An Explosive Kingdom

**Before you read this post, I recommend going back and refreshing your memory on the "Tavilah T'Shuvah" conversation. This is actually the follow-up post to the questions posed there.

The next story in Matthew is the story of John the Baptist questioning Jesus’s identity. The whole episode is quite confusing to the reader as it appears as though John’s faith is starting to waver on the identity of Christ.

Now when John heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?”

It seems like John is not sure about who Jesus is anymore. The same guy who declared to the crowds the identity of Jesus is now asking Him who He is. But the passage does give us a few clues; it tells us John asks this question in response to hearing about “the deeds of Christ.” What is it that John has heard about?

Well, if we use the gospel of Luke, we find that Jesus may have just healed the centurion’s servant, and this appears to have rubbed John the wrong way. A further study of John’s identity will help us understand his frustration. If we happen to be correct that John the Baptist was shaped by an Essene community, then John would carry the popular eschatology of his day. I often refer to this eschatology as the “two-part” Jewish eschatology of the first century. The Jewish conversation about eschatology revolves around their understanding of “ages.” There is the Age of This World (“This Age”) and the Age to Come (the Kingdom of God).

The popular eschatology of their day was to believe that God (or Messiah) would bring forth the Kingdom of God with glory and splendor. Messiah would come and usher in the Kingdom, call the world to repentance, and deal with evil. The Age of This World would come to an end in judgment and wrath, and the Age to Come would remain for eternity.

There was an understanding, however, that I refer to as the “three-part” eschatology. This understanding was that Messiah would come to usher in the Age to Come, but he would not kick out This Age for a time. There would be an era where the two ages co-exist. It is clear that this is Jesus’s understanding of Jewish eschatology in His teachings. Where John spoke of Jesus coming with an ax at the root of the tree and a winnowing fork in hand to purge God’s threshing floor, Jesus spoke of weeds and wheat growing together. Where John spoke of fire and judgment, Jesus spoke of planting mustard seeds. You may remember us posing the question of whether or not John’s worldview was correct; it’s now time to return to that conversation.

Jesus has some good news and some bad news.

The good news is that Jesus is, in fact, the one who is to come. The bad news is that John has his eschatology all wrong. In another gospel account, Jesus turns and heals a bunch of bystanders and then turns to share the words that are recorded next in Matthew:

And Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.”

Jesus answers John’s question by acting out the Text. In a quote from Isaiah and Jeremiah, Jesus says that He is bringing the Kingdom, but He’s not bringing the cup of wrath John the Baptist wants Him to pour out on the Romans. Apparently, Jesus’s healing of the centurion’s servant has sparked some frustration in John and John has some words for his buddy Jesus.

But Jesus isn’t done giving bad news. Some scholars have pointed out that Jesus’s answer is strangely void of one theme that consistently appears in the prophets that may be quoted here by Jesus:

“…and the captives will be set free.”

John asks his question of Jesus while he sits in prison. It seems that Jesus’s answer hints at the fact that not only is John’s eschatology in need of an overhaul, but he also isn’t going to see the restoration of God like he planned. He’s going to die in prison.

And now, Jesus’s last statement makes perfect sense, where it never did before:

“And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.”

This is a hard word to hear. My personal belief, albeit hard to prove, is that John the Baptist was Jesus’s rabbi. If this is even remotely true, then Jesus’s interaction with John in this story is a true test of John’s character, belief, and trust.

We are not told how John responds to the news, but it does draw a few questions: How would you respond if Jesus told you that your entire worldview, your theology, and your core beliefs, were off? What if He corrected you to a worldview that didn’t excite you at all and you found completely unattractive? And what if He invited you not to take offense at His correction?
How would you do?