This is a sermon that I preached on Sunday, 12/14/25, at Berkeley Friends Church. The scripture reading for this sermon was: Matthew 11:2-19.
The Bible is an amazing library of texts, and no matter how many times I have read a certain passage, I find that there is usually something new to discover. When I’m reading the scriptures, and especially when I’m doing a deep dive in preparation for a sermon, one of the things I’m watching out for is, where am I surprised?
In our reading for this morning, I found myself surprised by John the Baptist. You see, in the Gospel according to John, John the Baptist is portrayed as knowing exactly who Jesus was when Jesus came to visit him and be baptized in the Jordan. But in our reading from Matthew this morning, it’s clear that John still had some uncertainty about Jesus’ identity.
John was a very radical person. He spent his ministry out in the wilderness, beyond the Jordan river. He lived in a harsh environment, wore harsh clothing, and ate rough food. And he didn’t eat a lot; he was an ascetic. All of his energy was focused on proclaiming the coming kingdom of God.
When I think of John the Baptist, the first image that comes to my mind is a famous mural of John Brown, the violent abolitionist, who launched a failed insurrection in Harper’s Ferry. Very strong apocalyptic energy. Now, John the Baptist didn’t launch a revolution, but he clearly thought that God was going to. From what I can tell, in John’s preaching the kingdom of God was coming, and it was going to be massively violent when it did.
So as John heard reports about Jesus’ ministry from Herod’s dungeon, John could sense the promise in Jesus. He sensed the possibility that Jesus might be the messiah. But Jesus’ means and message were so different from his. After all, John was Mr. “The Axe Is Lying At The Root of the Trees” guy. His ministry had been out in the wilderness, calling the religious leaders a “brood of vipers” and warning of “the wrath to come.”
John was clearly intrigued by Jesus, but Jesus didn’t quite fit the picture that John had in mind. Was Jesus too soft to be the Messiah? So it says that John, locked away in prison at this point, sent his disciples to clarify. They asked Jesus, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”
Jesus responds to John’s disciple’s question with an indirect but clear answer: “Look at what I’m doing.” Jesus points to his deeds, and asks John to open his imagination to see how what is up to is fulfilling the prophecy. John has an expectation of a fiery showdown, but Jesus points him to the showdown that is taking place in his ministry – lives transformed and evil defeated: The blind receive their sight, the deaf hear, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.
Jesus tells John’s disciples who he is: He is the one who does the deeds of justice, mercy, and human transformation that the prophets foretold. Jesus’ answer is clear: Yes, he is the Messiah. A surprising messiah who brings change from below, who conquers through love, and who leads by becoming a servant.
Once John’s disciples have left to report back, Jesus makes it clear that whatever confusion the Baptist had about him, Jesus knows very well who John is. John wasn’t some fancy man wearing soft robes. (This is in spite of the fact that, as a son of the High Priest, he could have chosen a life of luxury.) But John wasn’t a fancy priest. He was a wild man of the desert.
Jesus identifies John as the one prophesied by the prophet Malachi: “See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. … But who can abide the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?” (Malachi 3:1-2)
John is, spiritually speaking, the prophet Elijah. He is the one who comes to prepare the way for the Messiah. John came in the spirit of Malachi’s prophecy, to prepare the way for the great day of the Lord. John knew from scripture that the Day of the Lord would be a day of darkness and fear as God comes to set the world to right with great might and power.
So we see that Jesus’ ministry perhaps isn’t what John was expecting. Jesus wasn’t the same kind of fire and brimstone prophet that John was. For all of Jesus’ hard sayings and apocalyptic words, he was definitely a kinder and gentler figure when compared to John.
Despite their rhetorical and stylistic differences, however, Jesus was operating in the same narrative space as John. Jesus knew that he was the one that John had been waiting for. He was the one through whom God would suddenly come to his temple. And no one would be able to endure the day of his coming.
The day of the Lord would be dark. It would be dark, and it had already been dark. The kingdom of God has always been received with violence and rejection. Look at what happened to all the prophets that came before. Look at what happened to John the Baptist: He had to send his disciples from prison to check in on Jesus. And as we know, John would soon be murdered!
But despite the fact that the prophets had often been treated terribly, and despite the fact that John was rotting in Herod’s prison and would soon be put to death, Jesus knows what true greatness is. It is the voice in the wilderness, crying “prepare the way of the Lord”. Jesus knows that John is a monumental figure, far greater than most people in Israel can perceive. John is the promised second coming of Elijah. John is the prophet par excellence. Let anyone with ears listen: “If you understand who John is,” Jesus says, “you understand what God is up to in the world. What God is up to in me.”
