Sermon Audio: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ministrybymail

Grace and peace be to you from God our Father and the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Our meditation is based on John the Baptist in prison. You will see that living the Christian faith sometimes means looking the fool, but that in God’s kingdom, looking the fool serves as shining example of His saving strength. John’s question on His disciples’ behalf: “Art Thou He that should come, or do we look for another?”

Lord Jesus, bless Thy Word that we may trust in Thee. Amen.

“And when John had heard in prison about the works of Christ, he sent two of his disciples ³ and said to Him, “Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another?” ⁴ Jesus answered and said to them, “Go and tell John the things which you hear and see: ⁵ “The blind see and the lame walk; the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear; the dead are raised up and the poor have the gospel preached to them. ⁶ “And blessed is he who is not offended because of Me.” ⁷ As they departed, Jesus began to say to the multitudes concerning John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind? ⁸ “But what did you go out to see? A man clothed in soft garments? Indeed, those who wear soft clothing are in kings’ houses. ⁹ “But what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I say to you, and more than a prophet. ¹⁰ “For this is he of whom it is written:‘Behold, I send My messenger before Your face, Who will prepare Your way before You.’”

You can be willing to risk a lot for someone you care for, but when it comes to your reputation, that’s where most people draw the line. They won’t risk their reputation, even for someone they care for. John the Baptist, though, in our Gospel lesson today, seems to think little of his reputation as a prophet. He sends two of his disciples to ask Jesus to His face, “Art Thou He that should come, or do we look for another?”

The question stands out as peculiar coming from the bold prophet who proclaimed his cousin to be the very Lamb of God, come to take away the sin of the world, and who openly rebuked Herod for adultery without fear of consequence. Why would John now, in the same open and public fashion, have such a spurious question asked in his name? Is John here, at the end, doubting, or is something else going on?

The answer to how John could look the fool at the end of his life starts, of course, with going back to Scripture. One thing you find there is that John was sent to look the fool, the picture of humility, from the start. Born into a near-royal family, John left the temple courts to wander in the wilderness. As Jesus calls out in our lesson, instead of the soft clothing of kings’ houses, he wore the rough “raiment of camel’s hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins.” John traded the choice parts of the sacrifices offered unto the Lord (which would have been his for the eating as part of the priestly caste) for the meat of “locusts and wild honey.”

So the fact that he who proclaimed “Behold the Lamb of God” now looks a doubter, the fool with his mouth, kind of fits the pattern of his life as a whole. It fits not only John’s life but also the lives of all God’s messengers. John was not the only prophet God had put on the line for the benefit of His people, for the benefit of His Word.

God had the Prophet Hosea marry a prostitute, and then take her back after she left him, with no indication of remorse or a changed life. Thus, the messenger of God was the laughingstock of most other men. The Prophet Jeremiah spent time in literal stocks and a cistern as well. And God commanded the Prophet Ezekiel to eat food baked over human excrement, out in the open, for all to see his bizarre culinary skills in action.

All these prophets of old, and more, were put into publicly embarrassing situations so that their hearers might watch and learn through their examples of foolishness to recognize their own personal weaknesses and God’s promised Messiah as their only hope. For the same reason, John the Baptist thought little of looking the fool, trusting in God’s upside-down ways (to our thinking, that is), so that you and I might start thinking differently than we do.

Now, surely John had his times of doubt—what sinner doesn’t? However, to emphasize John’s question as some personal failing could blind you to John’s self-sacrifice, his willingness to have his disciples’ foolish question verbalized out loud on their behalf, in his name.

See in this dialogue with the Savior how John became a public example of our doubt. See the profound compassion and humility in John willingly wearing his disciples’ question as his own, whether it was or not.

God has you look the fool at times too. And having your reputation hang out there, being spoiled even, scratches at you far worse than the coarse raiment of camel’s skin. This is probably why the initial reaction to such opportunities God offers you to show the compassion and humility He desires of us is to pull back almost in revulsion.

The agitation and disdain for loved ones’ foolish questions and doubts—“Why would you even think like that?”—rather than the personal risk of pausing but a second to think through why they might. And perhaps, scarier than that, realize you doubt too. The darkest questions you refuse to ask yourself, lest you look such a fool. And of those whose actions follow through on their unbelief, the aversion to associate with them too closely, lest their actions become yours in the eyes of others.

Yes, people can be willing to risk a lot for someone they care for, but when it comes to their reputation, that’s where most draw the line. In contrast, Jesus teaches that true love has no such limit: “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

All while you and I at least act as if our reputation means more than life itself. We act as if the name we make for ourselves is more precious than what God makes us, asks us to be.

