Isaiah 35:1-10

The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the LORD, the majesty of our God. Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who are of a fearful heart, “Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God. He will come with vengeance, with terrible recompense. He will come and save you.” Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy. For waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water; the haunt of jackals shall become a swamp, the grass shall become reeds and rushes. A highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Holy Way; the unclean shall not travel on it, but it shall be for God’s people; no traveler, not even fools, shall go astray. No lion shall be there, nor shall any ravenous beast come up on it; they shall not be found there, but the redeemed shall walk there. And the ransomed of the LORD shall return, and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

Matthew 11:2-11

When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.” As they went away, Jesus began to speak to the crowds about John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to look at? A reed shaken by the wind? What then did you go out to see? Someone dressed in soft robes? Look, those who wear soft robes are in royal palaces. What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is the one about whom it is written, ‘See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.’ Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist; yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.”

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I think my best approach this morning is just to fess up. For if embarrassing things are to be said about you, it is best to say them on yourself rather that hear them from your girl friend or the senior pastor.
It is Friday night, and I am sitting on a silver bus called the Waco Streak heading toward the city from the Dallas Fort-Worth Metroplex. My shoes are squeaking with water, and my clothes are soaked.

Rain is pouring down. Traffic is backed up as far as the eyes can see. I am torn between anger, anxiety and laughter. I am trying to figure out how I wound up in this situation.

It started on Thursday, when I was at the Grace Presbytery Office in Irving for a committee meeting. I also needed to take the church bus to Lewisville to get the air conditioning fixed. I thought, why not kill two birds with one stone and take the bus to the meeting and drop it off to be fixed.

But how would I get back to Waco? Someone said why not take the train. It runs every day, boarding at noon and making a few stops along the way before dropping you off in nearby McGregor. For $13, I thought it would be a fun four-hour ride.

I arrived early at Union Station in downtown Dallas, one hour early. The station wasn’t exactly what I expected. Not bad, not good. It was just more colorful than I expected.

The first clue that Friday would be a long day should have been the ticket agent who told me the train was running just a “few minutes behind schedule.” This would give me more time to focus on the Gospel text for today.

Those “few minutes” turned into four announcements and four hours before the train arrived and began boarding.

I follow the crowd out to the train, thinking to myself that two passenger cars is an awfully short for a train bound for Austin then on to Los Angeles. Today’s Advent words echoed in my head: “Are you the one who is to come or are we to wait for another?”

Seeing no other trains, I boarded, found a good window seat and settled in for the four-hour ride home.

Just as the train was pulling away from the station, I see a second, much longer train arriving. Huh! I thought we were the only southbound train today, and those Advent words echoed again: “Are you the one who is to come or are we to wait for another?”

As my train picked up speed, I noticed the abundance of Amtrak signs on the longer train. Looking around my cabin car, I noticed the lack of luggage, bags and curiously enough the lack of Amtrak logos.

That’s interesting, I thought. Isn’t there a commuter train that travels to Fort Worth? Isn’t it called TRL?

Several minutes and phone calls later, I am listening to the sound of rain hitting the roof of a bus stop in Irving, trying my best to explain to Greg Kershner, a good friend and Jimmie’s son-in-law, where I am and how I managed, after a four hour wait, to board a commuter train to Fort Worth.
For the next hour I waited in the bus stop, surrounded by the cold black steel trying to stay out of the wind and rain. I kept hearing some other familiar Advent words: “And then they went home by another way.”
And I thought about John the Baptist in that cold, dark prison cell, sitting in confusion and doubt. It would be easy to whip out a sermon chastising John for his confusion and doubt.

But John even in his vigor and discipline found that camel hair does chaff. Despite his calling and prophetic pedigree, he is confused by what he hears of this messiah. Jesus is not living up to John’s expectations of what a messiah should do and who a messiah should be. Jesus is not leading a royal procession with all the trappings of a victorious monarch.
So John sends out a question, a longing to know is he, like me, on the wrong track. “Are you the one, or are we to wait for another?”
It could be easy to paint John as a confused and faithless follower wandering now from track to track moving out of the way when things seem not be going his way. I believe, however, this Advent story reminds us, encourages us and comforts us in the knowledge that questioning and uncertainty is simply a part of our human experience. Those who have a vibrant and passionate faith can also have questions in Dallas. Critical thinking can be a fierce sign of fidelity.

We see in today’s text that questioning and uncertainty is a part of our humanity and has a place in a vibrant passionate faith.

The trouble comes when we place ultimate faith in our own ability to say who Jesus is or is not. We risk turning a devotion freely growing in our lives into frozen dogma, rigidly blinding our experience of Advent and stunting our growth of faith. Not even John can meet Jesus on his terms. None of us can meet God on our terms.

The text also shows us Jesus’ response to John’s question. Jesus answers not with a fist but with an open hand. He does not chastise John for the question; he does not belittle him for the doubt. Jesus does not make fun of John for asking the question.

Jesus says to John’s followers, go and tell him what you hear and see. For John, unlike me, isn’t on the wrong track at all. This Jesus is the Messiah.
Both John and I had different expectations about the outcome of our questions. I wanted to be on a southbound train headed toward Waco.
John, too, in a way, desired a homecoming, a restoration of Israel. He was expecting a messiah who would bring justice in power, might and strength to give Israel freedom from Rome.

This Jesus didn’t fit the image of a messiah John had anticipated. There was no might lion of Israel roaring, no armed rebellion or even any George Lucas pyrotechnics.

For none, not even John, meets Jesus on his own human terms.
John asks: “Are the one who is to come or are we to wait for another?”

Jesus answers: “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.”

In Christ we meet the God who in self-emptying mystery proclaims and completes the healing, the reconciliation, and the restoration of all creation. The sovereign God comes as a self-emptying servant. This Christ, this God responds to our doubts and our mistaken images of the divine with an open hand, not a clenched fist.

So what does Christ say of this John who cries out proclamations from the wilderness and whispers questions from the dark of jail?
“Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist; yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.”

So our text on this third Sunday of Advent reminds us that ours is not a journey without doubt or questions, or a faith that shies away from doubt. It is a discipleship that engages our brains, hearts and our hands.
Faith compels us to critically engage the world, the church and even our own assumptions about who God is in Jesus Christ.

Recently, Jimmie and I have received questions about the movie “The Golden Compass.” It is based on a first in a trilogy of books written by Philip Pullman, a sometimes evangelical atheist and a halfhearted zealot of agnosticism. Pullman is a complex and interesting author who weaves a dark and intriguing universe where the church is filled and consumed by a desire to control and limit knowledge.

Many are rightly asking questions about this “Dark Materials” trilogy and the way the church is portrayed. The third book is about a dying angel pretending that he fooled creation into believing he was God.
Many are calling for protests against the 10-year-old award winning books and boycotting the multi-million dollar star-studded movie that opened this month. I have only read the first book and found it to be dark but well-written.

I am not ready to make an opinion about these books or the movie. Nor do I feel the pulpit is the appropriate place to air such an opinion.
But I do feel our Gospel text today says we are called to engage the culture around us and the questions within us. Just as Jesus doesn’t fear John’s questions, perhaps John reminds us that we are not to fear them either.

Rather we are called to reflect upon what we see and hear of Christ, to critically hold the church, our faith and the whole of creation up to the God we meet in this Christ.

William Sloane Coffin once said, “God isn’t too hard to believe in. God is too good to believe in, for we are such strangers to such goodness.”
And on this third Sunday in Advent, perhaps we are called to watch, to wait and together question.