Doubt and Comfort
Grace to you and
peace from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Jesus calls John the
greatest person ever of those born of women. In truth, John is a man obsessed
with the Lord. But at the moment, John is a prisoner on death row. He would not
bend like a reed in the wind. He dared to speak against the king's immorality.
He is more than a prophet. He is a martyr. He will lose his head rather than
play along and pretend sin is okay. It is this focus and desire, this
single-minded zeal, which has made him the greatest of those born of women.
Yet, even he, great though he is, knows some fear, some uncertainty. He is not
perfect.
On this side of
glory, inside every man of faith, inside every zealous preacher, there abides doubt
fueled by sin. John asks: “Are you the
coming One, or should we expect another?” Do not be scandalized by John's
question. It doesn’t matter if he asked for his own sake or the for the sake of
his disciples. Faith that waits is not yet perfect. It coexists with sin. It is
the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For a time,
faith lives with doubt. In the kingdom of heaven there is no doubt. Yet here on
earth we believe and we confess those things we cannot see, those things we
cannot prove, yet know to be true, even while a part of us doubts them. And so
frail are we that it seems we only use the language of faith to describe and
confess those things we doubt.
Faith goes where
God promises to be and, like a child asking to hear the same bedtime story once
again, or a wife wanting to hear once more that her husband still loves her,
faith asks again: “Are You the Coming One?”
And Our Lord is quick to reply: “The
blind see and the lame walk. The lepers are cleansed and deaf hear. The dead
are raised up and the poor have the Gospel preached unto them.”
John stood as a
man outside of time. He was both the last of the Old Testament prophets and the
first of the New Testament prophets. Like Abraham, he lived by faith; like
Jacob, he wrestled with God; like Elijah, he embodied repentance in his body
and garments; and like Isaiah, he pointed to the One who came to redeem us. He
preached his fiery sermons for his own hearing as much as for ours. He needed
to bear fruits of repentance. He needed the Lamb of God and the forgiveness of
sins. He heard the Father's voice. He pointed to the end of his father's office
and his own office. Finally he was relieved and his burdens removed. Faith got
what it waited for.
In the same way,
we also straddle two worlds: the kingdom of heaven and the new man on the one
side, and the kingdom of the flesh and the old man on the other. We believe
those things we doubt, those things we cannot see, those things we cannot
prove. We hope. We pray. We wait. And with the father of the demon-possessed
child we confess: “Lord, I believe.”
And then we add our prayer to his: “Help
my unbelief.” And so He does. Jesus gave His life for yours. He died and He rose again to
set you free. Soon your burdens will also be removed. In the meantime the fruit
of the vine is for you, the Cup of the New Testament in His blood, for the
forgiveness of your sins, and the kingdom of heaven is poured into you. “The poor have the Gospel preached unto
them” says Jesus. And so it is. This is the comfort John proclaimed, and it
is my privilege to preach that same comfort to you. The blind see and the lame
walk. The lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear. The dead in sin are raised up
in the waters of Holy Baptism. Your warfare is ended. Your iniquity is
pardoned. You have received double from the Lord’s hand for all your sins. And
the Word of our God stands forever. In the name of the Father and of the Son (†)
and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The
peace of God which passes all understanding will keep your hearts and minds in
Christ Jesus always. Amen.
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