But so few people, then or now, are willing to hear this good news. The world is primed to reject the coming of God’s kingdom. Because the coming of God’s kingdom is not just softness and light and joy. As the prophet Malachi writes, “He is like a refiner’s fire and like a washer’s soap…” The coming of the Lord is a time of cleansing, a time of radical change, a time for total life turnaround, for all of us.
And we don’t like change, do we? We don’t like to be purified with fire and washed with the harsh soap of truth. We don’t want to be uncovered and left naked. We like our protective coverings.
It’s no wonder that we resist the kingdom of God, because transformation is very disruptive. Transformation hurts. The light of God’s love burns and scours all those hidden places in ourselves where we’ve led infected wounds fester. Healing is what we need, but healing often involves an increase in pain before things get better.
Jesus sees this. Jesus understands that people are mostly going to reject his message, his ministry, and God’s kingdom. Because it’s just too hard.
Jesus sees us as we really are: like children, sitting in the marketplace and calling to one another, “We played the flute for you and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn.”
Do you remember this from your own childhood? Do you remember playing games with your friends, but ending up fighting because you couldn’t agree on what game to play, or what the rules of the game were? This is the universal childhood experience that Jesus is summoning to mind when he describes our mindset when we are resisting the kingdom.
Jesus came to play a game, so to speak. Jesus came to tell us a story, and to have us participate in it. But our reaction is to say, “We want a different game. Sing us a different song.”
The truth is, though, it doesn’t matter how Jesus presents himself. It doesn’t matter how much Jesus might have tried to make the gospel appealing to the people. What more could he have done? He’s been going around, healing, feeding, cleansing people, and raising the dead – and still he’s being attacked and criticized.
Like children in the marketplace, arguing over which game to play, the question isn’t whether Jesus is bringing the truth. That’s almost irrelevant. The children of Israel don’t want to play. They’re just looking for an excuse to avoid the Day of the Lord, the great Refiner’s Fire that will bring true transformation – with all the pain, darkness, loss of control, and healing transformation that that will mean.
So Jesus already knows he’s going to be rejected and killed, just as John would be. They rejected John because he was a wild man of the desert, fasting and praying and wearing camel’s hair and a leather belt. And Jesus? They’d dismiss him because he did the opposite. They said that John had a demon because he fasted in the wilderness constantly. They’d choose to ignore Jesus because he ate and drank too much.
“Sing me a song – no, not that song! Dance to the tune I play! Play the game according to my rules.” These are the childish demands of the crowd.
But God isn’t here to do a song and dance for us. God isn’t here to enable our delusions and brokenness. The Day of the Lord is coming, and it will be a day of fire and smoke and transformation. The Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple… and who can abide the day of his coming?
The prophets know this. John didn’t come to do a song and dance to please the crowds. Neither did Jesus. Both men came knowing that the kingdom of God has suffered violence, and violent people would continue to take it by force. But the Day of the Lord is coming. Let anyone with ears listen!
So many people that I know, including myself, often hide from God by mounting objections that superficially sound noble, but in reality are just an excuse to keep on doing whatever it is we want to do. How many times have you heard things like this? How many times have you said something like this?
- “I just don’t go in for that kind of happy-clappy, emotional religion.”
- “So many Christians are hypocrites, it just sort of turns me off from the whole thing.”
- “You know, the Bible was written by people thousands of years ago. Don’t we have some more modern writings that would be more useful to consider?”
- “I don’t believe in sin. God is love, and he accepts us just as we are.”
- “Christianity has been used to justify such evil like the crusades and the inquisition, I’m not sure I want to associate with that history.”
- “Why are Christians so hung up about sex?”
- “It seems like religion is just a social construct designed to control people and maintain order. I like to think for myself.”
Not all of these are unreasonable objections. There’s some truth to each of them. But in my personal experience, as someone who has said many of these things at some point in my journey, I can tell you – statements like these are a smokescreen.
Objections like these are a defensive shield that keeps the possibility of being confronted by the claims of the Christian faith and the experience of a loving, limitless God who can speak to my broken condition and demand intense, even frightening changes from me.
These questions are the sound of quarreling children in the marketplace. They’re arguments designed to avoid a real encounter where darkness could be exposed, wounds could be healed, and our lives could be changed forever.
This is what Jesus found in Israel at the time of his ministry. This is what so many of the prophets – before and after Jesus – have encountered when they have brought the good news of the kingdom.
We don’t have to follow that pattern. We can choose to open our hearts to the presence of God here in our midst. We can welcome the message that God wants to deliver to us through this church, through one another, through the encounters that we have in our families, workplaces, and daily lives.
Wisdom is vindicated by her deeds. Where do you see God at work in the world? What are the hard changes that you sense God calling you to? What is the hidden darkness that the Holy Spirit wants to shine light into? What’s the healing that you need?
We are invited, here in the presence of that Spirit, to drop our childish games, lower our defenses, and receive the life, the power, and the transformation that Jesus promises.