“Disappointed at Christmas”

A Sermon Based Upon Matthew 11: 2-11

By Rev. Dr. Charles J. Tomlin, DMin

Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership

Advent 3A, December 15^th, 2013

  "Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?" (Mat 11:3 NRS) …

These 4 Sundays before Christmas are called the 4 Sundays of Advent.  Advent is about waiting.  But as someone has suggested, they are really about impatiently waiting.  It’s hard to wait on Christmas; especially when you are a child, when you are waiting for your children to return home; when you are in a hurry just to have a day off.  Waiting can be hard.

Waiting is especially hard when you are in prison, like John is in our text.   I’ve never been in prison except to visit, but you can bet it’s the hardest thing to do to try to fit your whole world shrunk to the size of a prison cell.  It can be a dark, lonely place.  This is where John is.  He’s in prison.  Can you try to imagine it?

APPOINTMENT WITH DISAPPOINTMENT

I don’t have to imagine too hard.  Several years ago I was caged in something called an “artificial fixator”; an apparatus screwed into my left leg and foot.  For six months I couldn’t walk, couldn’t stand, couldn’t ride my bike.  I was in a sort of prison.  The doctor had told me it would just be a couple of months, and it ended up half of a year.   I had an infection.  I had to have 5 surgeries, not one or two.  It was disappointing time.  Sometimes I’m still disappointed because I can’t tell that the surgeries and pain where worth what I went through.  I still have pain, swelling, and it’s worse than it was before.  Yes, I’m stuck with the situation as it is.  I’m disappointed. I’m thankful to be alive and to be able to function, but it’s not what I hoped it would be.

We’ve all been through some kind of disappointment.   Disappointment can happen when you are old and on your way out, or it can happen even when you are young and on your way toward the rest of your life.  You start being disappointed as an infant, when your mother lets you cry just a little longer.  You are disappointed as a child when you can’t have an ice cream cone before dinner.  You are disappointed when your true love dumps you.  You can be disappointed when things don’t turn out as you’d hoped or expected.   It may sound strange to some of you, but very familiar to others; someday, somewhere on the way in your life, whether you are ready for it or not, you will be disappointed with God.  You may not end up in a prison like John, but you will know the darkness, the hurt and the sadness of that moment.   You have nowhere else to go and no one else to believe in, but you are still very disappointed.  The way God works, or doesn’t work, is not what you expected or hoped.

In some ways, the way we celebrate Christmas is a set up for great disappointment.  We have so many high expectations for this time of year.   We expect and hope that everything will be prefect.   We’ve made the plans, finished the many preparations, put up the decorations, cooked the meals, gone to the parties, and we do everything we can, but somehow we get to the end of it all with a feeling of letdown, sadness, and of course, a kind of disappointment.   Maybe you won’t get what you wanted for Christmas.  Maybe someone you love did not show up.  Maybe there is some kind of unexpected difficulty or disappointment that overshadowed everything. 

 John was disappointed too. “Are you the one, or should we look for another?”   It’s a feeling and a place none of wish on our worse enemy.  But here is Jesus’ own cousin, “the most blessed born from a woman” and look at where he is.  Look at where he faith and work for God seemed to get him.  What’s the use?  Is this all there is?  Is this what I get for faith in God?   It was in Jesus that John not only met his hope, but also met his disappointment.   He was the preacher who introduced Jesus and expected him to usher in a whole new world and brand new way of life; but nothing has changed.   Now he’s worse off, not better off.  He’s paying for his disappointment with the currency of his own pain, hurt and imprisonment.  If Jesus lets his friends and family go through this; what more should we hope?   “Should we look for another?”

AT THE CENTER OF HUMAN PAIN

At the center of John’s pain is the intersection of how we hope things will be and how things are.  This is a road none of us like to travel.  Many people will do everything they can to travel through life another way.  They will even pretend to see things they can’t, try to fix things that can’t be fixed, and they will deny the reality of what is going on all around them, sometimes until the very last day when they die.   Even people of faith will do this.   We too can get stopped at the intersection of how we pray and what isn’t answered.

