Now when John heard in prison about the things the Christ was doing, he sent word by his disciples to Jesus, asking, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?”

Jesus responded, “Go, report to John what you hear and see. Those who were blind are able to see. Those who were crippled are walking. People with skin diseases are cleansed. Those who were deaf now hear. Those who were dead are raised up. The poor have good news proclaimed to them. Happy are those who don’t stumble and fall because of me.”

When John’s disciples had gone, Jesus spoke to the crowds about John: “What did you go out to the wilderness to see? A stalk blowing in the wind? What did you go out to see? A man dressed up in refined clothes? Look, those who wear refined clothes are in royal palaces. What did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. He is the one of whom it is written: Look, I’m sending my messenger before you, who will prepare your way before you.

“I assure you that no one who has ever been born is greater than John the Baptist. Yet whoever is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.

Matthew 11:2-11 (CEB)

So, on the Second Sunday of Advent, I preached about John the Baptist and made mention of the fact that John had no doubt in his mind about the truth of what he was preaching and no doubt about the purpose God had given him for his life. Now, on the heels of that, we have this text from Matthew where John has sent some of his disciples to ask Jesus, John’s own cousin, if he is actually the one whose coming John had been talking about before getting thrown into prison, the same Jesus whom John had himself baptized in the Jordan.

We are given the impression that John knew who Jesus was when he approached for baptism in Matthew 4 when “John tried to stop him and said, ‘I need to be baptized by you, yet you come to me?'” (v. 14). Now we read in Matthew 11 that John may not have known for sure whether or not Jesus was actually the promised Messiah. Surely some amount of time had passed between Jesus’s baptism and John’s arrest. Perhaps John’s imprisonment had cultivated some doubt in his mind about whether or not he was right about Jesus being the promised One.

Here are my thoughts on this and I would love to hear what you think: Jesus tells John’s disciples to go back and tell John about what they “hear and see” (v. 4). John baptized Jesus, but immediately after his baptism Jesus is driven by the Holy Spirit into the desert and endured temptation. After that, he would have went on about his mission, and John would not have seen him again nor would he have had occasion to witness Jesus’s work. Since John did not get to see any of Jesus’s ministry first hand, he sent his people to Jesus to find out for him. Jesus tells them, essentially, “the proof is in the pudding.” Go and tell John what they have witnessed. The blind can see. The disabled are walking. The sick are healed. The deaf hear, the dead are resurrected, and the poor (of which John was one), are offered the Good News, being put first over and above the rich elite for the first time in their lives. Jesus is doing the scandalous things that the Roman Empire and the religious leaders would be embarrassed by. If he is not the Messiah, then who else could Jesus be?

Once John heard that report, he would go on to meet his own execution knowing that he had fulfilled the purpose for his life, that he had made a pathway in the desert for God who became flesh and dwelt among us, for Emmanuel, who is God with us eternally. He would know this because people who had sought out Jesus had found him, and because Jesus had then sent them to be witnesses to John about what they had heard the Christ say and seen the Christ do.

May we go and do the same, that others may also know. O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.