What Do You See?

Matthew 11:2-11

        When John heard in prison what Jesus was doing, he sent his disciples to ask Him, "Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?" Jesus replied, "Go back and report to John what you hear and see. The blind see, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured. The deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor. Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me.

        Dear friends in Christ, I suppose I could ask you the same question I asked the children. This morning as you sit where you are, what do you see? Some of you would respond, "I see a cross. I see an altar. I see a communion rail. I see a Pastor. I see a few banners on the wall." Others might answer, looking at the very same things, "I see a sacred place, a house for worship. I see not only an altar, but a symbol of the sacrifice above which the cross rests." Some would say that you don’t merely see a communion rail, but the place that we very graciously receive the very body and blood of Jesus Christ. Perceptions, you see, can be different according to one’s understanding.

        When you think of John the Baptist, what do you see? In your mind’s eye, what do you formulate? I know when I was a child, and frankly it hasn’t changed very much, when I thought of John the Baptist, I thought of some burly, rough-cut guy, with a strong voice who cut no quarter and took no prisoners when he spoke. He spoke the law, and he offered forgiveness. He was dressed funny. A camel’s hair coat, a leather belt, and eating locusts for dinner. Yummy!

        Dear friends, somebody came to John in prison, and he was in pretty good company, by the way. He was in the company of the prophets. John the Baptizer is really the last of the prophets of the Old Covenant. He comes as the one who is like Elijah, who will prepare the way, a voice of one calling in the desert, as we read so frequently during our Advent worship services.

        He is the forerunner of the Christ, the Messiah. And the company he keeps meets a similar end. For most of the Old Testament prophets, like John, ended up dying a violent death at the hands of those who would not abide the truth of the hearing of the Word of God.

        Such things have not yet ended. We are reminded that over 200,000 of our brothers and sisters in Christ are martyred for the faith worldwide every single year. Those who proclaim the Word of God are still dying at the hands of violent men.

        And so we find him in good company. And we find him also in the dungeon of Herod. Not a good place to be. But apparently he was permitted a few visitors, for we read that word of Jesus’ activities had gotten to him, and that a delegation of his disciples was sent to ask him the question that is posed to you and to me as the title of this sermon, "What Do You See?"

        Some of course, see Jesus and merely see a man. Certainly the Pharisees and the Sadducees who beheld Jesus frequently certainly came to that conclusion, although not always. The crowds that had been coming to Him and following Him everywhere Jesus went were, by all measure, huge. We are told that literally thousands of people we gathering around Him. And frankly, they were hanging on His every word. And what is more, there were those among them who were Pharisees and Sadducees who saw only the man. And when they saw the man, and they saw His following, and they listened to His words, they were envious. We hear of their envy when we read in the scriptures, Now the crowd that was with Him when he called Lazarus from the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to spread the word. Many people, because they had heard that He had given this miraculous sign, went out to meet Him. So the Pharisees said one to the other, ‘See this is getting us nowhere. Look how the whole world has gone after Him.’ They were envious!

        And, in fact, we read that when He was delivered to Pontius Pilate not long after that entrance into Jerusalem, that Pilate understood that, that He had been turned in because of the religious leaders’ jealousy. They wanted the people to listen to their words, not Christ’s. After all, He was just a man, like they were, and why should they, who held positions of authority, be ignored, while this itinerant preacher be listened to, they reasoned.

        Time and again, their envy showed itself. And another thing happened that was puzzling. Jesus did perform miraculous signs. You know of them. One after another after another. The casting out of demons, the healing of the sick, and yes, even the raising of the dead. Much of that was done in the presence of the Sadducees and the Pharisees, and yet they did not believe. They, more correctly, would not believe. How can it be? They denied their own eyes.

        And when they couldn’t deny what they saw, they blamed Jesus for being a disciple of the devil. We read in Luke, Jesus was driving out a demon that was mute. When the demon left the man, the mute spoke, and the crowd was amazed. But some of them said, "by Beelzebub the prince of demons He is driving out demons."

