Jesus, are you the one?

Now when John heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?”
And Jesus answered them, “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.”  Luke 7:2-6 (English Standard Version)

John the Baptist
 by Leonardo da Vinci

John the Baptist had staked his whole life on obeying God's call to be the forerunner, the herald, of the Messiah. He'd never shirked speaking the truth as God revealed it to him, whether to the despised local soldiers and tax collectors, or to the respectable and respected Pharisees, or to the powerful King Herod. He'd pointed repeatedly to Jesus as the coming Messiah, and humbly acknowledged his own inferior status. Now he sat in a dark, stinking cell in Herod's prison. It was unlikely that he'd ever leave that cell alive.

He could have followed his father into the temple service, an honorable and respectable occupation, with the opportunity to marry and have a family. Instead he'd gone off into the desert, living rough with only his disciples for company. While not making any claim himself that he was the expected Elijah, sent to call the people to repentance, he'd lived with the same fierce determination that Elijah had to do God's will and turn God's people back to him. He was a prophet like the prophets of old.

John the Baptist
by Guido Reni

Not long before his arrest, he'd met Jesus by the banks of the Jordan and recognised him as the one he'd been telling people about. Jesus had come to him and asked to be baptised. It must have been an awe-inspiring experience for John. What made him so certain, at that moment, that Jesus was the messiah? Did he receive some prompt from God? (John 1:32) He certainly appeared to be in no doubt that all that he had predicted about the one who was to come was fulfilled in this man Jesus.

Yet now, in the prison cell, he seems to have had a crisis of belief. He's heard rumours and reports about what Jesus is doing, but they don't seem to encourage him. He sends his disciples to Jesus to ask him "Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?"


Did the question startle Jesus? He was used to the constant quizzing of the Pharisees and Sadducees, the ignorant questions of the disciples, but now John himself questions his role as Messiah. John, who had confidently declared 'Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world' now asks 'Are you the one...?'

What was happening to John?

It has been suggested that it was John's disciples, rather than John, who had begun to doubt Jesus. So John sent them to Jesus to straighten them out. But as Leon Morris points out, this seems so artificial and contrived for a man in John's situation that it is unlikely to be the reason.

Nor is it likely that John had only just begun to understand who Jesus was and wanted confirmation. All four gospels speak of John pointing to Jesus as the anointed one from the beginning of his ministy. The two most  likely explanations of John's question is either that he had genuinely begun to doubt as a result of his circumstances, or that his understanding of what it meant to be Messiah was faulty.

It could be that John expected the Messiah to be a powerful figure who would bring in the kingdom of God with a demonstration of God's wrath and judgement. He'd warned people to 'flee from the wrath to come' and had predicted that Jesus would bring a 'baptism of fire'. It is plausible that, on hearing of Jesus' activities, he was concerned about the apparent absence of anything that tallied with those prophesies. His question could be a way of saying 'Isn't it time to get on with your real mission?'  This would be compatible with Luke's statement that he sent his disciples to Jesus after hearing reports of what Jesus was doing.

Alternatively, John's crisis of faith could be a manifestation of the stress he was under. Some would argue that a man of John's calibre and strength of character would be unlikely to fall into doubt just because his life was difficult and he faced death. He'd always lived on the edge, courting danger by speaking his mind. He must have been prepared for what had happened. Opposition usually reinforces the faith and confidence of such people rather than diminishing it.

One like Elijah

San Juan woodcarving
Photo credit: Santiago Martinez Delgado /
 Foter.com / CC BY-SA

Yet the Old Testament gives us an example of another prophet who, after boldly proclaiming his message and facing up to fierce opposition, suddenly seems to crumple in the face of the threat of death. The example is none other than Elijah himself, the one to whom everyone was comparing John.

Elijah had been antagonising King Ahab and Queen Jezebel for years. He'd just had a dramatic confrontation with the prophets of Baal, a confrontation in which he'd staked his faith on God's sovereignty and won. Jezebel, not pleased at having her prophets mocked and then slaughtered, had promised to kill Elijah as soon as she found him. In response, Elijah fled to the desert. Hiding in a cave, he pleaded with God to let him die. (1 Kings 18, 19) The once-bold prophet had had enough. In his misery he came to the false conclusion that he was the only prophet of God left. (1 Kings 19:10)

In a way, it hardly matters what brought about John's questioning of Jesus. Whether it was from an inadequate grasp of the nature of God's Messiah, or doubts brought on by extreme physical and emotional stress, he was experiencing a crisis of major significance.

Had John's life work been a huge mistake?

John the Baptist's tomb

If Jesus was not the Messiah, then John's whole ministry had been a tragic, costly mistake. He had been told from infancy that God had set him apart for a special mission. He had been obedient to God's call. Just when he seemed to be most successful in his calling, he'd recognised Jesus as the one whose arrival he'd been preparing people for. He'd acknowledged Jesus' ministry as far more important than his own, and like a supporting actor had stepped back from the limelight to allow the focus to fall on Jesus.

If he'd got it wrong, then not only would he look foolish to the people, he would also have been guilty of failing God. Or worse than that, of being a false prophet. False prophets were deemed worthy of death,  as Moses had made clear:

“If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or wonder that he tells you comes to pass, and if he says, ‘Let us go after other gods,’ which you have not known, ‘and let us serve them,’ you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams. For the LORD your God is testing you, to know whether you love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul. You shall walk after the LORD your God and fear him and keep his commandments and obey his voice, and you shall serve him and hold fast to him. But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he has taught rebellion against the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you out of the house of slavery, to make you leave the way in which the LORD your God commanded you to walk. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.  Deuteronomy 13:1-5 (ESV)

Encouraging people to follow Jesus as the messiah if he was not, in fact, the messiah, would amount to calling people to rebel against God. Such a thought must have made John shudder.

