Imminent Arrival – Messiah is the second sermon from our Advent series. We’re considering who Jesus is exactly. Now that might be obvious to you, but for some reason, it wasn’t obvious to John the Baptist.
2 When John, who was in prison, heard about the deeds of the Messiah, he sent his disciples 3to ask him, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?”
Are You The One
That’s quite the question. John’s disciples asked Jesus, but there is some debate if the question was for John or for disciples? There are some who like to think that John the Baptist would never doubt his faith, would never question if Jesus was really who he claimed to be. John is the one who pointed to Jesus and confession – Look the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. It was John who heard the voice of the Father thunder from heaven at Jesus baptism and saw the Spirit descend in the form of a dove. John is clearly asking for the sake of his disciples. “Who is Jesus?” That’s one way to look at it.
So You Had A Bad Day
The other… I don’t mind thinking that John was having a bad day. You’re in prison. Jesus is God. What’s going on? This isn’t going the way I thought it would, at all. The same thing happened to the prophets of old. Elijah, calls down fire, slays the wicked prophets of Baal and… the next day is running for his life, depressed, praying that God would call him home. Everyone… has a bad day. Just to be clear – it doesn’t really matter for whom the question was asked. The important thing was that the question was asked and that they went to the right place for the answers.
Want to hear more? Watch this week’s message from our sermon series, Imminent Arrival – Messiah.
Book(s): Matthew
Series: Imminent Arrival
Tag(s): Advent
Speaker(s): Fred Guldberg