"Should we look for someone else?"

The Word for today:
Luke 7:18-35


John the Baptist was the greatest person who ever lived--all the way from Adam up until Jesus Christ. He was as great, or greater, than Abraham, Moses, Elijah, Isaiah, Job, Daniel, or David. How do we know? Because Jesus said so:
I tell you, among those born of women none is greater than John. (Luke 7:28)

And yet John the Baptist had doubts that crossed his mind. How do we know? Because John said so:
And John, calling two of his disciples to him, sent them to Jesus, saying, "Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another?"  (Luke 7:19)

I want to speak to the doubting and the disappointed today. If you've watched a child die, or if you've been overcome by disease, or if you've watched a calloused spouse drive away with your heart in his suitcase,

despite prayer after to prayer to God, who could have saved, healed, and restored with just a word, if he'd cared to…

If that's you--if that was your child, your health, your family, your heart--that God left to die, to disintegrate, to shatter…

Then you've known John the Baptist, who was in prison because he had so faithfully served as God's spokesperson against evil; and because he had prepared the way for the great Messiah. He was in jail because he'd been obedient to God.

So where's the justice in that?  And where was God? Where was the Messiah? No doubt John had prayed to be released, but Jesus was nowhere to be found.  Could it be that he'd been wrong about Jesus?

***

Jesus replied with an astonishing display of power and purpose:
When the men had come to Him, they said, "John the Baptist has sent us to You, saying, 'Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another?' "
And that very hour He cured many of infirmities, afflictions, and evil spirits; and to many blind He gave sight.
Jesus answered and said to them, "Go and tell John the things you have seen and heard: that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have the gospel preached to them.
And blessed is he who is not offended because of Me." (Luke 7:19-23)

But Jesus did not free John from jail.

 ***

Could it be that you've been wrong about Jesus? Should you look for someone else?

Talk can be cheap in this regard, coming from someone, like me, whose life has not been marked by the profound depth of your tragedies. And so I offer answers not from my experience but from the experience of God,

who with a word might have stopped the crucifixion, but could not say that word.

Within that realization is the answer you're looking for. It might not, right now, specifically address all your questions, but it will put you in company with a great prophet who died wondering why; and with an even greater Prophet who'd readied himself to die, but not to die as He did--
alone, crying out to His Father, who returned only silence in reply.

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