Expectations and Reality

When the Two Meet at Christmas
Dr. Larry Thorson
12/10/06

Matthew 11:1-11

Scripture Reading: After Jesus had finished instructing his twelve disciples, he went on from there to teach and preach in the towns of Galilee.

When John heard in prison what Christ was doing, he sent his disciples to ask him, “Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?” Jesus replied, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor. Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me.”

As John’s disciples were leaving, Jesus began to speak to the crowd about John: “What did you go out into the desert to see? A reed swayed by the wind? If not, what did you go out to see? A man dressed in fine clothes? No, those who wear fine clothes are in kings’ palaces. Then what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet.

This is the one about whom it is written: “ ‘I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.’ I tell you the truth: Among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. New International Version

We’re down to fourteen days to make this a great Christmas. Planning. Shopping. Partying. Cards. Decorating. Cooking. Eating. Regardless of your circumstances, whether you have no extra money, no family nearby, no loved one with you, lousy health, stuck in a desert, you are in control of whether this will be a great Christmas for you or not. Nobody ever forced Ebenezer Scrooge to say “Bah humbug”. He did that on his own. You have fourteen days to decide what kind of Christmas you’re going to have, regardless of the circumstances.

Our problem at Christmas time often is that Dr. Expectation meets Professor Reality. The two don’t seem to care much for one another. We have our expectations about Christmas should be like. Sometimes those expectations have resemblances to reality but usually not.

Last week on the road to Christmas we encountered John the Baptist as a man with great expectations for the birth of his cousin Jesus. He was full of fire and brimstone, clearing a path, with an axe in his hand, preparing the way of the Lord. His cry was powerful and clear: "Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand!" He was sure of himself, confident, passionate, fiery. His cry was a harsh cry of God's judgment, but also one of great hope, that the Messiah, the Savior was coming at last to deliver and save Israel.

This week it’s much later in the story and we find him in prison, thrown there by King Herod. He had been so certain that his cousin was the promised Messiah who would save and deliver Israel from Roman oppression, that he stepped out in faith and publicly accused Herod of both incest and adultery. (Herod took his niece, who was already married to his brother, to be his wife.)

He did that with the full expectation that Jesus would rush in and overthrow the Roman governor, throwing Herod in jail. But instead Jesus did nothing, and John found himself in jail. I suspect, from John's vantage point, Jesus was doing nothing to topple Herod, or to begin insurrection against Roman rule. In other words, Jesus was disappointing his expectations for a Messiah.
So from prison, knowing that his death was near, his tone has changed completely from our story last week. He’s suddenly not so sure of himself, or of Jesus. So he asks from his cell a question that must have been very hard for Jesus to hear: "Are you the One who is to come, or shall we look for another?" What he was asking was this: "Are you the Messiah, or should we be looking for someone else?"
John's whole ministry had been built on the expectation that Jesus was the political savior. When Jesus came to be baptized by John he said to Jesus "If anyone ought to be baptized, you ought to be baptizing me!." "One is coming after me who is mightier than I, the thong of whose sandal I am not fit to untie!" Only now he’s not so sure. "Are you the One, Jesus? Or should we be looking for someone else?"

What he was saying was this: "You don't look like the kind of Messiah I thought you would be, Jesus! And you aren't acting like I thought you would act!" So John, once so passionately certain, isn't certain of anything. His reality wasn’t matching his expectations.

It ought to serve as a sobering reminder to us that even the most passionate believers can be given to serious doubt. And this is especially so when God seems to disappoint our expectations, or doesn’t fulfill our notions of who He should be and what He should do. Woody Allen once said in one of his movies, "It's not that I hate God, but I do think he is an underachiever."

Most of us wouldn’t dream of saying such a thing out loud, but I suspect a lot of us have thought it! God hasn’t done what we thought God should be doing.

In my previous church the senior pastor wanted to offer a “Longest Night” service, a one time service to help those who had lost loved ones in the last year to cope with their first Christmas without their loved one. Typically we would have 45-50 families who had suffered death in their family in the last year; a parent, aunt, cousin, etc. My job was to call each person in December who had suffered the loss and invite them to the service. In the process it would give me a chance to see how they were adjusting to the loss. What I discovered was that on the surface everyone I talked to was doing great, excited about Christmas. The more they talked feelings would come out that they didn’t even know they had regarding their loss. Everybody was celebrating but them. Where was Jesus in their grief? Was he out celebrating also?

So maybe we are not so far from John's question: "Are you the One who is to come, or should we look for another?" What he is really asking, is this: "Are you the Messiah? Are you God?" And the question behind it is this one: "How can I know, especially when my life is so disappointing, so much not what I expected it would be, Jesus?"
Expectations are built on glorified versions of our past. Like fishermen retelling the story of their big catch; each time the story is told the fish grows at least six inches. Expectations don’t contain a lot of reality.

