“Elijah,” say the crowds.
“Jesus is Elijah,” John’s disciples tell him.
You can almost hear John slap them upside the head.
In their defense, they were trying very hard to trim the pegged corners of the prophecy and fit it into the round hole of the situation. Malachi – singing gorgeously, boisterously, hopefully – had told them of a prophet to come who would turn the hearts of fathers and children to one another. Jesus had just mended a widow’s broken heart by returning her son to her. It’s the same thing, right?
“It’s close at least!” say John’s disciples. “Anyway, it’s all just semantics, right?”
“No,” says John (soundly smacking them once more). “It’s not. No cigar for you.”
John is currently cooling his heels on the sidelines. Like Dorothy in the witch’s castle, he sends Toto (his disciples) out with a message for Jesus. It’s one-half “get-me-outa-here” and one-half reality check. Herod Antipas, tired of his wife Herodias’ nagging, has imprisoned John in Machaerus – a legendary fortress on the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee. He’s there because he called out Herod for dumping his first wife in favor of his half-brother’s wife, Herodias, who just happens to be his other half-brother’s daughter. John has called a spade a spade and is now paying for his honesty. He will spend two years here and die in a most despicable and pointless way.
John’s message for Jesus is a question. Note that John wants to avoid the telephone game here. He doesn’t trust his disciples to get the question right so he makes them write it down. As a result, they repeat his words verbatim to Jesus: are you The One?
John asks this question because what he’s been hearing is certainly not what he’s been expecting. He’s been prophesying about and waiting for a Messiah of electrifying power and majesty who inspires total devotion and humble service in His followers. John has been watching and waiting for God to raise up a redeemer in the tradition of the judges of old, men like Samson, Jephthah and Gideon.
John is expecting Jesus to take away the sin of the world and baptize the nation of Israel with fire and the Holy Spirit. In John’s mind, the Messiah is the personification of “the wrath to come” from which the Pharisees and Sadducees sought to flee. He expected Jesus to cleanse the House of Israel with fire, to “clear His threshing floor and gather His wheat into the barn.”
Instead, he’s hearing about an itinerant rabbi from the wrong side of the tracks who helps old ladies cross the street.
“What’s up with that, Jesus?” he asks.
We can’t really blame John. It cannot have been easy to accept that his ministry – one which was destined to prepare a way in the wilderness for the Kingdom of God – had led him to a point where he was at the mercy of a spoiled, adulterous Gentile woman. There had to have been moments when John wondered if he hadn’t been forgotten by God and by his second cousin, Jesus Christ.
John’s question, however, isn't so much a crisis of faith as it is mis-ordered priorities. He’s expecting Jesus to judge first and save later, not the other way around. The Messiah he is looking for is indeed coming, is now here, and will come again.
Before He answers the disciples' question, Jesus asks them to wait for a bit. Have a seat, enjoy the show! As they do, they see Jesus perform many wonderful signs: the sick are cured, the blind see.
During the intermission, Jesus pulls John’s disciples aside and asks: “What did you come here to see? A faith healer? A doer of good deeds? But what did you come here to see? A prophet? Yes, I say to you, and greater than a prophet. Tell John, even though I may have failed to meet his expectations, I am doing the work of the Messiah.”
As John’s disciples return to their seats (who walks out on a show?), Jesus turns to the crowd for some improvisation and asks about their expectations – of John.
“Let’s bump up the lights and see if y'all have anything to say. Why in the world did y’all go out into the wilderness – Israel out of Egypt! What were you thinking?! Anybody? What were you looking for? What’s that? A reed shaken by the wind? That doesn’t sound like John. What’s that? A rich man in soft clothes? Oh, you’re being funny. Got it. Camel skin, soft raiment, ha ha. Yes. Next we’ll be trading recipes for locusts and honey. No, really, what did you go out to see? What – a prophet? Yes! And what a prophet!”
Jesus chides the crowd for its voyeurism, for its rubbernecking. He winks broadly at their supposedly religious motivation for seeking John out in the first place. They may claim they were looking for spiritual guidance, but they – and Jesus – know they came out for the circus atmosphere and spectacle of John’s ministry. They wanted front row seats on the banks of the Jordan (pass the popcorn) as John, spittle dripping from his beard, screamed at the Pharisees and shamed them one by one for their conceit and self interest (“He called Rabbi Feldman a snake! A SNAKE! It was…AWESOME!”).
Let’s face it, Jesus says, you were looking to be entertained. But that’s OK, it got you in the door. And because you made a little effort, God rewarded you by opening your heart to the message of John – the last and greatest prophet born of women.
Jesus – the first, last and greatest prophet born of Spirit – has not forgotten his cousin. Indeed, He thinks of him often. However, it must be painful to know that, in Israel, great prophets suffer greatly. And Herod’s birthday is fast approaching.
