Knocking at
the Door
Behold,
I stand at the door and knock;
if anyone hears my voice and opens the door,
I will come in to him and eat with him,
and he wth me.
Revelation 3:20
Today,
the Third Sunday in Advent, is focused on the figure of John
the Baptist. He is alluded to in the collect, and in the gospel
for Holy Communion we hear the story of his sending two of
his disciples to Jesus, to ask whether Jesus is "he that
is to come" (Matthew 11:3).
The
Christian church has coopted the Baptist into its own version
of salvation history. The collect asserts that Christ at his
first coming sent his messenger, i.e. John, to prepare the
way before him: John is made Jesus' chosen forerunner.
But John was a religious figure in his own right, who, like
Jesus, proclaimed the coming of the kingdom of God. However,
there were differences between the two. In one of our modern
rites Jesus is said to welcome sinners and to invite them
to his table. This could not be truly said of John the Baptist,
who demanded proof of repentance before he would admit anoyone
to his water baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
In
Jesus' response to John's question in the gospel, he implicitly
rejects the title "he who is to come" and refers
John's disciples instead to his miracles and preaching (Matthew
11:4-5). Jesus is alluding to passages in the Book of Isaiah
(29:18-19; 35:5-6; 61:1), and, in so doing, he presents his
"deeds" (restoring sight to the blind, making the
lame walk and the deaf hear, healing lepers and raising the
dead) as the fulfilment of the prophecies of the end-time.
In
his earthly ministry Jesus is not Elijah, the fiery prophet
of judgment; this role he assigns to John (Matthew 11:10.14;
cf. Malachi 3:1). Jesus himself is anointed by God with the
spirit "to bring good tidings to the afflicted"
(Luke 4:18.21). Through Jesus' miracles and preaching the
promised blessings of God's kingdom are made present.
John
was right in seeing in Jesus a prophet of the end-time, but
Jesus' particular mission is not to give warning of God's
imminent judgment, as John had done, but rather to proclaim
God's love and forgiveness, to which the miracles bear witness.
Jesus understood the Baptist and himself as introducing a
new period in which the scriptures find fulfilment (Matthew
11:13). From the beginning the careers of the two men were
closely intertwined, and Luke carries this connection back
to an encounter between the two cousins when they were both
still in their mothers' wombs (Luke 1:41). Later the two will
both suffer rejection and martyrdom: John by beheading, at
the hands of Herod (Mark 6:27), Jesus by crucifixion, at the
hands of Pontius Pilate (Mark 15:15).
The
passage from Revelation which I took as my text has been represented
in a famous painting, and this painting, in turn, has been
made into a beautiful stained-glass window which many of you
may have seen in the sanctuary of Timothy Eaton United Church.
In
the painting there is no handle on the door at which the savior
is knocking, for the door can only be opened from within.
During this Advent season Jesus asks us to open the door of
our hearts and invite him in. May we all respond to his gracious
call.
