Now when John heard
in prison about the deeds Christ had done, he sent his disciples to ask a
question: “Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?” –
Matthew 11:3-4 (NET)
In light of the
flurry of first-century messianic figures in Israel, the question that John
asks his disciples to put to Jesus is one that is both legitimate and
understandable. Just like a great number member of the nation of Israel
in that day, as Israel stood under Roman occupation, John seems to have
carried, based on his message, some expectation that Israel’s God was going to
break in to history through His Messiah, to go about establishing His
kingdom. To John, the deeds of Jesus, in the areas of healing sickness
and disease, casting out demons and giving of sight to the blind, looked very
much like the Scriptural portents that indicated what types of events would
accompany the time (and the person or persons---messiah figure) through which
Israel’s God would become King. A the
same time, the words that Jesus was speaking, and the way in which He was going
about building a following, differed from much of the expectations of the messiah
that had been created by Scriptural interpretation, Israel’s sense of itself,
and the actions of the previous would-be messiahs.
In consideration of
these things, and though some do, we should find that there is absolutely no justifiable
reason to chastise John for asking the question of Jesus. Frankly, it
would have been the question on the minds and on the lips of nearly everybody
with whom Jesus came into contact. Surely, John was not the only one to
ask this question of Jesus’ messianic status; but Matthew, so as to be able to
provide a context for further statements about John that were to come from
Jesus, puts the question into the mouth of John ahead of all other
questioners.
How does Jesus
respond to the question? Does he send John’s disciples back to him with a
stern rebuke? Does Jesus say, “How dare you ask such a thing?” No,
of course He doesn’t. Considering the subversive nature of His
ministry---as He appears to be cutting across all of the religious and
political movements within Israel in that day (that would seem to be at least
one of the ideas to be garnered from the Gospel presentations of Jesus), and
also considering the fate of every single person that had claimed the status of
messiah for themselves (death on a cross at the hands of the Romans)---Jesus answers
in the only way possible. He offers a gentle answer, albeit indirect but
in the affirmative, saying “Yes, I am He.” How does He do this? He
says, “Go tell John what you hear and see: The blind see, the lame walk, lepers
are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news
proclaimed to them” (11:4b-6).
Though we do not
utilize Luke to interpret Matthew, as the authors had different intentions for
their biographical offerings, looking to other portraits of Jesus does allow us
to get a better sense of the way in which Jesus was understood in His own time
and relatively shortly thereafter. Of
course, we also consider that Matthew and Luke had a common source (often
thought to be the Gospel of Mark) that provided the underlying structure of
their own works. So if we look to the
Gospel of Luke in consideration of the response of Jesus in Matthew, how do we
hear and see Jesus announcing Himself? While in the synagogue in
Nazareth, he read from a scroll, saying “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me,
because He has anointed Me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent
me to proclaim release to the captives and the regaining of sight to the blind,
to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor”
(4:18-19). He then added, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled even
as you heard it being read” (4:21). Naturally, that sounds somewhat
similar to the answer given by Jesus in answer to John’s quite reasonable
question. Of course, in those words, Jesus was reading from the
sixty-first chapter of Isaiah---reading the words that were possibly expected
to be found in the mouth of God of Israel’s Messiah---and applying those words
to Himself.
We can presume that John,
with a messiah-expectant mindset (especially in light of the new exodus
movement that he was leading---an exodus is accompanied by a
deliverer/redeemer), would have understood the implications of this statement reported
by Matthew just as well as did the people that heard Jesus that day in Nazareth
(as reported by Luke). On that day in Nazareth, after Jesus added a few
more words of explanation, and when those words that indicated the direction of
His messianic program did not necessarily appeal to His group of hearers, “the
people in the synagogue were filled with rage” (4:28b). It is with that
in mind that we can return to what Jesus said to John, and perhaps better
understand why it is that Jesus, after providing His subtle answer in
confirmation of the substance of John’s inquiry, adds “Blessed is anyone who
takes no offense at me” (11:6).
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