Breaking Open the Word

Isaiah 35:1-6a, 10
James 5:7-10
Matthew 11:2-11
 
 
Isaiah Chapter 35 is a very short chapter with only 10 verses in total, and for me it only makes sense to include the other three verses that are not in our reading today. They follow the same theme as the rest of the verses and add more description to the overall events that have taken place.
 
Remembering that Isaiah is addressed to the people who had suffered due to the exile, we can now see these passages as a joyful return to their beloved homeland as they return from captivity.
 
This sounds like a parade, a triumphal procession. For those of us who are old enough to remember, think of a ticker tape parades in New York City, or the parades that some cities host when they celebrate some championship their hometown team has won.
 
The language is one that offers hope, comfort and offers consolation to the people. The descriptions of the desert blooming, the deaf to hear, and the mute will sing are all signs that there is one who is greater than all who is making His presence felt to the people He has saved; created in His own likeness, those who return to Zion singing and praising the Lord with joy. For them, sorrow and mourning will be replaced with joy and gladness.  
 
While there is debate over which James we hear from in this letter, James from Matt 10:3, or the James in Gal 1:9, what is not debated is the value in the content of what has been written. This is a letter that is full of New Testament themes, of moral teaching and exhortations, often making reference to being persistent and urging the people to excellence.
 
The theme of patience in James letter is one that we really need to draw upon in our daily life. That especially should be true in this season of Advent, that as we prepare for this season, the rememberance of the birth of our Savior, we must be patient with the people and events that surround our lives, Our tendencies to run around shopping, going from store to store, to fill our schedules with one event after another are the kinds of things that James is warning us about. We must continue to focus on our relationship with God and the covenant He has made with His people.
 
Matthew continues with his story of John the Baptist and the significance it plays with the role Jesus has concerning His cousin. This is the third time Matthew makes reference to him in his gospel. We first hear of him in Matt 3:1-2, our gospel last week, where John is baptizing people in the River Jordan, cleansing them from their sins by immersion in the river. We first hear that John has been arrested in chapter 4 of Matthew after Jesus returns from His forty days in the desert and the temptations by Satan. Next is our reading this week when Jesus answers the disciples of John about who He is. Last, it is not until chapter 14 when we hear the reason why Herod has John arrested and beheaded.
 
In today’s gospel Jesus gives John’s disciples the answers that they are seeking as to who He is, the one from the Old Testament that points to the Messiah.  They are to tell John that the blind now see, the deaf now hear, the cripple can walk and the lepers are cleansed, all signs from the Old Testament as to what the Messiah would do for the people and as a fulfilment to the prophet Malachi, the last prophet in the Old Testament.
 
As John’s disciples left to report to John, Jesus continues to address the crowds around Him. They were expecting John to be a great prophet, even as great as Elijah. They were looking for the prophet that announce the coming of the Lord. Jesus reinforces that image of John as a prophet, but says the John is more than that. Jesus tells the people that John is the precursor of Jesus, not the precursor of the Lord as they had thought, a subtle difference to us today when see Jesus as the Son of God, but for the Jews in Jesus time it was very significant.
 
With one last significant statement in our scripture today, Jesus tells the people that of all of the people born of women, that John, while great in his own role, everyone who belongs to the kingdom of heaven is greater than John. That is the Good News for us today.