Feb 23, 2022
John’s disciples told him about all these things. Calling two of them, he sent them to the Lord to ask, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?” When the men came to Jesus, they said, “John the Baptist sent us to you to ask, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?’” (Luke 7:18-20).
Jesus is the one who raises the dead. He raises dead hopes, dead-end lives, and even our own dead bodies one day. Jesus just proved it as he raised the dead widow’s son just 4 verses previous.
The reaction of the crowd to this act of resurrection was to praise God. The reaction of John the Baptist was doubt and despair. Or at least that’s how we often read it.
Why might John have had cause to despair? Well, he was imprisoned, for one. So while Jesus was proclaiming good news to the captives, John’s chains had notably not been released. Nor had a baptism of fire seemingly rained down. Nor had Herod or Ceasar been dethroned or kicked out of Jerusalem. No political victories in Jesus’ column yet, and vanishingly few spiritual victories for the vast majority of Jews, including John, either.
It does not always look like our cause is winning, either. We’re tired. We’re facing mental health challenges, loneliness, a sense of powerlessness, and much sadness. Especially now in the wake of Jerilee’s death, another young mother robbed from her family—we can feel the helplessness of grief in the face of these powers of cancer and death that despite our best efforts, we just can’t control. And so we wonder: is Jesus really God here?
The power of John’s question, is that he asks it to Jesus. Doubt and questions are a good thing in the life of faith. They mention the important unmentionables in those places where we see and feel a deep disconnect between the promises God has given and the reality we live. But to be questions of faith—a faithful doubt—they must be questions that we eventually ask to Jesus.
Perhaps there’s a different way to understand John’s question though. And I think this side speaks something true about doubt as well.
Perhaps John’s question was born more of a faithful searching than a despairing disbelief. Luke doesn’t have John meeting Jesus until this moment, and so perhaps John was simply searching for the Messiah he had preached and prepared the way for all these years. Was it Jesus, or should he continue his search? Seeing John’s question this way speaks of a desire to know this Messiah. A desire to keep looking until he finds. A committed faith that’s seeking understanding.
Much doubt is born from both of these places: both the place of despair, and the place of searching.
Both sorts of doubt are faithful when they ask their hard questions to Jesus.