Sigmund Freud said religion is nothing more than an illusion; or worse, a disillusion.  He said that faith in God is nothing more than a wish for a better Father than we had or it is nothing much more than a wish to avoid facing difficulty and death.   Certainly there is some truth that people can use religion as a crutch, for an excuse, or a way to avoid facing the hard, difficult, disappointing realities of life.  But what John is dealing with here is no illusion.  John was not asking for the easy way when he put on his coat of Camel’s hair, went into the wilderness and started eating grashoppers.   No, John was not wishing for an easier way.  He has put his hope in Jesus, made all kinds of sacrifice, but things still have not turned out as he hoped.  He has risked it all and this is where it gets him.  He’s in prison.  He’s in a holding place and a bad place.  It was not his wish to be here.  It was not his wish to have a Jesus come and free him from prison.   He never wishes for a better life.  He is wondering about the life he has; the Lord he’s followed; and the God in whom he trusts.

Although there are still people who, like Sigmund Freud, will say that faith in God is for weak people to come to grips with the hard realities of life; there is also the reality that many, if not most people don’t come to faith because it’s a way out, a wish fulfillment, or out of some deep psychological angst.   Most people don’t come to faith to escape their pain, avoid reality, or deny the truth; but people are invited to come to faith to bear a cross, to face the reality of how things are, and to seek truth and meaning in the pain they already have in life.   We don’t come to God to escape the difficult, the hard or even to avoid the disappointments of life, but we come to Christ to ‘take up our cross’, follow him, so that as we lose, we gain, as we die, we live, and as we walk straight into the hurts and pains of others, we find the peace that surpasses all understanding.   We do not expect our faith to be a walk in the park, but it is a walk that takes us through the dark, toward the light of hope we have in our heart.

Listen again to what John says.  He does not say,  “I’m disappointed in you Jesus”.  He didn’t say, “I don’t like rotting away in this prison.”   He does not decide to lose his faith in what God will eventually do, but what John does is try to come to grips with in the middle of all his disappointment is to question which way he is supposed to go next.  He sends his disciples to ask Jesus a question of disappointment; but it is still open to finding new hope: “Are you the one,”  he asks, “or should we look for another?”  John is saying something we all need to say in our pain of disappointment.   He is making a choice we all have to make when pain and disappointment come.  We have to decide, if we are going to keep faith, that no matter what comes; we will not stop looking, waiting, wondering, praying and finding a way to have hope.  We may not like where we are; we may not like how things have turned out, but we will keep on looking, keep on hoping, keep on praying, and keep on trying to discern discerning what God is doing and where God is leading us, even though we may not like what or where.

SEEING OUR WAY THROUGH
We don’t really know how John responded to Jesus’ answer, sent through messengers.  What we do know is what Jesus said and we can only guess what it might have meant for John to hear this answer.   The answer came that John should not focus on what is happening with him, but John should stop and consider what is happening outside his prison cell.    If you want to have hope in your disappointment, don’t focus on yourself, but look beyond yourself.   Look beyond toward the good news of what God is doing in the lives of others, and you can deal with the pain and hurt of what God is not doing for you right now.

Of course, this is not easy to do, is it?  How do you get your head out of your own situation and see what God is doing in the world around you?  How can you gain your perspective; when you are still living in a dark, dismal, damp prison of where you are in this moment?  How can Jesus give John an answer that doesn’t look like an answer, at least not for him, and expect him to find joy in the moment, answers in the unanswered, and release, even when he is still being held captive.   It’s kind of like it was when, after my Father died on December 8ths, and I was trying to get my mother to celebrate Christmas with us.   “Come on Mom, if there is any reason to celebrate Christmas, it is now.  Jesus is the only light we have.  He is our hope.  I’m not trying to belittle your loss nor mine, but we’ve got to keep looking straight into the only hope any of us will ever have in life or in death.”   It’s not easy, but what else do we have to hope for?

