Sermon on Third Sunday of Advent - Fr Sam Rossiter

So may it be given to me to speak in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. Please be seated.

Blessed is he who takes no offence in me. Though it might seem innocuous, this statement is one of Jesus's most challenging. As ever, understanding is linked to context.

Context is everything. Saint John the Baptist, Jesus's forerunner and cousin, was in prison for challenging Herod Antipas on his marriage to his brother Philip's ex-wife, though the brother was still alive, and this was in contravention of Jewish law. This accusation that Antipas had broken Jewish law was politically extremely dangerous, and Saint John the Baptist knew it.

Antipas was not, in general, a man to be trifled with, but the critique struck a particularly sensitive point. Antipas's father, Herod the Great, though Jewish by conversion, was Idumean by descent and had been installed as king in Judea under Roman authority. His power, and therefore his son's power, rested on Roman support, not on popular legitimacy.

And Antipas himself wasn't even a king, he was a Tetrarch. A subordinate ruler over only part of his father's former territory. And that made his position even more fragile than his father's.

And any public challenge to his authority, particularly one grounded in the Jewish law, and therefore his legitimacy as a Jewish ruler, would be perceived as a political challenge. But of course, calling out powerful people was Saint John's way. He was the prophet who called the Pharisees and the Sadducees a brood of vipers, who told tax collectors to take only what was lawful and nothing more, who told even soldiers to keep away from extortion and be content with their wages.

Saint John knew that his ministry was time-limited. Even at the height of his influence, he preached that one was coming after him who would be greater than he. And when he heard later on that people were going to Jesus and his disciples rather than to John, Saint John said calmly, he must increase and I must decrease.

Perhaps knowing that his ministry was time-limited was the key to his courage in speaking truth to power. In knowing that his ministry was time-limited, that it would give way to the ministry of the Messiah, he does however seem to have assumed that a baton would be passed from him to the Messiah. He preached of the coming of the Messiah before he saw Jesus.

His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear the threshing floor. He expected the Messiah to bring the purification of Israel which he was preparing Israel for. He was expecting the Messiah to establish renewed attention to righteousness.

And that expectation wasn't wrong as such. Isaiah spoke of the coming one who would judge with justice. Isaiah 11 verse 4 says, he will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.

Isaiah 11:4

This was just one of many messianic prophecies that spoke of the restoration of God's people through the Messiah. And so Saint John's expectation, his call to repentance stood firmly within the prophetic tradition. And yet in the gospel reading that we've just heard Saint John clearly found himself troubled.

There he was, imprisoned for doing the job of a prophet, speaking truth to power. He knew that his death was most likely. He'd crossed antipass.

You do not cross antipass. The time had come for the baton to be passed as he'd always been preparing for. And yet when he heard the stories of Jesus's ministry, Jesus who he had acclaimed the Lamb of God, they were not stories of denunciation or of judgement, even necessarily of a call to renewed righteousness.

No, they were stories of healing, forgiveness, watchfulness, a call not to cling tightly to the letter of the law but to understand its spirit. And so he sent messengers to Jesus with a question. Are you the one who is to come or are we to wait for another? Understand this wasn't the petulance of a disappointed follower.

It was genuine confusion on the part of one whose knowledge of scripture was excellent, whose ministry was foundational to God's plan of salvation but whose understanding was only partial. And so in response to the question, Jesus told John's disciples to report back what they saw and heard. 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 answering in this way, he echoed Isaiah, knowing that these words would of all words speak to Saint John. Isaiah 35, five to six says, then the eyes of the blind shall be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then the lame shall leap like a deer.

Isaiah 61, verse one says, the spirit of the Lord is upon me because the Lord has anointed me. He has sent me to bring good news to the poor. Jesus was showing that he was fulfilling messianic prophecy.

It was just that Saint John's focus was slightly askew. And having said this, having passed on his message to Saint John through his disciples, he added a final word. Blessed is anyone who takes no offence in me.

This wasn't a rebuke. It was actually a beatitude. And the Greek word that Matthew uses for takes no offence is scandalizo, which means to stumble or to be tripped up.

Blessed is anyone who is not tripped up by me. Jesus was acknowledging that his way of being the Messiah would unsettle expectations. Those who assumed that the Messiah had come in judgement, in power, in triumph, would find themselves wrong-footed by mercy, by humility, by forgiveness.

Blessed, said Jesus, would be those who could avoid stumbling over the way that he was fulfilling prophecy. And yet despite Saint John's confusion, Jesus praised him, calling him more than a prophet and declaring in another gospel that amongst those born of women, no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist. Saint John was a faithful servant of God.

His ministry was foundational to Jesus's saving work. He was the forerunner. It was simply that his expectations were misaligned.

If someone so faithful and courageous, obedient, could wrestle with God's purposes, whilst reading scripture faithfully, attending to vocation and suffering for his faith, then how much more might we also reasonably struggle? Like Saint John, I'm sure all of us have had moments when we feel like we're walking faithfully along the path that God has for us, doing good and righteous work, and yet end up feeling disorientated when the road doesn't lead where we expect. If that road leads to suffering, as it tragically did for Saint John, then how much more can it be tempting to assume that something has gone wrong, that we've gone the wrong way? Jesus's response to this isn't harsh. He understood Saint John's struggle just as he understands ours.

The heart of the gospel reading that we've heard wasn't a theological argument. It was the confusion of a faithful person whose faith was being tested, was being strained, was at the point of breaking, because God wasn't acting like he expected. And I'm sure all of us can empathise with Saint John in that.

Jesus didn't abandon his work or alter his purpose in response to Saint John's confusion, but neither did he criticise it. Instead, he gently revealed that there was more going on than Saint John could see. Jesus had more in mind than Saint John had been hoping for.

His mission wasn't just the calling of a few to lawful righteousness, but the transformation of all who would accept his invitation to grace through his sacrifice, the cross and the resurrection. The vision of salvation was more beautiful, more transformational than anyone hoped, including Saint John. And it is more radical and inclusive even now than many in the church would allow it to be.

And yet, just as it was with Saint John, so it is with us. We all have moments when God leads us in directions we don't understand. And yet God weaves us into the tapestry of his mission to the world, his outpouring of the kingdom into creation in ways that we just don't understand.

To be clear, the part that we play in God's mission to the world may only be understood from the perspective of eternity. And yet it is grace, it is by grace that God includes us at all. So may we have the courage to attend to what Christ is actually doing in our lives, rather than fixating on what he isn't that we hoped he would be.

May we learn from Saint John and trust that Jesus' purposes are greater than we can imagine. May we be those who are blessed, because we take no offence, we do not stumble, we are not tripped up by the work that Jesus does. Instead, may we offer ourselves willingly to the task.

Amen.