The Proof is in the Pudding
When you read the Bible you will always be engaging with two things. . .two words from God: demands and promises. Theologically known as law and gospel. I think demands and promises are often more helpful titles because they do a good job of describing the effect of each word upon us. One demands something of us and the other gives promises to us. The whole practice of doing theology and the key to understanding all of Scripture boils down to understanding the distinction between these two words. The thing about a demand is that when it tells you to do something it doesn’t actually give you the power to do it. It doesn’t give you anything. As our little definition says above demands always and only require something from you. It tells you what to do, but the action and power to do it must come from you.
A promise, on the other hand, is all giving. A promise comes from outside of you, from someone else and requires nothing of you. You don’t even have to believe it for it to happen because promises are always given in the face of doubt and unbelief. It all depends on the one giving it to you. The power for it to come to pass hangs on them, not you. Promises create belief.
As is implied in the above description, God works upon us through these two words. He makes demands of his people, of us, in order to highlight the very fact that we do not have the power to carry out the demand. The demand is not the problem. In fact, the world overwhelmingly agrees the demands are good. You can see it across human history and across all religious and ethical systems. If we could do what is demanded, then things would be better. Don’t murder anyone. Good. Don’t commit adultery. Good. Don’t steal. Good. Don’t lie. Good. Don’t covet (or a more positive way of saying it, be grateful for what you have) Good. In summation: LOVE. Love God with everything you’ve got and love your neighbor as yourself. There is some disagreement over who or what God is, but most people on earth like LOVE itself. Love may get depersonalized and disconnected from God outside of the Abrahamic religions, but that doesn’t change the reality of the ultimate Source or Cause of love. If we just use a little logic we get there. If people agree love is good, and love to love, and if God is love, then loving God is good (1 John 4:16).
The demands are not the problem. The problem is that we don’t have the power to pull them off. All of the problems in our world, historically and today, stem from the fact that we do not and cannot love the way that we agree we should. We can’t even love ourselves the way that we want to most of the time, let alone others or God. So, God uses his demands to show us our powerlessness and our desperation for another word: a promise. We need to be given what we cannot generate ourselves. We need a promise that someone can fill the void of our broken love.
So, when you read the Bible you always need to be looking for these two words at work and remember the proper order: the demands alway lead to the promises. God’s promise is his final word for us. But as you probably already have noticed, this all leads to one big question: can God keep his promises? Or put in the language of the demand: can God fill the void of our broken love? Is he really love? How can we be sure?
Well, you’re not the first to ask.
John the Baptist was a prophet and not just any prophet, but the one who was appointed by God to proclaim the arrival of the Messiah, the Savior of Israel and the whole world, God’s chosen one. He is the one Isaiah prophesied about saying, “A voice cries: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God” (Isaiah 40:3-5). In the gospel books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, John the Baptist is seen as an eccentric character, living in the desert, wearing animal’s hair for clothes, and eating locusts and honey for food, kind of a wild man. But, he was respected by the Jewish community as a prophet and he had one message: the Savior is coming so get ready. Getting ready consisted of repentance or turning away from your wrong doings and getting baptized by John, hence his name John the Baptist.
In the gospel accounts very early on John sees Jesus and recognizes him as the Messiah, as the Savior. At various times he even shouts it as Jesus is walking by, “Look, there he is the Savior, the Lamb who takes away the sins of the world” (John 1:29-35). We learn from the book of Luke that John and Jesus are actually related. John’s mother Elizabeth and Jesus’ mother Mary were related, many believe they were cousins (Luke 1). On top of that, John actually baptizes Jesus and witnesses the miracle where the dove descends upon Jesus from heaven and God’s voice is heard from heaven saying, “This is my Son, with whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3, Mark 1, Luke 3)
I say all of this to give us the broader context of John’s familiarity with Jesus. But in Matthew 11 we find John the Baptist in prison. His situation has changed. Things have taken a turn for the worse, and John knows what’s coming. He knows that he is probably not gonna get out of jail alive. He figures his time is up, and he is beginning to doubt. Like Isaiah describes earlier in chapter 35, he has an anxious heart (vv. 3-4). He’s not so sure any more. I am so grateful that Matthew wrote about this exchange because I am so often there. I go where John went and under far less severe circumstances. When things get difficult in my life I begin to doubt; I begin to wonder; I begin to have an anxious heart. When I say difficult, it usually means something like an unexpected car repair or we’re out of orange juice…you know, horrific things. “First world problems.” as they say. It certainly has not yet reached the level of being in prison and facing execution like John, thank God.
At the same time, all of us do face real challenges in our lives, real struggles even in our first world context where we seem to have everything together on the outside, where we have every creature comfort one could hope for…we still know hardship…we still know suffering. We know brokenness. We experience loss and pain just like every other human being on earth…we just have more resources to help us cover it up better, but it’s still there. I know there have been real trying times in my life when I have doubted that Jesus is who he says he is. Struggles with severe anxiety in my 20s feeling completely out of control and wondering if I would ever be “normal” again was certainly a difficult time. Lying in the hospital being put on medication so that I could calm down and do simple functions like eat and sleep again definitely made me doubt the goodness of Jesus or at least his ability to do anything helpful in my immediate situation. I was skeptical just like John the Baptist. I had an anxious heart.
