Is this all?

He has had the dramatic scene that we heard last week, when he could thunder at the scribes and Pharisees “Who told you to flee the wrath to come? Bear fruit worthy of repentance.”

And the crowds ate it up. ”You tell them, John!”

He looked up one day, and there came Jesus, asking for baptism.

John was confused.

It seems as though the Gospel writers aren't quite sure what to make of it either, and the best they can do is to say that it is in order “to fulfill all righteousness,” to demonstrate to us what we need to be doing.

But that is in the past,

and now John sits on the riverbank, wondering what is next.

The crowds coming out to him are diminishing even as the crowds following Jesus are growing larger.

Scripture does not tell us for sure, but we get the impression that John is perhaps disappointed.

His career has been like a meteor, very bright... but short.

He has been anticipating Messiah;

he has been pointing to Jesus, but what is to happen next?

Will the people really change their ways?

Will they truly follow Messiah as he is revealed?

Did his call for repentance, urging the people to allow their life to be turned around, go unheeded?

Then, abruptly, King Herod has had John arrested and imprisoned.

He kept him close so that he could trot him out now and again and command him to talk.

We would assume that it was partly because of curiosity, and partly for amusement.

We might imagine Herod saying:

“Bring me John. I want him to tell me again about the Pharisees and how they will burn with God's fire. They annoy me, too, most of the time.”

And then, back in his cell, John must wonder, “Is this all there is?

Am I just to be a sideshow for Herod's amusement?

I recognized Jesus when he came to the Jordan that day. (After all, he is a relative!)

I baptized him as he insisted...and then he disappeared into the wilderness.

I was expecting...well I'm not sure what I was expecting...but something more than what I saw next.

He disappeared into the wilderness and there was no fire from heaven, no swallowing of the sinful into the earth, no voice like thunder bringing the nations into submission.

Jesus disappeared into the wilderness, and soon after, Herod had me arrested, and here I sit in prison.

Is this all there is?

How will God act in this situation?

What is next?”

Apparently, John's disciples and friends are able to visit him in prison and tell him about current events.

He hears then that Jesus has re-appeared after his time in the wilderness.

He hears about the many activities of Jesus, but nothing about thunder and fire from heaven.

So, wondering whether or not Jesus is truly Messiah as he had announced at the baptism, John sends emissaries to Jesus to ask 'What's up?'

And Jesus' response is very interesting.

He tells them to look around and see what is happening, and compare that with the vision of Isaiah:

Go and 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 brought to them.

And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.

Things are changing, people.

You may have to look closely and listen carefully, but things are changing.

You're expecting the highly dramatic, the volcanic explosion sorts of things.

But the Kingdom of God is not breaking into the world in those ways, but rather in a transformation of person by person.

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 brought to them.

There are different kinds of blindness, lameness, illnesses, and death.

There are the physical sorts, and then there are the spiritual kinds as well.

One might still see the crowd, without recognizing the figure of Jesus active in its midst.

One might be physically able to run a marathon without realizing what is the true goal of all of the effort of life.

One may still be breathing physically while bearing the stale odor of spiritual death.

“Look again,” Jesus tells John's disciples, “and see how things are changing.”

See how God's kingdom is already breaking in, one person at a time.

Oh, yes, all things will in God's good time be remade; there will be new heaven and a new earth, but already the transformation is underway in quieter ways.

The other day I came across a published account of a man named Lance Minor.

His life as an advertizing executive had been wildly successful, with a large salary, fantastic bonus, and lots of perks.

But one morning he woke up and asked himself, “Is this all there is? I felt a big hole in my stomach,” he said”, a big hole that I had been covering up by keeping busy.”

Since he had built his life on making money, when he discovered that to be empty, there was nothing left.

He considered suicide.

His wife suggested that he talk with a friend, to whom he confided that he hated himself.

“Congratulations,” this man responded to Lance, ”you have taken the first step toward a different life, acknowledging the depth of your situation. Most people just keep on running away from the truth.”

Lance became involved in one of the 12-step programs, and his life is now very different.

“I am still working on the amazing fact that God loves me.

I know it in principle, but I know what a sinner I am – in thought, word, and deed,” he says, adding “Life has been a series of stepping stones, thanks to God's grace.”

[“U-Turn in the Fast Lane”, Salvo, Issue 15, winter 2010, pp.56-58]

This week I spoke with a person who asked in effect “Is this all there is? My life is such a mess that I am losing hope.”

We had to talk about the gifts that God offers us, where to recognize them and grab hold of them, after we first recognize that we have hit bottom by ourselves.

Thanks be to God for that first step.

This week I heard the story of another local person, one who seems to be spiritually dead, with whom there was the first glimmer of a new beginning of life.

Let there be rejoicing over that tiny step.

“Is this all there is?: wars and rumors of wars, anxieties of every sort, the rat-race of daily life.

No! There is more, much more.

“Is this all there is?” is our question as it was for John the Baptizer, the prophet Isaiah, for Lance Minor, and many others.

Scripture doesn't tell us how John the Baptizer responded to Jesus' words, but we do know what Isaiah spoke in his situation centuries earlier.

His were words of hope instead of despair,

confidence instead of dismay,

a vision of the completed work of God instead of a tangle of present worries.

No, we don't have to be despondent because the entire list of things that Isaiah projects are not happening on a world-wide scale that we can see now.

In God's good time it will be revealed to us.

Let the excited tone of the prophet Isaiah become our tone as well.

Rejoice, because some persons are hearing Good News and responding.

Rejoice that we have some people in The Way.

Rejoice that some persons are taking time to share Jesus by their words and actions.

Rejoice that some who have been spiritually lame are learning to get up and walk again.

Rejoice because in God's good time, the whole of creation will join in the song,

sorrow and sighing shall flee away,

and the desert shall blossom. Amen.

Please note: The preceding sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.