I am told that imprisonment can alter one's perspective. Isolation can cloud what we once supposed to be true. Perhaps John the Baptist thought this might be happening to him as he sat in prison. John had encountered Jesus at the Jordan and had sought permission to be baptized by Jesus. However, Jesus had understood John's role in God's salvation history and had prevented John from reversing the roles each would play because he recognized John as the holy messenger sent by God to prepare the way for his ministry.

However, John must have expected a different kind of Messiah. In his preaching, he had suggested that the deliverer would come to stamp out the chaff and rid the world of evil. He had suggested that God's Messiah would wield his winnowing fork in righteous judgment against a holy nation that had lost its sense of purpose and direction under Roman rule. Languishing in Herod's dungeon, he was probably allowed to have visitors-the disciples who kept him informed about Jesus' work. Had John misunderstood? At the Jordan, had he tapped the wrong man when he said to some of his disciples, "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world"?

Jesus wasn't separating wheat from chaff; he was integrating everybody in a ministry of mercy. Whatever John the Baptist may have expected, it wasn't happening. Now, sitting on Herod's death row, he probably supposed that he was about to die without ever really knowing the truth about the man he thought was God's Messiah. Jesus wouldn't let that happen!

The disciples of John the Baptist would report back to him that they had encountered Christ and that John had been right about Jesus being God's Messiah, but not because Jesus explained his mission to them. Instead, he encouraged them to watch people's lives being changed, so that there would be no doubt in their minds about Jesus. With their doubts gone, they would put their imprisoned teacher's mind at rest.

Advent is the season of expectation. We expect our houses to be properly decorated for Christmas. We're anticipating special foods and gifts. We're especially expecting to find the baby Jesus in a manger. Unfortunately, secular society doesn't allow Jesus to step beyond the shallow boundary of his bed of hay. Like John the Baptist, we're imprisoned by our narrow vision of Jesus. We're content to enjoy him for the season, but most of us will put him away with the Christmas ornaments until next Advent. However, in order to draw the most strength from Jesus, we need to be like the disciples John sent out to find him. We need to read the Gospel narratives that tell us how he healed people who were sick and strengthened the faith of those who doubted. His true ministry was and is to remove the chaff from people's lives and prepare them for his eternal kingdom of grace. He exceeds all human expectation by entering our lives with healing and renewal. He fills us with his Holy Spirit so that we see life beyond blindness and hear God's Word with the ears inside our hearts and minds. Jesus gives people the power to walk and to speak whether or not they have feet or voices. He turns our poverty of spirit into the richness of eternal hope with the assurance that he has come to bind up our brokenness and make us whole persons by filling us with his living, loving presence.

The report brought back to John was more than he expected. After all, Jesus was restoring people's hope in God. He just wasn't doing it according to John's plan. Jesus showed people that God loved them. When we allow him to step beyond His Christmas manger, he exceeds all our expectations of him. He becomes our Messiah by delivering us from Satan's evil grip and giving us faith and courage to complete this earthly portion of our eternal journey. Strengthened by this reality, John died in prison, knowing he had accomplished more than he had supposed before he had sent his disciples out to find Jesus. His own broken spirit was touched by Jesus through the message of his disciples. Jesus confirmed this as he eulogized this messenger by calling John the greatest man who'd ever lived. He admired the Baptist's strength and fortitude and encouraged the crowds to revere John for his service as a preparer of Christ's way. Jesus turned John's doubt into divine understanding by transforming human expectation into acceptance.

During this Advent season, as we prepare to meet Jesus again as a child in Bethlehem, may we resolve to see more than a child. May our hearts and minds be open to his power to do more than we expect a child to do. His mission was and is to replace the emptiness of doubt with the fullness of renewing faith and hope. May we allow him to replace our doubts about him with trust in his power to make us whole. Then, like John and his disciples, we will come to understand his true mission as God's Messiah. That mission is to heal and to restore and to bring us safely into God's eternal presence. John had tried to mold the Savior to meet his own expectations of him. This had failed. Our attempts to keep him bound to his manger shall also fail. So let us allow Jesus to be the true Messiah by letting his Spirit fill our lives with hope. Then we will go with John and the disciples forward through life and death with Christ's own presence to guide us to the promised deliverance from evil. In other words, whatever we expect of Christ, he will do more than we imagine. Our faith in him will give us free access to the kingdom of eternity where we will all live together.

Let us pray.

"Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus," reveal to our hearts and minds the real nature of your business here on earth. Remove our stubborn doubt that makes us see you only in our own way, limiting your power to grow in us beyond the child we see in Advent and at Christmas. Work in each of us the holy miracle of healing and restoration and carry us safely to the life in the world to come, for you are Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior, who lives and reigns with the Father and the Spirit, now and forever. Amen.