An Opportunity for Doubt
From Wellington Cathedral of St Paul
An Opportunity for Doubt: 12 December 2010: am: The Very Revd Frank Nelson
- Isaiah 35: 1 - 10
- James 5: 7 - 10
- Matthew 11: 2 - 11
It’s easy to be super-confident, brimming with enthusiasm, slightly gung-ho even, when things are going well. Last week we read about John the Baptist preaching a fiery message of repentance, taking on the establishment, challenging the customs and received wisdom of the day; a word of advice and a warning, it seemed, for anyone and everyone. The whole world flocked to listen to him; he was the man of the moment.
Today’s passage is slightly different. John the Baptist is in prison. He can have little doubt as to what awaits him. In the silence, the darkness, the aloneness, his thoughts are not quite so positive anymore. Was I right? Did I get it wrong? Is Jesus the one I thought he was, and so confidently proclaimed him to be?
Doubt is something that all of us face from time to time, perhaps especially in the lonely hours of sleeplessness. How can I be sure? In a little book called “Doubt” Os Guinness explores this phenomenon known to us all. I’ve quoted him before from this pulpit and do so again today without apology. Doubt, says Guinness, is faith at the cross-roads. It’s an uncomfortable, but not unhealthy, place to be. Doubt invites us to revisit the positions, the certainties, the beliefs we hold. Doubt is not the same as unbelief. Unbelief is a deliberate choice – whereas doubt is in the midst of choice, facing choice, wondering which way to go.
So there is John the Baptist in his lonely prison. Was I right in what I said and did? Is Jesus the One? Not quite alone, John is able to send messengers to Jesus to ask: “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” The response, though unequivocal, makes sense only to those who know their Old Testament prophets. “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have the good news brought to them.” It’s a similar message to the one Jesus chose to give when he visited the synagogue in his home town of Nazareth - quoting words from the prophet Isaiah.
These words are packed with background meaning. They are not meant to be taken literally – though I would not want to deny the wonderful healings that do happen in quite unexplained ways. They speak, rather, of the fulfillment of promises made by God throughout the Old Testament. In a world of darkness, of sickness, of oppression by foreign armies, exploitation of the poor by unscrupulous land-lords, tax-collectors, profiteers and anyone else who could squeeze something more out of them, Isaiah’s vision of a time when God would intervene came to have special significance. Imagine the very best that could ever happen to you: that’s what it will be like in the new age – for everyone!
The writers of the Gospels - Matthew, Mark, Luke and John – knew their Old Testaments pretty well and drew heavily on them. The miracles of the synoptic Gospel writers, and the signs mentioned by John, all point to the fulfillment of the words of Isaiah. Perhaps we should pay more attention to the Gospels than we do. Perhaps we should read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them – as the Book of Common Prayer collect for last Sunday suggests. We already honour the Gospels in our services by standing while the Gospel is read; reading it, not from the lectern, but from the centre of the church or Cathedral; and by our response at the conclusion of the reading: Praise to Christ the Word.
Christ the Word. That is part of the great Christmas Gospel which concludes the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, and is usually read at Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” In the reading of the Gospel we encounter the Word – who was not only with God but is God. In the final phrase of his response, Jesus says to John the Baptist, the poor have the good news, the Gospel, brought to them.
In our day, it is fashionable to pour scorn on the Christmas stories of an angel telling a young girl she will become pregnant and give birth to the Messiah. We ridicule the idea of the virgin birth explaining it away as something ignorant and superstitious people of long ago needed – it’s not for us in our sophisticated, knowledge-based, science-driven day. And yet, in doing so, are we not in danger of choosing a particular road at the cross-roads? Can we really be so certain that the demytholigised, sanitized, unpacked, mystery-free sop that passes for religion today is what God is all about?
Towards the bottom of the Dossal curtain behind the high altar are four symbols – a man, a lion, a bull and an eagle. Found first in the prophet Ezekiel they are found again in the Book of Revelation . Bizarre descriptions are attached to these four creatures – flashing lights and whirling wings, they are covered in eyes which see everything. The four living creatures serve to protect the throne of God. They could be said to represent the very presence of God. Almost from the beginning of the Christian Church the Gospel writers have been identified with these four living creatures: Matthew the Man, Mark the Lion, Luke the Bull, John the Eagle.
Bishop Martin Warner draws attention to an old children’s prayer invoking the four Gospel writers. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, Bless the bed that I lie on. Four corners to my bed, Four angels round my head; One to watch and one to pray And two to bear my soul away. It may well draw on an even older Jewish night time prayer calling on the angels, and the very glory of God, to watch over and protect the sleeper. “In the name of the Lord, the God of Israel, may Michael be at my right hand; Gabriel at my left; Uriel before me; Raphael behind me; and the Shekhinah of God be above my head.”
Perhaps we should set aside our doubting skeptical understanding of the ancient Christmas stories and listen to them as they are proclaimed by the Gospel writers, represented by the all-seeing eyes of those living creatures. Far from being a soppy message which has had its day, except perhaps for Sunday School nativity presentations which keep grandparents happy, the good news, the Gospel is a gift to us from God, full of mystery, glory and challenge.
In our cynical, self-satisfied, yet doubt and fear filled, age, the Gospel of Jesus Christ brings light into the darkness, and life into death. If, like John the Baptist, we are serious about asking “Is it you?” we should also be serious about listening to the Gospel. Those eyes and wings and lights of the four living creatures represent the very presence of God and bring to us a message which judges us rather than the other way round. Like the living creatures the Gospels are “dynamic, they move freely, like athletes on roller blades, slicing into all cultures, times, and places.”
The readings may be familiar, the carols well known and much loved – but do we hear the good news proclaimed to us, today, here? Far more than we may ever realize, Christmas presents us with an opportunity for doubt, for a crossroads which demands of us a choice.