Dear friends, Jesus isn’t trying to get you to look the fool for foolishness’ sake. Rather, in the moments which have left you embarrassed in the eyes of men by doing the right thing—or embarrassed in the eyes of God by refusing to do it—you might receive the clear and direct answer, as did the disciples of John brave enough to come to Jesus themselves: “The lame walk, the lepers are cleansed… and the poor have the gospel preached to them… blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in Me.”

God’s purpose in so lowering each of His holy prophets, and His desire each time He’s made you look the fool, is that each might be a reflection of His humility, of how He gave up His life for you.

John the Baptist was born into royalty and ended up wearing camel’s hair in the wilderness, but Jesus, the eternal King of all creation, embraced the rags of a feeding trough. I don’t know that Mary and Joseph fed their little boy locusts, but His meals growing up in the poverty of Nazareth couldn’t have been all that much better. At least John got honey.

Jesus knew well what it was to have His reputation spoiled by those He spent His time with. He often had the weaknesses of those associated with Him become His in the eyes of others: from family members who doubted how Jesus could be anything special—just a carpenter’s son—to the scribes and Pharisees who “said unto His disciples, ‘How is it that He eateth and drinketh with publicans and sinners?’”

How? Why? Because all Jesus’ foolishness His whole life through was meant to impress upon the hearts of all those He served that He had come to take the part of sinner as His in the eyes of God: “For He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” Jesus’ life was meant to impress this on all those who laughed at Him and despised Him, and on your own hearts today. He had come to be associated with you, to take on your darkest doubts and your sinful, foolish reputation.

On His cross, Jesus asked the most heart-wrenching of embarrassing questions on your behalf and in your place: “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” That in Jesus, so “despised and rejected of men,” you might find forgiveness for every moment “we hid as it were our faces from Him… and… esteemed Him not.”

For Jesus is the Great Prophet who laid down not just His life but His reputation as the Son of God in order to give you a new life and new reputation in Him. In Him, you have the new life and reputation of a redeemed child of God bound for eternal life. As we sing:

The faith, love, and hope are conferred through Sacrament and living Word to believe and see Jesus’ foolishness as your victory. Jesus despised not the dirt of your grave to make His heavenly home yours. There is now nowhere too lowly for Him to take you to lift you back up and, through you, give faith, love, and hope to all those He’s put in your life. The example of John the Baptist reveals how living the Christian faith does sometimes mean looking the fool yourself.

Why, when you believe what God has to say, confess it, and follow through on it, you should not be surprised when the world considers it the very definition of foolishness. But the Apostle taught us to embrace this lowered state in public opinion as a shining example of our God’s strength to save: “We are fools for Christ’s sake, but ye are wise in Christ.” We should expect and embrace that our humility bears the Gospel’s power to exalt others into the kingdom of God: “We are weak, but ye are strong.”

It’s only through this Gospel that God awakens you to the constant loving-faithfulness showered on you your whole life through. With the Gospel in your heart, recognize in all the times others have covered for you, covered your sins, and risked their reputation for yours, His perfect forgiveness. Recognize Christ’s grace ever at work in you. Recognize that not only has all this and more been done for you, but also that we now, by grace, get to be there for others, putting yourself, your reputation, on the line as an expression of faith in Christ, as a reflection of the boundless love shown to you.

From faith in Christ flows the patience even to be taken advantage of by others. In God’s time, His Spirit will reveal just what they’ve been given by your sacrifice, just as that Spirit’s done in many instances over time for you. From faith in Christ flows the comfort that, when you’ve been left with nothing, in Christ you have it all. From faith in Christ flows the strength to admit, deep down, you’ve had the same doubts as those who verbalize and live out what you never would.

So, if you’ve found it’s taken fairly little effort on your part to follow the example of John the Baptist and look the fool, take great comfort—it takes even less on your part for God to use all your weakest moments to point out and proclaim the very Lamb of God. For in the kingdom of heaven, to put your reputation on the line means to let your vulnerability shine like every holy prophet of old, that the world might see not your personal strength on display but Christ and His cross as your greatest hope and theirs.

Now the peace that passeth all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.

—Pastor Timothy T. Daub

Prince of Peace Lutheran Church
Hecla, SD

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Ministry by Mail is a weekly publication of the Church of the Lutheran Confession. Subscription and staff information may be found online at www.clclutheran.org/ministrybymail.

All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the King James Version.