Advent 3
Devotional
Water From the Well
Lectionary Devotional For Cycle A
Object:
... Are you the one who is to come or are we to wait for another?
-- Matthew 11:3
John sat in prison and wondered whether Jesus was the Christ. Why should he wonder? Because the hope had been that when the Messiah came, the powers of injustice would no longer prevail, and yet John was continuing to experience that injustice in his own personal life. When Matthew wrote the gospel, that same haunting question plagued the early church. Despite their faith in the resurrected Christ, the problem was that the world continued to experience the injustice they had experienced prior to Jesus' coming. If it was Jesus who John's disciples questioned in Matthew, today it is the forms of the body of Christ. Many people have grown discouraged trying to find the true church and have tried to be Christian apart from the body of Christ. Many others float from church to church seeking the true church. Others grumble or seek changes within their church to try to make it more responsive to their expectations. All are asking: "Is this God's church or shall we look for another?" Jesus' response, "By their fruits you shall know them," is scary for a church that always feels inadequate in its response to its call. Jesus pointed to the fruits of his ministry -- "the blind receive their sight ... and the poor have good news brought to them." Then he added, "Blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me." Why would anyone take offense at Jesus' good works? Was it because such good works were so other-directed that it called attention to their (our) selfishness? Do we demand that the body of Christ meet our expectation, or we will not follow? What is the faithful response when the body of Christ does not live up to our expectations?
-- Matthew 11:3
John sat in prison and wondered whether Jesus was the Christ. Why should he wonder? Because the hope had been that when the Messiah came, the powers of injustice would no longer prevail, and yet John was continuing to experience that injustice in his own personal life. When Matthew wrote the gospel, that same haunting question plagued the early church. Despite their faith in the resurrected Christ, the problem was that the world continued to experience the injustice they had experienced prior to Jesus' coming. If it was Jesus who John's disciples questioned in Matthew, today it is the forms of the body of Christ. Many people have grown discouraged trying to find the true church and have tried to be Christian apart from the body of Christ. Many others float from church to church seeking the true church. Others grumble or seek changes within their church to try to make it more responsive to their expectations. All are asking: "Is this God's church or shall we look for another?" Jesus' response, "By their fruits you shall know them," is scary for a church that always feels inadequate in its response to its call. Jesus pointed to the fruits of his ministry -- "the blind receive their sight ... and the poor have good news brought to them." Then he added, "Blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me." Why would anyone take offense at Jesus' good works? Was it because such good works were so other-directed that it called attention to their (our) selfishness? Do we demand that the body of Christ meet our expectation, or we will not follow? What is the faithful response when the body of Christ does not live up to our expectations?
