December 11, 2022 – “The God We Don’t Want”

View this recorded version of Sunday Worship from December 11, 2022.

Bible Verses

Matthew 11:2-11

Reflection: “The God We Don’t Want”

Excerpts from the sermon by Rev. Dr. Fred Grewe:

“John [the Baptizer] has been imprisoned, by Herod, the King, for a while, and it’s believed he was in a castle called Machaerus in a dungeon, and you can well imagine that Dungeons in those days were not very nice places. And John, who had grown up in the wild, man of the desert being out in nature, confined in a hole in the ground, for who knows how long was probably very disoriented.

And he’s struggling and he sends his friends to go ask Jesus: What are you doing? Are are you the one who is coming to liberate us? Or what are you doing? Is there somebody else? Did we miss it?

And in a sense John is saying: Jesus, if you’re the great liberator, get me out of this hell hole. Get me out of Jail. Get me out of prison. Let’s get rid of Herod and let’s kick all those stinking Italians back to Rome where they belong, and get them out of here, so that we can become the people that God wants us to be.

Jesus, come on. Let’s get on with it. What are you doing? Where is your power?

So that’s in essence the message that John, by his friends, sends to Jesus and Jesus’s answer is startling.

Jesus sends back news to John about the blind, the lame, the lepers, the deaf, the dead, and the poor. Go tell John, what you see and what you hear.

The blind are getting their sight, the lame are walking, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have the Good News preached to them. And blessed is anybody who doesn’t take offense with me.”