3rd Sunday of Advent (15.12.13)
DOUBT – The Less Appreciated Disability Doubt is an inescapable human experience. Non-rational beings are not subject to it. Did ‘Adam’ and ‘Eve’ experience doubt? Yes, but only subsequent to their loss of the ‘Garden of Eden’ where they had lived in perfect communion with God. Gen. 3:8 describes God as ‘freely walking and conversing’ with them. As exiles, our first parents discovered many disabilities. Among them was doubt, which they passed to their progeny! Doubt is a cover-all word that attempts to define a human state between belief and disbelief in which the mind, suspended between two contradictory propositions, is unable to assent to either. Politics, ethics and the Law place considerable emphasis on doubt by supporting the adversarial process as a method of revealing what may be concealed under a general heading of ‘evidence’. Doubt as a form of torment can unbalance a person. This Sunday’s Gospel (Matt 11:2-11) reveals an imprisoned John the Baptist as someone assailed by doubt. “When John the Baptist heard in prison of the works of the Christ, he sent his disciples to Jesus with this question, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?” Of comparable age, John had grown up with Jesus, his cousin, as families were supportively close in those perilous times. Moreover, there is reason to suppose that, as young men, Jesus and John had shared some monastic experience with the community of the Essenes at ‘Qumran’ in the Judean wilderness near the Dead Sea. Though their pathways were distinct, they would have known one another. Moreover, John was challenged to find himself destined to baptize the one whose ‘sandal he was not fit to untie’. (Acts 13:25) What caused John’s doubt? There is no Biblical answer. Speculation is based on our own experiences. We know, for example, that stress-filled incarceration can undermine a person’s health causing, among other things, severe disorientation. Couple this with exposure to concentrated evil and a person can be driven to doubt the existence of God. Brian Keenan’s book ‘An Evil Cradling’, describing his four and a half year incarceration in Beirut, is illuminative. The Baptist’s prison conditions were probably on a par with the worst known today in North Korea, China, Tibet or the Russian gulags. We are told it was John’s ‘hearing about the works of Christ’ that caused him to send messengers to Jesus. Neither the identity of John’s informants nor the nature of the information they gave him is recorded. Either element could have ‘tempted’ John to doubt his faith given his inhuman incarceration. There’s nothing new in the feeding of false information to a vulnerable person, for example, in order to break their spirit. This Gospel extract calls to mind the punishing experience being endured today by our Christian brothers and sisters held without trial in China, Tibet, North Korea and elsewhere. John’s question for Jesus, while indicative of doubt: “Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?” is not indicative of an overall loss of faith in God. This is an important distinction. The accumulative effects of Herodias’ deep hatred and malevolence failed to undermine John’s faith in God, the gift to John in his mother Elizabeth’s womb at the event we call ‘The Visitation’ – Luke 1:39-41 – “At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, where she entered Zechariah’s home and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.” John’s persevering faith in adverse conditions testifies to his lifelong commitment to prayer and fasting. This, in turn, prompts a question for the Baptised today. Were persecution to break upon us, and who is to say it couldn’t given the history of human behaviour, are the foundations of our faith sufficiently well cared for? The ‘trinkets’ of certificates, candles, videos, photos and clothing don’t equate with being grounded in a protracted, living and loving, personal relationship with God. Jesus’ reply to John may have surprised some people then, as well as Gospel readers now. “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind regain their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have the good news proclaimed to them. And blessed is the one who takes no offence at me”. People may have wondered why Jesus didn’t bring about the release of his cousin. The proclamation of ‘The Good News’ took precedence then as it does today. Those deprived of liberty need access to God no less than those who walk free. Both Peter and Paul made use of their incarcerations to spread the Gospel. Jesus, himself, was jeered at on Calvary: “The people stood watching, and the rulers even sneered at him. They said, “He saved others; let Jesus save himself if he is God’s Messiah, the Chosen One.” (Luke 23:35) Jesus’ response John would have confirmed for John that Jesus was the ‘One’ and so prepared John for the martyr’s death he could see approaching. Today, too, Christians face martyrdom in many different ways. Their faith in Jesus supports them in lifelong unimaginable deprivation. They accept martyrdom as their call to proclaim the ‘Good News’ though they may be silenced and hidden from view. In today’s world of insatiably aggressive, instantaneous media it’s hard to appreciate the slowness of communication in that distant era. John’s messengers may have spent weeks finding Jesus, relaying the question, hearing the response and returning to John. John and Jesus had been spiritually linked, womb-to-womb, since Mary, the Mother of Jesus, had visited her cousin Elizabeth who was carrying the future John the Baptist. Their level of communion would make today’s vaunted electronic media look prehistoric. They had faith in God and in each other. Satan constantly seeks to undermine our relationship with Jesus and therefore with the Father and the Spirit. But Satan also attacks our belief in the Divine Origin of the Catholic Church. When Jesus appointed Peter, still recovering from his denial and betrayal of Jesus, as ‘Keeper of the Keys’, he warned Peter (Matt 16:17-19) “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! … And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, …. ” The history of The Church is human as well as Divine. Sadly, in its humanity is ample painful evidence of human sinfulness. For sure, we will feel the full force of Satan’s attack. If we have allowed the devil to stealthily lower our defenses by undermining our faith in Jesus, then we need to beware. For example, no sooner had Jesus confirmed Peter as ‘the keeper of the keys’ (Matt 16:19) and then gone on to speak of his (Jesus’) grievous suffering to come than Peter was doing the devil’s work: “Lord, this must not happen to you’. (Matt 16:22) Jesus’ response to Peter’s protective impulse must have floored the future leader of the Church: “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”(Matt.16:23) There’s comfort for all who choose to believe in Jesus, and value their living, loving, relationship with him, in knowing that so blessed a disciple as John the Baptist could be infiltrated by doubt. Jesus described John in Matt 11:11: “Truly I tell you, among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist”. The first Reading for this Third Advent Sunday (Isaiah 35) lists some of the fallout, in terms of faith, that can result when doubt is ignored: “Strengthen the hands that are feeble, make firm the knees that are weak, say to those whose hearts are frightened: Be strong, fear not! Here is your God; he comes with vindication; with divine recompense he comes to save you.” When unattended doubt causes faith to be weakened or to fail then feeble hands are not uplifted in prayer, weak knees are not bowed in adoration and frightened hearts are invaded by fear. The resulting paralysis of faith injures not only us but others, too, through us. Judas Iscariot is identified as the betrayer of Jesus. Judas is not alone. There have always been betrayers – the Apostles who ran away when Jesus was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane, Peter who denied knowing Jesus (that’s a form of betrayal) in the High Priest’s courtyard, Thomas who refused to believe until the Risen Lord confronted him, the two disciples walking with heavy hearts to Emmaus until the Risen Jesus joined them, Saul the Pharisee and famous persecutor of Christians until his encounter with Jesus on the Road to Damascus – are just some of the early names. Do we examine ourselves for evidence of our betrayal of Jesus? Do we ask Jesus to help us see how we betray him? Surely, this would be a more worthwhile use of our time than hunting and naming others as ‘betrayers’! “Let the one who is without sin cast the first stone.” (John 8:7)