A Very Happy Christmas
and a
Peaceful New Year
to You
and to Our World

Matt 11:2-11 John the Baptist

We discussed who he was – the messenger of the long awaited Messiah, living off the land in the Judaean wilderness where he preached repentance to everyone, and baptised them. Was this location a concrete prophetic sign that the people should once more return to the desert to encounter God afresh and prepare for God's chosen one?

Today's reading has moved on and John has been imprisoned by Herod, the local ruler. What would John feel like? Defeated, disorientated? - probably in a dark dungeon, a great contrast to the wide spaces and skies of the desert. Not surprisingly he doubted his mission, and even who Jesus was. Are we sometimes imprisoned by problems of ourselves or our families, or of the world in which we live. Do we question our faith? Hopefully we do! Hopefully we try to work out how what we believe, fits in with the situation we're in – we agreed in a helpful discussion that this is difficult, and there are no easy answers. Yet this is how our faith can grow and become more meaningful in our lives.

Christian experience through the ages often tells of famous saints who doubted and questioned. We spent a little time thinking of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, also in prison facing a death at the whim of an unstable ruler. In 'Letters and Papers from Prison' he evaluates his faith and tries to make it relevant to his situation and the changing circumstances of modern life. His question, 'What do we really believe in such a way that we stake our lives on it' ? was John's question too, and should be ours.

Jesus' answer was one which left John to work it out for himself, though he would easily recognise the allusions to Old Testament prophecy; yet he would have to come to terms with a Messiah probably very different from what he expected, and to learn that God acts in surprising ways.

Who is Jesus? - we should be glad that John who met Jesus face to face, nevertheless had to struggle with this question – so it's OK for us too. Today's pink Advent candle reminds us that John, despite his doubts, really was the messenger of the good news of Jesus – whose birth we shall very soon be celebrating.

Judith