It doesn’t make sense. Here is a man who spoke for God, had the anointing of the Spirit, was arrested for telling the truth, and ended up losing his life because some sulky teenager did a sexy dance for her drunken step-father. Who would expect that for a man or woman devoted to God? Where was God when this happened? I don’t know.
But John’s role was to prepare the entire world for the coming of Jesus Christ. He did his work and he did it well. Jesus says in v28 “I tell you, among those born of women there is no-one greater that John the Baptist…” He had no idea that the ministry he would have would be a short one and that it would keep him from reaching his 35th birthday. By the time John was executed, much of the public acclaim he had enjoyed was already forgotten as Jesus’ ministry took off.
But I believe, if you could meet John and ask him if it was worth it, John would say, “Worth it? To know him? To be his cousin? To point others to him? To make his road level? To watch his fame increase? I would not have missed all that for the world. I always said I was not even fit to shine his shoes.” And here’s the bottom line: It doesn’t matter what the Christian life costs – because it’s so worth it!
The Cross
Finally, this. “I tell you,” says Jesus in v28, “among those born of women there is no-one greater that John… yet the one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.” Why did Jesus say that? We can see why John was the greatest man ever born up to that time. He prepared the way for the Lord. He spoke the word of God with no fear. He baptized hundreds and turned many hearts to the Lord. But why was John the least in the kingdom of God?
He never saw the cross. He never heard those words, “Father, forgive them, they do not know what they’re doing.” He never got to marvel at Jesus cleansing a dying thief of his guilt; “Today, you will be with me in paradise.” He never saw Jesus lifted up in his suffering, taking the sin of the whole world on himself. He never heard those words of decisive triumph over sin, over sickness, over evil, over death; “It is finished!” But we have.
It says in v33 that John came neither eating bread, nor drinking wine. But we do. We get to gather round the Lord’s Table and feast on the grace of God in Jesus. We get to marvel once again as we break bread and pour wine.
Whether we are in work or out of a job, foreign or at home, tired or fresh, optimistic or depressed, hungry or filled, at peace or distressed - we belong to one another, we are members of one another. We, who are many, are one body, because we all share in one bread. Meeting together at the same table, we express belonging, not just to Christ, but to one another as well. It is a communion table.
Ending
So whether the sun's shining down on you and the world's all as it should be, or whether you’re on the road marked with suffering, and there's pain in the offering, let’s come and say together, “Lord, we love you.”
Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 24th January 2010
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