Third Sunday in Advent December 15, 2019 The Sunday of John the Baptist in Prison

Advent 3
Matthew 11:2-11
December 15, 2019

“Look Out the Window”

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Let’s say the forecasters start calling for twelve inches of snow overnight tonight. And you’re very excited because you want a day off of school or a day off from work. So you go to bed very excited, firmly believing that tomorrow you’re going to sleep in and stay home with a cup of hot chocolate. Then tomorrow morning comes. You’ve got all the blinds closed overnight so you can’t see outside yet. And someone comes into your room and says, “I don’t know if it snowed at all last night.”

Now what do you do? A small sliver of doubt has come into your mind. You have believed and trusted the forecasters that it’s snowing and you have planned on the day off. But what do you do with this bit of doubt? Do you pull the covers over your head and say, “No. It snowed. I believe it snowed and you can’t tell me otherwise?” Or do you try to muster yourself up, “I must have faith. I must believe that it snowed and I must not doubt?”

Of course not. You go to the window, open the blinds, and see if it snowed. You see if you have believed wrongly or rightly. You see if you should go back to bed or get ready for school. In our Gospel reading today we see Jesus teaching us the same thing about our faith in Him and what to do when we doubt. When He gets a question from John the Baptist asking, “Are You the One who is to come or shall we look for another?” (Is it really snowing?) Jesus says, essentially, “Look out the window. Look at what I’m doing. And see that I am indeed the Christ, your Savior.” When we have doubt, the answer isn’t anywhere inside of us. We must always look outside the window, so to speak. Look out the window of our own hearts and look to Jesus, the object of our faith.

Now that might sound simple but it’s a big deal right now because there’s a lot of doubt and skepticism in our world about Jesus. We’ve heard multiple times now that one of the fastest rising demographics in America right now are the so-called nones. The people with no religious affiliation at all. Many of those nones are people who grew up thinking they were Christian and believed in Jesus and then at some point have decided they don’t really want to claim Jesus at all. They don’t believe in Him. Where’s all this doubt coming from and what do we do with it?

Earlier this year we heard the story about Joshua Harris, who was a pretty well-known Christian pastor, who all of a sudden left the ministry, divorced his wife, and declared that he didn’t believe any of this Jesus stuff anymore. And many people were left wondering, “Where did that come from?” I read just the other a quick little story about a woman pastor from the Methodist church that left and became an atheist. She said she felt trapped every Sunday, telling lies in the pulpit about what she believed. But she found freedom, not in Jesus, but when she left her church and attended her first atheist convention, standing in front of 1,500 cheering atheists while she told her story of her doubts and her conversion to atheism and her new found freedom from Jesus.

What do we do with this doubt? Pull the covers over our head and say, “No, we must believe harder.” That’s not going to work.

And then there’s our own doubt, all of you and me. Maybe you’ve had doubt if Jesus is really right about all this sexuality stuff. Maybe you’ve had doubt if there really is a heaven and life after death. Maybe you’ve had doubts about church on Sunday morning—maybe you’ve felt like you don’t get anything out of it or it’s not important.

Maybe you have doubts when you don’t feel like praying, or don’t feel like reading the Bible. Maybe you’ve had doubt when you’ve read certain parts of the Bible—maybe the violent parts in the Old Testament or the apocalyptic prophecies of Daniel, Ezekiel, or Revelation. At any rate, what do you do with doubt in your own mind and heart?

Well, I’ve already given you the short answer which is to look outside of yourself and see Jesus, the author and perfecter of your faith. That’s what John the Baptist does. He looks outside the window of his prison cell and ask, “Jesus, are You the One?” And Jesus says, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight.” Jesus does things only Jesus can do. With lots of witnesses all around. In John chapter 9, the religious leaders spend all day trying to show that Jesus didn’t really give sight t to the man who was born blind. But they can’t do it. The evidence is too good and right in front of them. Jesus did something no one else can do—He gave sight to someone born blind. So look at Jesus. Look what He does. He gives sight, He gives hearing, he raises the dead, makes the lame walk, and He rises from the dead Himself. So that’s the short answer to doubt—look at Jesus! But there are a few different points about that I want to give you.

First of all, we must always remember where doubt comes from. If you have any doubts at all, ever, rest assured that it’s not coming from God. It’s coming from the devil. Doubt has always been his tool. In the Garden of Eden he said, “Did God really say…?” And that’s what he’s still doing to us today. Every true claim about God that we believe, the devil is there saying, “Really? Is that really true?”  So, first of all, we must tell the devil where to go.

Secondly, if we have any doubt we should make sure that we don’t have the coal miner’s faith. Obviously this is nothing against coal miners. But there’s a story about an old coal miner who was asked what he believed. He said, “I believe what the Church believes.” “Oh,” the questioner replies, “then what does the Church believe?” And the coal miner answered, “The Church believe what I believe.” And eventually they gave this kind of faith its own Latin phrase, fides carbonaria, “faith of the coal miner”.

This is not a faith that will make it in the long run. All of us Christians must actually know what we believe. It will not do to just say, “I believe what my Church believes or I believe what my pastor believes.” We must actually know what we believe and we know that by looking out the window and seeing Jesus. We must go to the source—Jesus Christ and His Word—and know just exactly what it is we believe concerning Him.

This, I truly believe, is part of the issue today for people who leave Christianity. They’ve just thought, “I believe what the Church believes,” without looking out and examining what the Church believes. And then when the devil starts working on them they look inside themselves and don’t really see anything there and they lose faith in Jesus. The coal miner’s faith won’t do against doubt. We must look to Jesus and know what He teaches and what we believe.

But thirdly and most importantly, we must understand that faith has an object. Faith doesn’t just float around in the air or float around inside our hearts. Faith always look outside to someone or something and trusts. Faith is always an acting faith. It’s always clinging on to something. In our case, ultimately, faith is always clinging to Jesus and looking to Him and moving toward Him.

Faith isn’t this lump in your heart that just sits there and you say, “Yes, I have faith in my heart.” Faith is your heart in action. Your mind in action. Faith is you in action—trusting Jesus Christ and believing His Word and His resurrection from the dead.

So if doubt ever comes up, we know the answer is to examine again the object of our faith—Jesus Christ. To look at Him and see again that He is true! That He’s our life! That He is risen from the dead and living! That He has forgiven our sins!

Jesus says, “Do you have any doubt? Look and see and hear what I have done. Look, I gave sight to the blind. Have you ever seen that done? Look, I made the deaf hear. How ‘bout that? Ever seen that one? Look, I made the lame walk with a word and I raised the dead with a word. Have you ever heard of anyone raising the dead? And look, I died on the cross on Good Friday with the full weight and punishment of your sin. And look, on Easter morning I rose from the dead and for the next 40 days gave many convincing proofs that I was indeed risen from the dead and living. And look, you have My Word which is true and has proven true over and over again and will continue to prove true. And look, I baptized you in the water and gave you My Holy Spirit who lives in you. And look, here at the altar I give you My own body and blood under the bread and wine for your forgiveness.”

Do you ever have any doubt, friends in Christ? Then put your faith in action and look at Jesus. It’s only a few verses after this in Matthew chapter 11 that Jesus says those comforting and familiar words, “Come to Me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” There’s your answer to doubt. Come to Jesus, any of you who are laden with heavy burdens and cares and anxieties. Come to Jesus and He will you rest. “Take my yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” In Jesus’ name. Amen.