“Are You the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?”

Matthew 11:4

Having sent out the Twelve into Galilee to heal and evangelize, their first such mass ministry, Jesus followed by preaching here and there in that area as well.  It was then that some of the disciples of John the Baptist approached Jesus with a question that John, now a prisoner of Rome and the Jews, was asking, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?”   

Evidently John was having a problem with Jesus.  He must have recalled that memorable day not too many months before this Jesus went to the Jordan where John was baptizing and there requested that John baptize him as well.  God spoke, “This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.”   John certainly heard this loud and clear. By baptism he had made a disciple of his cousin, Jesus.  A great day for John the Baptist!

Imagine how troubled John was, then, that Jesus did not act at all like one of his own trained disciples who led austere lives, ate strange food, never touched alcoholic drinks, did not mix with “ordinary Jews” of the time, but, rather stood outside the culture as a witness to that culture.  They were not given to the healing of the sick and delivering the demonized.  At least they were not known for that.  They were a very strict sect, followers of John who himself was not only in trouble with the Jews but with the Romans as well, who was now in a Roman prison cell.  It was while John was in jail that he needed to know, desperately, if Jesus was the promised Messiah or not.  I do not wonder why John was confused.

Even though Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist he did not become a follower of John.  This troubled John, because it seems that he was convinced that what he taught and preached was the highest form of Jewish piety. On the other hand, Jesus was found in the homes of prostitutes, despised tax collectors and at parties!  Horrors.  John’s disciples would never do such things.

This should give us some pause, especially those of us who are in churches that try not to be conformed to this world so we flake off and live with those like us.  The Scripture teaches us not to be conformed to this world, but it also teaches us to relate to sinners to win some, as Jesus did.

Matthew, the tax collector probed this ministry of Jesus.  He was the result of Jesus acting, not like John the Baptist but like Jesus Christ the friend of sinners.