Matthew 11:2-11
Third Sunday of Advent Pastor Nathan P. Kassulke Sunday, December 14, 2025
“Jesus Is the One”
John the Baptist was asked the question many times. We heard about John last week, dressed in camel’s hair with a leather belt, living out in the wilderness, eating locusts and wild honey. His message was, “Repent, for the kingdom of God is near.” People crowded around him to see and to hear, and when the Pharisees and Sadducees came out, he said, “You offspring of vipers, who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?” John was a unique, interesting, exciting figure. He was a powerful preacher. So people asked him, “Are you the messiah?” They asked about him, “Is he the messiah?”
John had answered that question, too. He said, “someone more powerful is coming.” He said, “I am not worthy to carry his sandals. I am not worthy to untie his sandals.” When Jesus came to be baptized by John, John hesitated. It didn’t make sense. John knew that Jesus ought to have been the one baptizing him. He knew that Jesus was the greater one. And when he obeyed Jesus and baptized him, John witnessed even more evidence of his greatness. He heard a loud voice thunder from heaven about the holy Son of God. He saw a dove descend on him. He saw exactly what God had told him would guarantee that he had seen the Messiah.
Understand what this word meant to the people. Messiah was a Hebrew word that came from the word to anoint. The Messiah was the anointed one. Many people were anointed in the history of God’s chosen people. Kings and priests and prophets were all set apart for their office by the pouring out of oil on them. They were anointed. But only one was the Messiah. All who read the Old Testament in faith saw a cord running through all of it. They heard a promise. Someone is coming. God was promising a special, unique figure. He was worth waiting for. His coming would bring amazing things. He would crush the head of the tempting serpent who had set in motion the destruction of all creation. Not every reference spoke about him being anointed, but enough did. Many spoke of him being chosen, selected, called by God to do these great things. The faithful readers of prophecy and promise expected this one to come, and they called him the Messiah.
John had heard and answered the question many times. Was he the Messiah? Then suddenly in in Matthew 11, John is not being asked the question. He is the one asking it. The one who had powerfully proclaimed, “Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” was not powerfully proclaiming. He was curiously questioning. In fact, he wasn’t even able to ask the question. He was sending two of his disciples to ask the question on his behalf. “Jesus, are you the One?”
The question doesn’t even use the title Messiah. It doesn’t need to. There were so many ways to refer to him. Are you the Coming One? The words could have referred to anyone who was expected, was traveling from somewhere else, but it was clear and obvious. These weren’t just words about someone coming. These were about the one great figure, promised throughout the Old Testament. The Coming One was the Messiah, and John was asking whether he got it right. He was asking the question that had been asked of him so many times.
Why was he asking? Because things weren’t what he expected. There were lots of amazing things that Jesus was doing, but John was stuck in prison. The very message he had been given to prepare people for the Messiah had landed John in this trouble. He had preached against the sin of Herod, the leader in that region. And John knew that he might not get out of prison. He was able to meet with his disciples still, but he was not able to preach as he had been, and he was wondering whether his own execution was imminent. That’s not how the forerunner of the Messiah ought to be treated. That’s not what should happen to a special servant of God. What did John expect? Maybe he wanted to see evidence of the ax chopping down the sinners. Maybe he was expecting Jesus to do more of the rebuking sin and punishing wrong that John had predicted and warned against. Meanwhile, what John heard about was Jesus helping and healing. But John himself was not being helped.
Maybe there have been times in your life you’ve felt like John did. The things that you wanted did not come. The things you expected did not happen. What you thought was fair or right didn’t work out. Maybe you even
feel this way about something connected to this time of the year. How am I going to celebrate Christmas without someone with whom I have always celebrated? How can so many people have joy while I am stuck dealing with a challenging diagnosis hanging over me? Why do so many people seem to be enjoying so much while I have been trying to do the right thing, but I can’t seem to get anywhere? Maybe you’ve felt the pain and the doubt and the uncertainty. Maybe you’ve even wondered whether Jesus was the one you really need. Can someone really go from bold witness to doubter? Can someone really go from absolute conviction to uncertainty? Yes, indeed. That is the very nature of our world and our experience. Things can seem and feel very different from one day to the next, from one moment to the next.