SO what does John do? He sends some of his followers to go and ask Jesus directly, “Are you the one that we’ve been waiting for or not? Was I wrong about you? Is there someone else because things are not looking great for me?” John wanted to hear it from the horse’s mouth you might say. And I can’t say that I blame him. He wants to make sure his whole life was not a waste. He’s hung everything on Jesus being God’s chosen one, the Savior, and he wants to know if this is going to play out right. He wants to know if God can and will keep his promises.
Jesus’ answer is pretty classic Jesus. He points to what he has done. He says,
“Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.”
Wouldn’t it have been more helpful for him to simply say, “Yes, I am. I am the one.”? There are a lot of accounts in the Bible where Jesus’ responses can often leave us feeling like he’s too cryptic and vague sometimes. Why can’t he just be more direct? You might have guessed, but there is a reason for Jesus’ responding in this manner. He was actually being very direct. He speaks to John in a language that John understands. He erases any doubt in John’s mind because he directly quotes prophecy about the Messiah from Isaiah 35 and also in Psalm 146. As we said before, John is a prophet just like Isaiah was and he would have known these prophecies about the Messiah very well. In fact, he said very similar things about Jesus when he was telling people to get ready. He would have known the promises from Isaiah to those in his situation, to those with anxious hearts…“Be strong; fear not! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come and save you.” John was hoping that Jesus was the one, and he needed to be reassured. SO, Jesus meets John right where he is in a language that he understands that would cut through the noise of John’s anxiety and calm his doubts. In essence, he says the proof is in the pudding – I’m doing everything that Isaiah, and all of the Old Testament for that matter, said I would do. I am making good on my promises.
There's a lot going on in that pudding!
Jesus reveals the fact that He is the redeemer. He is the healer. He is the one that has come to make us whole again, to save us. He gives sight to the blind. He makes the lame walk. He cleans the lepers. He opens the ears of the deaf. He raises the dead to life. He preaches good news to the poor. And, like he did for John, he answers the skeptic, the doubter.
You might be thinking, “That’s a nice story, but that was over 2000 years ago, and I live right here right now. I still have my troubles right now, and I still have my doubts. How do I know Jesus will do any of that for me?” To that I will tell you this: Jesus has met me in my doubt. He has met me in my troubles and pain. Earlier I said that I suffered from severe anxiety and panic attacks. When I was in the throws of them I thought my whole world was crashing in on me, and I cried out to Jesus a lot because I was at the end of my rope. I didn’t have any answers in myself or any ability to deal with the anxiety. I was desperate, and I needed him to meet me. I needed to be saved. And He did. I didn’t wake up the next day completely cured, totally anxiety free. That would have been nice, but I wouldn’t have actually healed at all. The symptom would have simply gone away, but the causes of the symptom would have still been there. But what did happen was that through hitting that rock bottom experience, being brought to that low point Jesus showed me I needed a whole lot more help than I thought. I thought I could handle things in my life; I thought I was pretty stable and together and that I didn’t have any real problems that I couldn’t fix. I was completely wrong. As a result of my anxiety attacks I went into counseling and began uncovering a whole world of emotions that I had denied, that I had stuffed and run away from. I discovered resentments, anger, and fear that stemmed way back into my childhood that I had never wanted to face. I discovered hurts that needed to be felt and faced so that they could be healed.
Jesus met me where I was and took me deeper than I ever thought necessary because He wanted to truly heal me. He didn’t want to simply deal with the symptom of anxiety, but rather the root issues of hurt and emotional and relational confusion. Jesus brought true healing into my life…true redemption. It was not what I expected, and I am so grateful for that because it is better than I could have possibly imagined. I still have my doubting moments as I said, but I have stories now, testimonies, where I know the healing work of Jesus. They remind me that He will meet me where I am, and He’ll meet you where you are. He’s already doing it right now as you read this post. His word is at work on you.
The word of demand is doing its job if you’re at the end of your rope in some area of your life. If you’ve got no more answers, no more effort in and of your self, then you are prepared and ready…desperate for His word of promise. Here it is: you are seen; you are forgiven; you are loved unconditionally; you are not alone. Jesus keeps his promises, just like he said to John. He is opening our eyes to the real issues we are blind to. He is enabling us to walk into the pain and hurt that once crippled us. To face it, to be set free from it. He has already cleansed us from the sins we have committed and the unforgiveness we harbor against others. He is opening our ears to hear the good news of His unconditional love and grace for us, right here, right now. And He will raise us from the dead, from a place of isolation and fear to a place of freedom and connection to Him, to ourselves, and those around us. He gives us new life. He is the healer. He is the Redeemer. And He is for you. Amen.
Recommended Reading
