Happy to be Unoffended

“And when John (who was in the prison) heard of the works of Christ, he sent two of his disciples, and said to Him, ‘Are You Him Who should come? Or shall we look for another?’

And Jesus, answering, said to them, ‘Go, and show John what things you hear and see. The blind receive sight. And the lame walk. The lepers are cleansed. And the deaf hear. The dead are raised up. And the poor receive the Gospel. And blessed is he who shall not be offended by Me.’”-Matthew 11:2-6

John (the Baptizer) doubts that Jesus was “Him Who should come?”. The basis of this doubt seems to be about timing. What is taking Jesus so long? And what is/are the things/things that John expected Jesus to have done by now if he is truly Him? It was upon hearing of the works of Christ that John sent his disciples to Jesus with his question. There is no reason to think they were not the same works that Jesus was in fact doing, the works he names. Some expected work was being left out. And the works themselves didn’t fully quell the doubt for John. Jesus was not doing what he expected him to do, what he probably thought Christ was supposed to be doing. And this is a remarkable thing! For John had believed that Jesus was Him before he ever saw a sign. And now there are signs and he doubts.

But Jesus doesn’t call it a doubt. He calls it an offense. “Blessed is he who shall not be offended by me.” That is, “happy is the one who is not offended that I do the works of God in his time, that I am the Christ I am, not the Christ they expected.”

George Macdonald tries to take the heat off John. He floats the idea that it was John’s disciples bugging John about Jesus and so John sent them to the man himself with their own question. It’s not implausible. And Macdonald is trying to square the idea of John’s apparent doubtfulness with the following passage in which Jesus tells the crowds that John was “the greatest born of women.” How can a great man be so confused, so off, about the one whose way he was sent to prepare?

John is great, but importantly, still a man, capable of doubt, impatience and ignorance. I don’t think his greatness is demeaned by his doubt.

So what was it that John was expecting to have happened by now?

In his words…

“He Who has His winnowing fork in His hand will baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire, and will make His floor clean and gather His wheat into His garner; but will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

Fiery prophetic language in the vein of an Isaiah. John expects judgment. For him, Jesus came to purify his people, separate the wheat from the chaff, the repentent from the unrepentent, and rid them (forever?) (as reward?)of their oppressors.

John’s doubt/offense has the same energy as many a Psalm. How long (O LORD)?

But it’s not like Jesus was just hanging out. John knew about his works, which in Jesus’ view should have relieved any doubts a believer like John would have about who Jesus really was. The blind have received sight. The lame have received the ability to walk. The lepers have received total cleansing. The dead have received life. And…the poor have received the Good News. What’s the problem?

Let’s say Jesus, days after being baptized by John, gathers the repentant and the faithful, frees the Jewish people from Rome and sets up an independent Jewish nation and thus commences the glorious age of Israel? What happens to the blind, the lame, the lepers and the dead? Will they be healed one by one or all at once in the new glorious age? (If they repent of course) Now let’s say Rome remains the political oppressor, and John stays in prison, but the blind are seeing, the lame are walking, the lepers aren’t lepers and the dead aren’t dead? Is this the kingdom? If not, isn’t it a portent? Isn’t that the mustard seed Jesus said the kingdom of heaven was like? I wonder if John wonders: “Does Jesus even think sin and oppression are problems? How are these works ‘clearing the threshing floor?’ Instead of going around to the most vulnerable and healing their particular issue, why not sack the collective problem (the sin and oppression of the ruling elite) and then you’re free to take care of particulars (the maladies of individuals)?

What about all of us Jesus?

“The poor receive the Good News”.

Read this carefully. The sign that Jesus is Him is not that the poor subjectively receive him as their Savior or believe him to be the Christ. The sign that Jesus is Him is that the Good News about Him is preached to the poor.

The rescuing of the blind from their blindness, the lame from their inability to walk, the dead from their death are signs that God (Jesus) is with all his people. God in heaven looks down on earth and sees the oppressed and descends and in full view heals them with a touch. John may doubt that God is near because he himself still rots in prison, the sinners are still swindling and Abraham’s children remain enslaved, but if God isn’t near, if the kingdom of God is anything less than imminent, then how are so many siblings being healed? And if God is near to the poor, why wouldn’t he in time also come near to John? To all? Isn’t John already one with his siblings? Is not the finding of one lost sheep a cause for joy for the other ninety-nine?

If you told me that God has more concern for the desperate, the vulnerable and the needy than I do, then I would agree. If you asked me if that offended me, I would tell you no, but that it convicts and rebukes me, and makes me want to be more like Jesus. But unlike John, I don’t see myself as one of the desperate, vulnerable and needy (I’ve counted my blessings!), so my spiritual blindness, my pride and privilege, remain. In that way, amongst others, he is much greater than I. To rise to John’s offense is to expect to be rescued as a fellow desperate, and then to find Jesus healing others, and leaving me to suffer. To rise to John’s offense is to see their healing while I suffer, as a sign of preferential treatment, rather than a sign of God's love for me, as one of the oppressed. But if I can see incarnation as an act of love itself, my own rescue as (therefore) only a matter of time; a matter of when, not if, then I am free to be blessed. Is it the presence of God I seek? Or is it just the end of my pain? And I don’t want to minimize mine or anyone else’s pain. But that is the offense. Because nothing, nothing, feels more present to us than our pain. And so for it to be ignored or set aside is not just a cause for doubt, but the cause of offense.

What did John’s message mean then? Will Jesus clear the threshing floor? Did he? Has he? Just not in the way John expected? What did John go out to the wilderness, with his camel hair and insect based diet, to be? What did he give his life for? (The unblinding of the blind, the unlaming of the lame, the undeading of the dead, the hope of the poor?) It’s one thing to be a misunderstood prophet, that’s part of the gig. It’s another thing to be a prophet who discovers the possibility that he might have misunderstood his own message, his own calling. That’s a crisis. And yet, whatever John said about Jesus, understood by him or not, will, if it hasn’t already, come to pass.

There was a clearing and a cleansing in Jesus’ ministry. The scene at the Temple. When he tosses out those buying and selling in Solomon’s Porch. The cleansing symbolized God’s opening a way for all to come freely to Him. Though Jesus purified Herod’s Temple, the rulers tore down the God’s Temple in the flesh. BY his wounds, the desperate are healed.

The hope of Christ has always been tomorrow’s hope. But really, any hope is tomorrow’s hope. (“Who hopes for what they see?”) Tomorrow’s hope can feel like the avoidance of today’s pain, as such, a glossing over of real agony. But if Christ brought the kingdom in full, then he put an end to hope. Don’t mishear that. Despair is only one kind of abandonment. The wrong kind. But a kind. Fulfillment is the other. And only Christ can bring that. So as long as there is hope for the kingdom, the kingdom is unfulfilled, then hope is the best we have, and what a thing it is! Is it not life itself? At least as we know it? John wanted the kingdom. But Christ gave him hope instead. Friends…the offense.

Notice one more time the cause for hope…Christ’s presence with the poor.

Christ is the fulfillment, the abandonment and the cause of hope.

Thus he is the cause of offense.

Happy is the one who is NOT offended.