This is sort of what Jesus was telling John, wasn’t it?   The answer was not, “O.K. John, I’m coming to get you out of prison….”   No, John, “I’m come to die too”.   I am coming to you, but right now, there is more hope for you than for me.  You will get there John, before I do.  No, John.  I can’t set you free from all your disappointment but I can promise you this:  “Go 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 preached to them.  And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me!”

That last line stands out to me.  It wasn’t just that Jesus was telling John to see what was happening and find joy in that; but Jesus was also telling John not to be ‘offended’ for suffering because of the truth.   The pain we feel when loss comes, when heartaches comes, when injustice comes, and when disappointment comes, is not the sign of what is bad about the world, but it’s the sign of what is ‘good’ in each of us.  It’s like the person who feels the pain of loss when their spouse or child dies and learns to say, even through much difficulty and tears, “It is better to have loved and to have lost; than never to have loved at all.”  That’s not an easy truth to accept, but the pain we feel, the disappointments we experience, are all signs of the sense of love, faith and hope that is present in our hearts.   This faith that is in us; that appears to us in our pain of disappoints is the very faith and hope that Jesus reminds us will get us through.   Don’t be offended!   Realize how blessed you are, even when you hurt.  Realize that the very pain you have and the disappointment you meet in life, will one day be answered by the one who says, “Blessed is the one who takes no offense at me!”   

Do you know how Jesus viewed John?  Jesus is much more than a prophet?  He is “my messenger”.  Jesus says, “among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptizer.”  Jesus will have the last work about John’s disappointment.  He is the reason to keep going through it all, and not just for John.  Do you hear what he says,  “yet the least in the kingdom is greater than he.”   John is remembered because he endured his disappointment; and hope answered.   There will be an even greater answer to our pain, hurt, and disappointment.  Like John, we may not yet see it from our point view, but Jesus already sees it.  We will see it too.  We will see all our disappointment dissolve into the appointment we all one day will have in the purpose and plan of God redemption for us all.  

Finally, there is a wonderful parable that tells us what the fulfillment of God's plan might look like in our lives. There was once a woman who was disappointed, who was disillusioned, who was depressed. She wanted a good world, a peaceful world, and she wanted to be a good person. But the newspaper and television showed her how far we were from such a reality. So she decided to go shopping. She went to the mall and wandered into a new store - where the person behind the counter looked strangely like Jesus. Gathering up her courage she went up to the counter and asked, "Are you Jesus?" "Well, yes, I am," the man answered. "Do you work here?" "Actually," Jesus responded, "I own the store. You are free to wander up and down the aisles, see what it is I sell, and then make a list of what you want. When you are finished, come back here, and we'll see what we can do for you."

So, the woman did just that. And what she saw thrilled her. There was peace on earth, no more war, no hunger or poverty, peace in families, no more drugs, harmony, clean air. She wrote furiously and finally approached the counter, handing a long list to Jesus. He skimmed the paper, and then smiling at her said, "No problem." Reaching under the counter, he grabbed some packets and laid them out on the counter. Confused, she asked, "What are these?" Jesus replied: "These are seed packets. You see, this is a catalog store." Surprised the woman blurted out, "You mean I don't get the finished product?" "No," Jesus gently responded. "This is a place of dreams. You come and see what it looks like, and I give you the seeds. Then you plant the seeds. You go home and nurture them and help them to grow and someone else reaps the benefits." "Oh," she said, deeply disappointed in Jesus. Then she turned around and left the store without buying anything  (Source of this story unknown).  

Friends, I believe that our passage for today speaks to us about our calling as Christians in a world of disappointments.   We are called to face our disappointments and to keep planting seeds.  We are called always to energize with hopeful visions of the world to come, and not to become disillusioned by the world that will never be complete.   This is why we learn to to pray, "Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven"  This is why we keep planting seeds of hope.   This is why we face the worst that can happen to us, with faith.   Jesus told John to look beyond the prison he was in at that moment, and to see what Jesus is doing in the lives of those who believe.   We are told keep believing and to trust for what he will do with our own disappointments.   We can only believe when we continue to trust, hope and keep planting the seeds of faith.   Amen.