This is not the intellectual doubt of someone who isn't sure of the facts. It's not the doubt of someone who has tried faith in Jesus and now wonders if they might try some other, more convenient or more exciting faith. It's the desperate, mind-consuming doubt of someone who sees the meaning of their whole life hanging on the answer to the question "Are you the one...?' It's the doubt of someone who has led others, taught others, and now fears that they may have led others astray and taught what is untrue. It's a crisis of faith that only those who have been truly and whole-heartedly committed to Christ can experience.

Mid life doubts 

How many pastors, preachers, evangelists, and missionaries reach mid life and find themselves wondering "Was it all worthwhile? Is the gospel really true, or have I been wasting my life?" How many lay leaders, having spent years giving all their free time to ministry within the church, come to middle age and find themselves questioning the value of what they've been doing?

I say "middle aged" because in my experience, this is when such doubts arise. Mid life is when most people begin to assess what they have achieved and evaluate its worth. Those who have committed their life to teaching and preaching the gospel are usually well behind their peers when it comes to what the world sees as success. They have accumulated little and have little to show for a lifetime of hard work. The results of their labours in blessing other people's lives are not easy to see or to measure.

Added to that are the encroaching limitations of old age and the illnesses that become more common with age. It's difficult to remain positive when physically stressed.

Mid life is also often a time when a person's faith (Christian or otherwise) naturally starts to become less defined by public doctrine and more by experience and personal conviction. Doctrine isn't so much rejected as relegated to second place. However, in the process it can seem that one is losing one's faith. Seeing the enthusiasm of younger believers to express their faith by vigorously defending doctrine, and feeling a lack of such enthusiasm oneself, one can start to think that this implies a lack of belief.

The dilemma for a person in ministry is that they have limited opportunities to discuss what is going on in their minds. Those they minister to expect them to preach or teach or offer pastoral comfort with conviction and confidence. Expressing personal doubts in public is frowned upon in most congregations on the assumption that young believers exposed to older believer's doubts will become confused and led astray. There is some justification for this. Or they may be afraid that if their doubts become known they will lose their ministry role. So they go on preaching or teaching while struggling with a growing sense of hypocrisy and falseness. This adds to their distress.

Having courage to ask the difficult questions

We have to admire the courage of John in sending his disciples to Jesus. Here was the Baptiser, once so confident in his pronouncements, now acknowledging to these disciples that he was no longer sure that he'd got it right. How surprised they must have been when he gave them his message to take to Jesus. Did they keep it to themselves, or did the rumour quickly spread "John is no longer sure that this Jesus is the messiah"? Imagine the stir if someone like Billy Graham let it be known that he was beginning to question the truth of what he'd preached.

How did Jesus respond to John's question? At first glance, it seems as though Jesus' answer doesn't say much at all. John has heard about what Jesus is doing and sends his disciples with his question. Jesus says "Think about what I'm doing" and sends them back, with the added warning "Blessed is the one who does not take offence at me."

When the disciples have gone he goes on to tell the crowd that no-one has been greater than John the Baptist. But sitting in his cell, John doesn't hear this. He only gets the cryptic answer - "the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them". Didn't he already know that?

We're not told how John responded. It's likely that he would have recognised in Jesus' words a reference to several well-known scriptures. Isaiah 29:18 speaks of the deaf hearing and the blind seeing when God redeems Israel, a time when:

 "The meek shall obtain fresh joy in the LORD,and the poor among mankind shall exult in the Holy One of Israel". 

Isaiah 32:4-6 would have spoken to John's fearful heart:

Say to those who have an anxious heart,“Be strong; fear not! Behold, your God will come with vengeance,with the recompense of God.He will come and save you.” Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then shall the lame man leap like a deer,and the tongue of the mute sing for joy. For waters break forth in the wilderness,and streams in the desert; Isaiah 35:4-6 (ESV)

Psalm 146 must have come to John's mind too:

Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob,whose hope is in the LORD his God, who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, who keeps faith forever; who executes justice for the oppressed, who gives food to the hungry.The LORD sets the prisoners free; the LORD opens the eyes of the blind.The LORD lifts up those who are bowed down; the LORD loves the righteous. Psalms 146:5-8 (ESV)

The message would have been strong and clear - if this is what the LORD does, if this is what you see and hear me doing, then draw your conclusion and stop being afraid. Blessed is the one who is not offended by me.

Jesus gives John no timetable, no promises, simply a reminder to focus on what he is doing and what that implies. What can we learn from this?

Asking the right person

First, let's note that John, in the midst of his doubts, sends his disciples to Jesus for an answer. He questions Jesus himself rather than sending to someone else. Perhaps he did discuss his doubts with his disciples, but in the end he turns to Jesus to put his doubts to rest.

This says something about John's relationship with Jesus. He has not lost faith in Jesus as a person. He hasn't written Jesus off as an imposter or a deceiver. It is his own understanding of Jesus mission that he's questioning, not Jesus' character. In John's mind, Jesus may not be the messiah he proclaimed him to be, but he is still someone whose word can be trusted.

In a similar crisis of faith, when nothing seems certain, it's helpful to keep addressing our questions to Jesus. If the only shred left of your faith is that Jesus is, or perhaps only 'was', a man of integrity whose word you respect, then hold on to that. Don't be afraid to ask him the difficult questions, the seemingly obvious questions, the questions that might seem impious and faithless.

If we have no sense of the presence of the Spirit of Jesus in prayer, we can still go to the gospel accounts with our questions and read their record of Jesus' words and deeds.  Other believers, books, the Internet, can all provide us with information and arguments to support our faith, but in the end, we need to hear from Jesus himself.

Photo credit: Foter.com / Public Domain Mark 1.0