Why does God allow so much suffering? We’re looking at no less than three viruses taking us down, inflation robs us of hard-earned money, and a war eats into all sense of peace. So where is God in all that? Well, here’s a clue. Even when your best friend and supporter needed help, Jesus, you looked the other way. People know tragedy every day, including holidays. So much for all that “Joy to the World.” For all the love you talk about, we doubt if you really care.

From the Seat of Doubt

Doubt not only questions but gets the hand ready to turn the knob, determined to walk and slam that door shut. Claims of good news and abundant life look as real as reindeer on the rooftop. To accept that God wants the best life for us when the worst in life smacks you in the face is close to unbelievable.

Unbelievable is right. It doesn’t take modern thought, science and worldviews to come to that conclusion. Jesus knew the struggle even before his own story was complete. And he knew it from one of his oldest, closest friends, the one whose destiny was to prepare the way for his coming.

The Big Question

JTB had been Jesus’ greatest advocate. His message of repentance, that is, turning from and reversing one’s life in the direction of God, had garnered many who offered themselves to be lowered and raised in river water. For this, John the Baptist had a great following as preacher and prophet in his own right.

Though John the Baptist was being compared to, and some thought he actually was the prophet Elijah, there was a bottom to his belief as well. A life preaching in the desert wasn’t so much trouble for him as being in the pit of Herod’s jail. Arrested and knowing his life was at the mercy of a sick governor, John had to ask himself if this life of God and following a Messianic figure was worth it. Or rather, John had to have an answer to help with Jesus’ question, “Do you believe this?”

John sent his followers to ask the big question, “Are you really the Messiah?” Are you more than a preacher and prophet like me? Are you more than one sent by God but one who is God and with God, the Son of God? Or should we keep looking for someone else?

Face it, John’s question was not an isolated one. When we’ve done our best for God, when life is not as planned, when any measures of security cave beneath you, when fairness and justice melt like snowflakes over fire, we, like John the Baptist, wrestle with the same doubt, asking what kind of God is out there in the suffering we meet.

Note that John did not ask to be set free and saved from this weak and paranoid tetrarch who would end his life. Jesus likewise did not offer to call on angelic warriors to bust him out of Herod’s prison.

Even from his cell, John heard what Jesus had been doing. Messages and miracles fought trouble with hope, and when one sees hope fulfilled, the hopeless ask if this could be real. There’s no guarantee an easy road will be attached if you listen to his, “Come and See.  Follow Me. I’ll make you fishers of men (people) or more than you ever thought you’d be.”   When you’re one of those who gets slammed for doing what he asks, you’ve got to confront this trouble maker for the answer that will determine your soul. Are you for real?

Good News/Bad News

No record reports that Jesus wept in this scenario, but maybe he could have. His connection with John went back to the womb when their mothers had communed with each other about no less than angelic revelations. In John’s arms, he had been raised from baptismal water to hear divine affirmation, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.”   The declaration led both of them to realizing what their destinies’ design would be.

Jesus faced the trouble he brought with one who was supposed to share his good news. Still, what kind of good news can you give to the guy who would die by the hand of an evil kind of troublemaker, an extension of your own antithesis. Dear Jesus, will you weep now?

Sometimes all doubt needs is to be reminded of what it already knows, has seen and has heard. It’s truth not cloaked in high thoughts or mystical sayings. It simply affirms what is. “Go back to John and tell him what you have heard and seen,” Jesus says. “The blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised from the dead.”

Yes, John, he’s saying. Lives are changed, and trouble is reversed. I have seen and touched and spoken away that which attacks the body to get to the soul. But this is not the only miracle or the best miracle I have brought to this hurting, troubled world. “Good News is being preached to the poor.”

The greatest reversal, the greatest miracle is a life that is turned from its inward trouble, needs, desires, and purposes to one that is turned to God and God in me. “I am the way, the truth and the life,”   he told those closest to him on the night before he met his final trouble. “The words I say are not my own, but my Father who lives in me does his work through me. Just believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me.” Then, likely knowing they always needed more, he adds. “Or at least believe because of what you have seen me do.”

Still, underlying his answer to John were the words that Jesus did not say. “Good news to the poor,” had been promised long ago by the prophet Isaiah. Jesus understood that John would also remember the second part, the part that Jesus left out, how “captives will be released, and prisoners will be freed.”  That was the bad news. It wouldn’t happen for John.

Trouble Reversed

Jesus knew that John was like everyone else. When push comes to shove, when trouble must be acknowledged and accepted that it will do its worst, you must have something on which to hold. You need a way to not only cope but get through to the bitter end and beyond.

You turn to and lean in to that promise stated and reminded from its source, “You will not die.” I will reverse it all by what I show you in myself. Trouble must be faced, and doubt silenced by not only resurrection and reversal in lives lived but revealed in the one who asked the question, “Do you believe this?” Jesus would have to die a personal, physical death and reverse it in himself for anyone to answer in the affirmative.

Gently then, Jesus’ last message and word to John the Baptist is, “God blesses those who are not offended by me.” Both he and John had known offense. The religious hierarchy did not afford them any status of position or education. They did not preach solely in the sacred places of synagogue or Temple, but along rivers and deserts, in homes and on hillsides.

Their followers included a rough band of men and women, some of questionable repute. Even so, people loved both John the Baptist and Jesus for the hope they realized through forgiveness in the kingdom of God, a place where they were not oppressed by legalism or monetary greed. The hope these two preachers/prophets gave lay not in political or military power, but in grace and love for even the most low and poor and those who would serve the childlike and the losers with all they had.

A Hard Ending

Not only in his life and preaching did John the Baptist prepare the way for his Messiah. Like the prophets before him, his death would also be his message.

So John died, executed by an evil man. Jesus, you did nothing to stop it. Bad things still happen to good people, and God doesn’t stop them. To be blunt, there is no good answer for people when the unthinkable happens. If we are not to believe in a God who makes life on earth all perfect, happy scenes of holiday lights and delighted children around decorated trees, what are we to believe?

Doubt struggles between the God we want and the Son of God who came asking, “Do you believe this?” The Trouble with Jesus is that to be Savior is not to be rescuer from all that is wrong in the world.

Please, Jesus, in all your goodness, you lived with us, knew our trouble, and promised so much in your life. Can this really be true, are you the Messiah, the one who will take away the worst of myself as well as what I love best about myself and make me new, born again you call it? Will you help me believe in you so I can believe in more than myself?

For this, John the Baptist prepared the way.

Matthew 11:2-11