A young quarterback signed a letter of intent to play football at the University of Texas with the expectation that he would be the starting quarterback since last year’s quarterback turned pro. When he got to the school he lost the starting job to another freshman named Colt McCoy. Late in the season McCoy was injured and the team needed a backup. Unfortunately the young backup quarterback decided to leave the school because he didn’t get the starting job leaving the team without an experienced quarterback for their upcoming bowl game. He had expectations but his reality didn’t match up so he quit and left his team and himself in a mess.

John the Baptist expected the Messiah to be a political savior for Israel. Any reality short of that was a disappointment to him, especially when his life was at stake. Unfortunately John was eventually beheaded by Herod’s men and we don’t know how he would have adjusted to his new reality of Jesus not being the political savior. We don’t know if he would have quit or adjusted.

We know of Ulysses S. Grant as the man who accepted Lee's surrender at Appomattox and who returned from the Civil War a hero and celebrity. But his life was a series of one setback and disappointment after another. After the Mexican War, he was assigned to an outpost in the West and started drinking again. Almost always when he was separated from his beloved wife, Julia, for great lengths he would struggle with alcohol. Grant resigned his commission and returned to Galeena, Illinois, to work as a clerk in his father's tannery business. He was a lousy clerk! Then with the outbreak of the War Between the States, he re-enlisted. After Shiloh he was stripped of his command. But Grant stayed the course, and eventually ended up commanding the whole Union Army, quickly becoming Lincoln's favorite general. After the war, without even campaigning, Grant was elected to serve two terms as President. But then he made some bad investments due to others' dishonesty, and became completely broke. He ended his life racing against time, dying from throat cancer, trying to finish his memoirs, which became, next to the Bible, the best-selling book in the nineteenth century!
Grant made the adjustment from expectation to reality. So what kind of Christmas will you have? If you expect a lousy Christmas, well guess what you’ll have? A lousy Christmas. Reality may be that you don’t have what you had in Christmases past. That may be disappointing. But because you’re still alive you’re eligible for brand new, still in the box Christmas experiences. You may one day look back on these new Christmas experiences and long to have them back.

But if you get stuck in the prison of your expectations you’ll miss the new experiences that God has in store for your reality. Jesus said, "In this world you will have tribulation…” That’s reality. You and I both know that Jesus never promised to save us from struggle and suffering. Jesus goes on to say “but be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world."

When our Worship Ministry decorated the facility for Christmas I gave them some pictures and instructions of how we decorated this place last year. Last year became the standard because we didn’t have any other pictures. But those pictures became like Moses’ tablets with the Ten Commandments. They were only intended as a starting place, an inventory of what we actually had and what potential we had for decorating. They did a wonderful job at decorating and it looks great. But our decorating doesn’t have to be the way it was last year. This year is a brand new year with brand new experiences. Be open to the new things that God has in store for you this year.

John the Baptist was beheaded and Jesus died on the cross. Neither the expectations of their mothers for their sons. But Jesus rose from the dead, forever conquering death for us. That’s reality. When we accept Jesus as our savior Dr. Expectation and Professor Reality finally find their agreement, we will live forever but not before suffering. Amen.

Between expectation and reality, there is always diffi Our challenge is not to get stuck culty. Maybe John the Baptist lived better with the hope and expectation side of life than he did wiwanting to do in your life this Christmas and enjoy them for what they are. th reality.
I think John is shaken because he sees that his faith in Jesus is going to lead him to his death. How do I say this gently? None of us know when, the time or day, but all of us are going to die. We all have an appointment with destiny. And Christianity has never been a religion that wishes to deny or evade the great fact of death. In the Apostles Creed we say of Jesus that "He was crucified, dead and buried," when any one of these words would be sufficient. It is the death of Jesus that reminds us of many things. But one thing it surely ought to remind us of is that one day we too shall die. Death is a part of life with Christ. Which is why Dietrich Bonhoeffer, from a prison cell of his own, could write: "When Christ calls a man, He bids him to come and die."
"Are you the One, Jesus, or shall we look for another?" And what I want to proclaim on this second Sunday of Advent is that there is no other name by which men and women may be saved! Jesus is coming! He was born in Bethlehem, He lived His whole life within a small stretch of land, he was crucified, dead and buried, and the third day God raised him from the dead. He is the One alone who loved the whole world. He is the One alone who was honest enough to say, "In this world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world." And he alone is the One whose resurrection love can save us not only from sin, but from the sting of death itself.
"What is your only comfort in life and in death?" asks the Heidelberg Catechism. "That I belong, body and soul, in life and in death, not to myself, but to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ." That is the Gospel truth, and this day, and every day, I would gladly commend it to you! AMEN.