PaddlingPadre

What did you go out to the desert to see? In asking this question of the crowds, with reference to John, Jesus is effectively asking them where their minds and hearts are. Because this is something we must keep in mind: that when it comes to our perceiving something, our hearing or seeing something, whether that be an object or an idea or a message or anything, we have to consider not only the thing that we perceive, but also our ability to perceive it, which can be affected by so many different things.

One example of this from the scriptures is when our Lord multiplied the loaves to feed the five thousand. When he had done this, as St. John tells us, he went across the Sea of Galilee, and the next day, when the crowds had followed him across, he attempted to teach them how his body was true food and his blood true drink. And yet, in this discourse, in which we see Christ clearly laying out the mystery of the eucharist, they were unable to hear what Jesus wanted to tell them, because they hadn’t come to hear about bread come down from heaven or about everlasting life, but had rather come in search of the ordinary sort of bread such as they had eaten on the other side of the sea. And so, because they were looking for the wrong thing, they left disappointed, and many returned to their previous way of life, not realizing that in doing so they had let slip through their fingers the greatest treasure that God had ever offered to man.

And so, when Jesus asks the crowds what it was they went out into the desert to see, he is asking them in order that they might rightly hear the preaching of John. For John was no reed swaying in the wind – if the people had sought in him one who would be easily moved or influenced, they would have been disappointed. So too if they had looked for a man of worldly splendor, for those who wear fine clothing are in royal palaces. And especially if they had looked to John as a messiah, for he himself said I am not he. No, John was a prophet, and if the people would heed his voice, if they would hear his message, then they must listen to him as a prophet, as being him of whom it is written: Behold, I am sending my messenger ahead of you; he will prepare the way before you.

And indeed, John does prepare the way. He makes his own the words of Isaiah: I am the voice of one crying out in the desert, make straight the way of Lord. And how does he prepare this way, how does he make it straight, if not by making his own also those other words of Isaiah such as we heard in our first reading: Here is your God, he comes with vindication; with divine recompense he comes to save you. Then will the eyes of the blind be opened, the ears of the deaf be cleared, then will the lame leap like a stag, then the tongue of the mute will sing.

It is to these words, these words of Isaiah which have become the words of John, to which our Lord directs the attention of John’s disciples, so that in seeing lepers cleansed, in seeing the deaf healed and the dead restored to life, John’s disciples might recognize that Jesus truly is the one of whom John said Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.

For such is the task of a prophet: a prophet raises the minds of the people so that they can truly see what is there to be seen. Perhaps, had the five thousand who had followed Jesus seeking bread heard first the preaching of John, they would have recognized, as did Peter, that Jesus held the words of eternal life, that he was the Holy One of God, and so they would not have left his company disappointed. Because surely this is what Christ wants: in asking the people, “What did you go out into the desert to see?” he is asking them also by implication, “What have you come to me to see?” For if the people recognize John as a prophet, then they will, by virtue of his prophesying, be able to recognize Jesus as the Holy One of God.

Of course, this question “What have you come to see?” is not any less important for us today. For, just as in ancient days, if we do not come to Jesus seeking the Son of God, then we are destined to leave him in disappointment. Such is the fate, for instance, of all who seek in Jesus a mere moral teacher, or a political revolutionary, of all who seek a Republican Jesus or a Democratic Jesus, or of all who seek a mere buddy Jesus to make them feel good, or whatever else – building a Jesus in their own image or according to their own unexamined and unconverted desires, such people miss the real thing, and then, when the idol which their hands have made inevitably fails, as all idols, being dumb and mute, eventually do, they will be left out in the cold crying, “Lord! Lord!” while Jesus says in reply, Depart from me, for I never knew you.

The antidote to this danger, in our day just as in the days of Christ, is to allow the prophets and the psalmist to heighten our gaze. Do not be misled by any counterfeit gospel, by any false promise of worldly prosperity or cleverly devised myth, but rather set your hearts on what has been promised: Here is your God, he comes with vindication; with divine recompense he comes to save you. For the words of our Lord are true: Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and the door will be opened to you.

And so yet once more we raise the question: what have you come here to see? What is it that you are seeking here in this place? Have you come to find community? You can find that in many places. Are you here because of the music? You can listen to whatever music you please in your car or in your home. Is it the preaching that draws you? I can assure you that there are many preachers in Knoxville who are better than me, and many more online. But if you are here for Jesus, then that is something that you will find nowhere else. If there is a single boast that I can make as priest, and it is a boast that has nothing to do with me, but everything to do with him who works through me, then it is that when I speak those sacred words, and offer on behalf of us all bread and wine on this altar, that that offering truly become for us, by divine power, the body and blood Christ.

And so if that is why you are here, then good. You are in the right place. But if it is some lesser thing that you are seeking, then I beg that you would heed the testimony and promises of the prophets, that you would allow the scriptures to take root in your heart and expand your desires, so that you would not pass over this greatest of gifts in preference for that which, while perhaps good in itself, is yet unworthy of the fullness of your love. For in Christ alone is our hope, in Christ alone is lasting peace and contentment and happiness, and those who find him find everything worth finding, as of them Isaiah says: They will enter Zion singing, crowned with everlasting joy, they will meet with joy and gladness, sorrow and mourning will flee.