December 10, 2004

Pointing

Advent 3A

There is always an element of uncertainty in a life of faith.

Faith makes for open minds. And open minds are not only marked by curiosity, they are also marked by risk. Curiosity and risk are two of the hallmarks of a faithful life. To make faith into a closed system, nailed down in some century long past and for all time, is not faith, but dogma. It has its place. It is safe. There is little or no risk. Religions thrive on it. But it is not faith.

Even that clarion of certainty, John, the Baptist, finally had his moment of zen there in that prison when he sent his followers to ask Jesus, “Art thou he that should come? Or do we seek another?” Are you the one? Or do we have to keep waiting — and looking? (Mt 11.2-11) John spent his entire life, if we’re to believe his mom, pointing to Jesus and taking the risk of faith.

When John finally got prison for his reward and entertained a healthy moment of doubt, Jesus understood. He answered John in effect with what John already knew. He answered John with the only truthful answers that can ever be given to certify the presence and work of Jesus, the Christ.

The work you have already witnessed, he said to John, continues. Be assured. The blind see. The lame walk, The deaf hear. The poor now hear and know the gospel of justice and peace. A broken world is being healed, and wherever that healing takes place, we and John can know for sure, there is present the kingdom of God.

We make covenant in our baptism to “seek and serve Christ in all persons… ” And we may well and fairly ask, “Yes, but how will I know this Christ?” It is the same question John asked, for our baptism not only commissions us to be Christians, it commissions us to John’s ministry, as well. It is a ministry to witness, to point, to say Here, There is the Christ, in this event, in that healing, in that judgment, in that moment of truth.

Civil rights leader Howard Thurman set the stage for us to know this Christ when he wrote of this Advent and Christmas season of hope that “When the song of the angels is stilled. When the star of the sky is gone. When the kings and princes are home. When the shepherds are back with their flocks. The work begins… To find the lost. To heal the broken. To feed the hungry. To rebuild the nations. To bring peace among people. To make music in the heart.”

It is a ministry made even more difficult because — as Jesus said — there will be and there are “false Christs” who would lead us astray. There are “Christs” who would justify war, who would substitute piety for service, who would put orthodoxy before sacrifice, who would make the gospel a system or a philosophy rather than the Way of life.

When we make that vow in our baptism to seek and serve Christ, when we ask that question with John, Are you the one? we soon discover that we are not only part of the answer, we are the answer. In this present time in the church… we can’t just be given the answer, we must be the answer. For it is the Christ in us that will always recognize the Christ in all.

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