I'm going to begin today with a "mea culpa." I did not post a devotional last week, partly due to being absent-minded, but also partly because I just wasn't "there" spiritually. We've all gone through that from time to time, when life's troubles overshadow us. Times when things aren't going so well. Times when life just gets hard and we just down.
I know it's a bit verboten to admit, but we pastors go through it too. I know popular perception is that we're somehow paragons of the faith. We never doubt. We never question. We stand atop our pedestals as a model to emulate. But it's simply not true. We stumble. We struggle. Just like everyone else.
And that's one of the reasons when I'm in one of these moments of spiritual melancholy that I love this story from Luke's Gospel. It begins with John the Baptist in prison. Things in his life have definitely gone south in a big way. And John sends disciples to Jesus to inquire "Are you the real deal?"
Now wait a minute. This is John the Baptist. This is same fellow who even before he was born leaped in his mother's womb when Mary (pregnant with Jesus) came to visit. He probably grew up with Jesus. They probably played together as children. In fact, it's easy to argue that of all the people in the world, the only person who knows Jesus better than John is Mary. John knows Jesus backwards and forwards. How can he doubt who is cousin is and what he's about?
The answer to that is easier than we might care to admit. Life hasn't exactly worked out the way John expected. He's in prison. His ministry has fallen apart. He's probably depressed. He's probably feeling a bit lost. Things that were once certain to him are no longer. Everything that John ever believed is now in question.
The greatest prophet of all time (by Jesus' own reckoning) is struggling with doubt. If he can, who of us can't?
Jesus takes the question that John's disciples convey to him in stride. "Go and tell what you see." It's the perfect answer to John's dilemma. For what do those disciples witness but the blind receiving their sight, the poor hearing good news, the lame walking, the lepers are healed. They see the Kingdom of God in-breaking upon our world. They see the very thing John predicted was coming.
Doubt, struggle, melancholy, depression are real, of course, but one thing they do is often blind us to the truth. Jesus' response to John's disciples is to open their eyes (and, in turn, his) to what was truly happening. We are no different. Our lives may stumble from time to time, but the world keeps turning and God keeps working. The Kingdom continues to break in upon our world. It's still out there, doing what it does: transforming our world from what it is to what it is meant to be.
Martin Luther King, whose life we celebrated earlier this week, once said the "arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice." It does indeed. For us at times, it may seem that it takes far too long, but the Kingdom is coming. Good will overcome. God will triumph. Even if we do not see it, it is still coming. Have faith. Hold fast. The universe is turning to align with God's plan. Trust in that. Amen.
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