John went to the right place for answers. He went to Jesus. He went with his questions and his doubts. And Jesus answered the question. He pointed to all the amazing and wonderful things that he had been doing. Healing. Helping. Blind people could see. Deaf people could hear. Go and tell John about all these things. Do you recall what we read in Isaiah 35 earlier? The very things that God had promised in connection with the Messiah were coming true. Jesus didn’t need to spell in our more explicitly. He was indeed the Coming One. It is also interesting what Jesus did not say. He could have referred to other prophecies. He could have suggested that he was fulfilling other promises shared by Isaiah. He could have said that he would set prisoners free and release the captives. But he was not immediately doing that for John. John would indeed be in that prison until his execution. And that was the time he was truly free.
Any doubt that John had was clear evidence of sin at work in him. He knew he could not have done enough on his own to earn or merit eternal life. He knew Jesus was more worthy and more powerful, that wasn’t as high a bar as some of us like to think. But the Messiah had come for those very reasons. The Messiah had come to free prisoners of sin, to give sight to the spiritually blind and hearing to the spiritually deaf. What John could see and hear in the ministry of Jesus were samples of the greater work he had come to accomplish. And Jesus would let nothing get in the way of his ultimate work. He offered himself on the cross for the sins of the world and rose again in victory. He was not the Messiah everyone expected, but he was the Messiah everyone needed. He may not always give you what you want in the moment, but he is the Messiah you need.
As John’s disciples returned with the answer for John, Jesus went on to praise his forerunner to the gathered crowd. John was not a reed swaying in the wind or a man in fancy clothing. He was not trying to fit his message to what people wanted to hear. He was not trying to earn wealth for himself by what he did. He came to do what God had appointed him to do. He came to fulfil another prophecy, to be the preparer of the way, to be the forerunner of the Messiah. John himself was one more piece of evidence that Jesus was indeed the One, the Messiah.
And John did his job so well that there was none greater. But Jesus leaves us with a bit of a riddle. As true as that was, it was also true that the least in the kingdom of heaven was greater than John. In this New testament kingdom, those who have had the opportunity to see what John did not, the fulfilment of every prophecy and the unfolding of God’s plan in history, have that greater blessing. We have seen in the history of our world the great sacrifice for sins and the victim’s resurrection to life again. And that gives us everything. It gives us certainty in our doubts. It gives us peace for our struggles. It gives us the promise of release from all that troubles us when we come to live with Jesus forever in the paradise he has prepared for us.
For centuries, it turns out, commentators have had a great debate about this very account. The facts are not in dispute, but the motivations are. Did John send messengers to Jesus because of is own doubts, so out-ofcharacter from the other events we know of in his life? Perhaps. Or did he send those disciples because he wanted to point them in the right direction? Perhaps he was worried about their confidence. It ultimately doesn’t matter whose doubts were overcome. What matters is how they were overcome. They were overcome by Jesus. He showed his power and might. He showed his love and compassion. He showed that he truly was the Coming One. He was John’s Messiah. He was the disciples’ Messiah. He is your Messiah. Jesus is the One.
The Text: Matthew 11:2–11 (EHV)
2While John was in prison, he heard about the things Christ was doing. He sent two of his disciples 3to ask him, “Are you the Coming One or should we wait for someone else?”
4Jesus answered them, “Go, report to John what you hear and see: 5The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the gospel is preached to the poor. 6Blessed is the one who does not take offense at me.”
7As these two were leaving, Jesus began to talk to the crowds about John. “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind? 8What did you go out to see? A man dressed in soft clothing? No, those who wear soft clothing are in kings’ houses. 9So what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you! And he is much more than a prophet. 10This is the one about whom it is written, ‘Look, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.’ 11Amen I tell you: Among those born of women there has not appeared anyone greater than John the Baptist. Yet whoever is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.