Are you the one?

John is in prison, and prisons in those days were less about internment and more like a place to await trial or execution. They didn’t provide for the needs of the imprisoned at all. It was up to the community of the prisoner to provide food, clothing, even medical care. John’s visitors are faithful to him - bringing food, clothing, as well as news of the outside world. 

John hears from his disciples that Jesus has been on the move, amassing a following. So he sends them to ask if the one we have been waiting for has finally arrived. As the herald who prepares the way for the Lord, maybe what he really wanted to know was whether he had completed his calling. As a prisoner, he was likely expecting to be executed soon.

But John doesn’t ask “am I to wait for another?” He asks, “are we to wait for another?” For John, community, the people, are his focus. “Am I leaving my people in good hands, or must they prepare to await the Messiah without me?”

Now, isn’t this the same John who baptized Jesus? When Jesus was baptized, didn’t the Spirit of God come down from Heaven to rest on Jesus? And then didn’t God say, “This is my son whom I love, with him I am well pleased”? How could John still be confused about who Jesus is? 

Luckily for John, Jesus is much more understanding than I am. Jesus doesn’t shame him for doubting, or dismiss his concerns. Jesus takes John’s question seriously.

Jesus' answer could have simply been “Yes, I am the one who is to come.” Or he could have given some flowery, theologically brilliant speech assuring John that his people were in good hands. Instead Jesus said to John’s disciples, “Go and tell John what you hear and see.”

And what Jesus sends these disciples away with is not a simple checklist of miracles to prove he is the Messiah. He is pointing to a pattern in the way God works in the world. Jesus goes on to say, “the poor have good news brought to them” but in the Greek, this phrase reads more like, “the poor are gospelized.” Jesus is showing us that the sharing of the Gospel is not about words. They are not hearing the Gospel, they are experiencing it. “..the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, those with a skin disease are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised,” and the poor experience the good news.

John’s prison cell may seem so different from our warm homes, but the question he asks is a familiar one. Our world has shifted in ways that may leave us searching, like John. Waiting for a sign of God’s presence in the world. I find myself thirsting for good news. How can we experience the Gospel today?

It seems that all of the experiences Jesus lists in his response to John start with discomfort - people who are sick or struggling with disabilities, people who are poor, and those who are grieving. We know there are communities all around us who are being violently attacked and torn apart by ICE. Many of our unhoused neighbors have to sleep out in the cold. People in Sudan, Gaza, Congo, and many of our fellow Chicagoans are dreaming of dinner and going to bed hungry.

If only God would act. Couldn’t God’s presence look like prison doors magically thrown open, empire toppled, and suffering ended all at once? When Jesus says, “Blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me,” he is not discouraging us from asking hard questions or being honest about our hopes. John asked an honest question, and many of the people waiting for Jesus with John would have been waiting for an empire-toppling king. 

The blessing that Jesus offers encourages us to accept that God’s work may not look the way we expect it to look. That the Messiah does not arrive with domination, but with healing, presence, and solidarity. So, Jesus points us instead to bodies restored, dignity returned, and communities gathered back together.

While we search for Good News, for a spark of God’s presence in our world, what we find may be uncomfortable. God is present wherever people are being gospelized—where food is shared, where shelter is protected, where families are defended, where isolation is broken. God is present wherever people refuse to let their neighbors suffer alone.

Jesus is not the only character in our story who brings Good News. John experiences Good News through the continued support and care of his community. They are provided food and clothing, saved him from isolation and offered him news of hope in the world.

We can become Good News when we actively participate in community with people living in discomfort, pain, fear, and isolation. If any of us are hoping and hungering for good news: our gospel reading is asking, “Are you the one? Will you bring Good News?”

Will you be the one who visits?

The one who gives?

The one who speaks up?

The one who refuses to look away?

Even as we celebrate a season of watching and waiting for Christ’s coming, our Gospel text reminds us that Christ is already here—moving through communities, through acts of courage and care, through people who decide that faith is not just something we believe, but something that we do.

This Advent let us do more than wait for good news. Let us be the people who become it.

Amen.