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Matthew 11:2-11
A Sermon for the Third Sunday of Advent
Here in Matthew 11, we again have John the Baptist.
It’s really something that there comes a question, not only from the disciples of John the Baptist, but from the Baptist himself: “Who are you, Jesus? Are you another one of the prophets? Or are you the one promised who is to come?”
The answer comes by quoting this place in Isaiah 35, also Isaiah 61, where it says there are these signs. We talk about signs in the sun, moon, and stars. That’s found in Luke 21:25-27.
In October and November when the sun grows dim and the cold comes, we see the signs that that winter is coming. Christmas is coming. Or for those able to read the stars and follow the phases of the moon, they see signs happening out there in space.
Down here on earth, there are all kinds of signs, such as traffic signs: Stop, yield, curve ahead, speed limit 55, etc. The signs that tell us what is and how things work.
There are also signs that tell us something big is coming. There’s a certain repetition, almost like a drumbeat. As it was in the past, so it will be in the future.
The problem is that there are also signs that wrong, signs that mislead us. Google maps don’t always work.
In the Matthew text for today, as well as in Isaiah 61, it says: “The blind will see, the lame will walk, the deaf will hear, and also: “the poor will have good news preached to them.” That last item is odd. It seems the poor get gypped. Here is somebody poor and you give them a pamphlet and say: “This is good news!” But what that poor person wants is cash. What kind of a sign is this?!
Signs are real problems. As we often remind ourselves, in the New Testament the Greek word for “sign” and “miracle” is the same word. When people want a sign, they want a miracle. Tell us. Show us. But then, lo and behold, there are these signs—the lame walk and the blind see—and does that do it?
In the Old Testament there’s the contest between Moses and the Pharoah’s magicians, and all of them could do various marvelous things. It becomes a matter of upping the ante, and to win they have to do bigger and bigger signs. Unusual things, something really different. Not only signs in the stars, but comets or eclipses, or Northern lights, something unusual that really does something.
In the New Testament in the pastorals it talks about “itching ears” that always want something new and different. Here we have itching eyes, too. Give me something exciting and different. Gimme a sign. Gimme a miracle. That’s what happens.
And then there is fraud. One of the great things about Houdini is that he spent the last years of his life showing that the spiritualists, those people who tried to communicate with the dead, were all fakes. He could always show you where the trick, the illusion, was.
What about miracles today? If you study what happens today at the Marian pilgrimage site in southern France, called Lourdes, you see that over the years the number of miracles has gone down considerably. The more we know about medicine, the fewer miracles there are.
Those who are simple and don’t understand can claim miracles, but the more science we have, the more able we are to show that that is not the case.
In the New Testament we see the early Christians reflect on this very seriously. Jesus did all kinds of things and the Pharisees said: “He does it by the power of the evil one.”
We know, too, that Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 11:14: “Even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.”
Perhaps you have read a book about near-death experiences, or known someone who has had a heavenly vision, seen an angel, or had a supernatural out-of-body feeling or experience. It may well have happened as the person describes it.
The problem is: Where did it come from? The evil one, after all, disguises himself as an angel of light.
This is spelled out most specifically in the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John where Jesus had fed the crowd, and the people wanted more, and he said: “The true food and the true drink are what I do,” and they were disappointed and fell away.
Not only the fast crowd fall away, but most of his followers fell away, too. What was left was only a handful of twelve. Not impressive. And he says to them: “Aren’t you going to leave, too?”
And they answer: “To whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”
That is what is meant here by: “The poor will have good news preached to them.” The Gospel, the Word. That’s what life is, even though we think what life is really about is having food and drink and clothing. Not that those don’t have their place, but they are temporary and ambiguous.
We have this whole matter of miracles and signs, which are the same thing, and we think: “Ah, there we have proof. That miracle, that sign is proof.”
What are we doing when we think that?
It’s like having a grid, and then saying: If God conforms to this grid, or if Jesus conforms to this grid, then Christianity is true.
When we do that, the evil one has already tricked us because, of course, what is really god for us is the grid we are using. The proof is what it’s about and not the Lord himself and Jesus Christ.
We do that all the time. It happens here with John the Baptist. What did John the Baptist preach? Repent and do good works. O.K. Trouble is that’s true in all religions. Most, if not all, religions, say the same thing: Do good works and repent.
You might say but this means that John the Baptist and Jesus are the real religion, but then what’s different from the rest? What’s really at stake here?
With that we can only go back to 1 Corinthians 1:22-24. I’ll put it modern English so you can see what it’s about: “Jews seek miracles and Greeks seek proof, but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews an offense, and to the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are being saved, Christ the power of God, Christ the mercy of God.”
It’s the opposite of a miracle, the opposite of a sign. It’s an anti-sign, an anti-miracle. We are tempted to say: “It’s got to be proved, it’s got to be something we can see and understand, something we can get our heads around.” But then we’re trapped and tricked because it’s really about what the Lord does over against what we are not.
It’s spelled out beautifully in the fourth chapter of Romans. What’s distinctive? God creates out of nothing (Romans 4:17). That’s something for which there are no analogies, no parallels. He creates life out of death. That’s again without any parallels.
And the biggest one of all, the one we don’t get, is: He creates holiness out of unholiness, that is, the justification of the ungodly. That’s the big one. He makes holiness out of those of us who are ungodly, unholy.
There are no analogies and no parallels. We have nothing to make sense of this except that the Lord promises it, and the Lord does it through his Word.
At times like this we can’t help but think of Isaiah 64:4: “Who has a God like this who works for those who wait for him?”
Then, of course, the famous verse which comes two verses later: “All our righteous deeds are filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6).
It’s a very different kind of a thing, but we’d like to have it in our mental frameworks, in our categories, so we can be the wise ones unpacking the mysteries of the cosmos.
We’re not so happy about a God who tells us who we are and that he’s the one who solves it, and it’s not something we can comprehend or make happen.
But he’s done it. And that’s the message we have today, as we look forward to Easter 2026, and before that leading up to it, Good Friday, and before that, Christmas 2025. That’s what it’s about.
And so today, let’s just rest, rest in the promises of God and sing the words that the angels sang in Luke 2: “Look at how the Lord is doing it! Glory to God in the Highest!”
Amen