        There’s more than one kind of blindness. There is of course physical blindness, but more great indeed is spiritual blindness, the unwillingness, the inability to see, to know, and to understand. They seemed to hear too what Jesus said, but they couldn’t seem to comprehend what He said. Jesus Himself referred to this phenomenon. In Matthew we read, The disciples came to Him and asked ‘Why do you speak to the people in parables?’ Jesus replied, ‘The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you and not to them. Whoever has will be given more, and he will have in abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. This is why I speak in parables. Why seeing they do not see, while hearing they do not hear or understand. In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah, "You will be ever hearing but never understanding, you will be every seeing but never perceiving, for this the people’s hearts have become calloused. They hear with their ears and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise, they might see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them."

        There are those today, of course, who look at Jesus and only see a man. I’m reminded of a group of scholars, self-proclaimed, called the "Jesus Seminar" who take the writings of the New Testament and go through the sayings of Jesus one after another, and based on their own opinions they vote about whether or not Jesus really did say what He said. They used colored beads to do it - reds ones if they were pretty sure He said it, and blacks ones if they were pretty sure He didn’t, with gradations in between. They’ve even produced a color-coded Bible, so to speak, so that you can tell what Jesus said and what He didn’t say. What hogwash. Let me assure you that Jesus said exactly what He said, and the apostles were faithful to get it recorded, and they did so under the inspiration of God’s Holy Spirit.

        And so when we see that happening, please understand that the presupposition behind it all is that they only see a man. Sometimes we are guilty of that too. For instance, when we come to worship, when we are not coming with the understanding that what we hear is God’s Divine Word, we make His Word out to be human. When we come forward to receive the Lord’s Supper and we think of it only as something that needs to be done because the usher shows up at the end of our aisle, or that it’s your turn to go, we forget whose body and blood we receive, and we make it out to be common, rather than supernatural.

        When we neglect the study of His Word, we understand then that this is not a Divine Word, otherwise we would be hungering after it, would it not be so? But we treat it as if it were the word of just a man. But Jesus Christ is far more than just a man. Just a man can’t do what He did. Just a man couldn’t say what He said.

        I would suggest to you that our gospel is instructive about His divinity. For one thing, those disciples of John the Baptizer carried a message back to their leader in prison. And to paraphrase, Jesus’ answer, and the answer they undoubtedly gave to him, let me paraphrase a phrase from the movie, Forrest Gump, "Divinity is as Divinity does".

        What did Divinity do? Listen to His words. They are astounding. The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor. Divinity is as Divinity does, you see.

        Who else but the Creator, could, with a word, calm the storm? Who else but the Redeemer of the world could push back the curse of illness for which humanity was not originally designed? Who else? Who else. The answer is only the Divine God-Man Jesus Christ. No one else. For we who were blind to our sin have had our eyes opened, as Jesus proclaims the law to us, and shows us from the Law of Moses how we have violated His Holy Nature and the very image in which we were created, the very image of God Himself. We who were spiritually and terminally sick have been restored to health by the power of His Word, the Holy Spirit working through that Word to build and create faith in our hearts and minds. We who have the stain of sin covering us from head to toe who can’t scrub it off, or shake it off, or get rid of it, have had our sins washed away in the water of Holy Baptism and we know, from His promises, that He did it. We who were deaf to the gospel have had our ears opened. We who were spiritually bankrupt, poor in spirit, have been given the inestimable riches of eternal life.

        What do you see when you see Jesus? Do you see just a man, who cannot die for you sin? Who deserves to be just another philosopher or theologian? Shelved next to Aristotle, and Plato, and Kierkegaard, and the others? Do you see just another religious leader, like Buddha, or Mohammed, or Joseph Smith? Or do you see something more? What do you see?

        I must tell you that we are not told a lot about what happened to John the Baptist during his time in prison. I suspect it’s easy enough to assume there’s not much that happens in prison. All we know for sure, is that he sent this delegation and received an answer. The other thing we know for sure is that he died a prophet’s violent death. But I for one, am convinced that he died a happy man. He died knowing who the Christ was. He died knowing that the one who would take away his death was the one he had foretold was coming, and did. Truly the kingdom of God was at hand, and still is. In Jesus’ name amen.