W hy didn’t John see? Here the prophet Isaiah presents a vision of the Messianic Age, but John can’t see it unfolding.

      The eyes of the blind shall be opened,

      and the ears of the deaf unstopped;

      the lame shall leap like a deer,

      and the tongue of the speechless

             sing for joy...

      The wilderness and the dry land

             shall be glad,

      the desert shall rejoice and blossom...

      The ransomed of the LORD

             shall return,

      and come to Zion with singing...

      What then are we to do? Isaiah tell us:

      Strengthen the weak hands,

             and make firm the feeble knees.

      Say to those who are of a fearful heart,

             “Be strong, do not fear!

             Here is your God.”

      Yet here is John, in his prison cell, wondering. It is hard to imagine John the Baptist having doubts. It does not fit our image of the one crying out in the wilderness, girded in camel’s hair and eating wild locusts, but that is precisely what the Gospels say about him. The same one who just a few scenes earlier was loudly proclaiming the imminent judgement of God, and the impending arrival of the Messiah who, winnowing fork in his hand, would separate the wheat from the chaff, now lies in prison, broken, defeated, and wondering. And in his wondering, in his uncertainty, John sends his disciples to Jesus to ask, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”

P erhaps John was a bit disappointed. You can understand why. Jesus was not exactly living up to his billing. John preached of the wrath to come. The images were violent. “The ax is lying at the root of the trees.” “Every tree not bearing good fruit will be cut down.” “The Messiah will gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

      What has Jesus done? No ax. No fire. Only teaching. And healing. And welcoming. And eating. No, it has not been all sugar and spice. Jesus has had a few harsh words for the Scribes and Pharisees. Like John, he too has his enemies. He does not want to distance himself too far from John’s ministry. “He is more than a prophet,” Jesus tells his own disciples. “Among those born of women, no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist.”

      Yet Jesus was not what John expected. The end had not come. The powers that be were still the powers that be. It is one thing to rail against the establishment from a perch in the wilderness when all the world is coming to you, it is another to maintain your hope from the darkness of a prison cell when you are all alone. So he wonders. And he asks, “Are you the one?”

      Jesus doesn’t answer directly. He doesn’t offer any proof. He makes no irrefutable argument that will convince John, or his disciples, or any one else for that matter. He simply points to his own ministry, drawing on imagery from the prophet Isaiah, and invites John to see the presence of God. “The blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news brought to them.”

      It is a modest answer. Our translation places definite articles where the Greek has none. The blind, the lame, the deaf. But a better translation might be, “blind are seeing again,” or even, “some lepers are cleansed.” Not all, not everyone. But a few, here and there, are being healed. And they are signs of the kingdom. These are the sort of metaphors that Jesus used through out his ministry. The Kingdom of God is in the midst of you, he told his disciples. It is like seed scattered on the ground. It is like yeast in a loaf of bread. It is like a little salt to savor otherwise insipid food. It is, as the theologian Douglas John Hall puts it, like “a little city on a hill lighted with oil lamps guiding the wandering stranger in the dark night.”

      Jesus’ answer, in other words, is not to look for another, but to look in the same place in a new way. It strikes me that the greatest gift of the Messianic age may not be the sort of overwhelming proofs we so long for, but rather simply new eyes to see. We are invited through Jesus’ eyes to see through signs and wonders the presence of the Kingdom of God. They are not overwhelming. They are not proofs. But for those with eyes to see, they are signs of the Kingdom’s presence. These are what our Advent dreams are all about.

A re there signs of the Kingdom here among us? Surely there are no proofs. There is nothing much to see here for the worldly wise. Not much money. Not many people. No public figures. No celebrities. But for those with eyes to see there are signs, here and there, now and then, that the Kingdom of God is in the midst of us.

      It is not in the dramatic moments, the ones we plan and prepare for, the ones where we know in advance what will take place that we see signs of the Kingdom. Rather, it is in those quiet, unrehearsed moments, the ones that pass us right by, often without us even noticing at the time. Like when Mary Lib stands up on a Sunday morning and invites us to donate an extra coat to Georgetown Ministries. Or when the Sunday school children prepare give-away bags for Open Table. Or DeLania Hardy announces that she needs one more volunteer, and three people show up. Or Carol Huls celebrating her birthday by helping build a home for Habitat, or Karen Garrett celebrating her anniversary by bringing her husband along on the Pilgrimage Service Day.

      What sort of proof is that that God reigns? What sort of evidence is that that Christ is born among us? But to those with eyes to see, it is a sign, a glimpse, a foretaste of the Kingdom of God in the midst of us.

      So, in this season of Advent, you are invited to avert your eyes from the glitzy displays at the mall, the endless barrage of television advertisements, even the official Christmas trees at the White House or Rockefeller Center, and instead cast your gaze for other signs of the Kingdom among us. One of those signs among us is our own dreaming of a world made new. It is in those dreams that the Spirit makes space among us to bring about the gifts of the Messiah that Isaiah proclaimed.

      So again this morning we will do that in two ways. First by hearing one of our own members articulate their Spirit-inspired dream for a world made new. Then, as Rob plays our hymn, you are invited to bring forward your special offering. Today our Advent offering is for the “Shoebox Gift Project” for SOME– So Others Might Eat– an interfaith, community-based organization that provides food, clothing and mental health and health care to the poor and homeless of our nation’s capital. We begin with the dream, an invitation to awaken your own prophetic imagination. Then we will follow by bringing our special offerings, as one small way to live in to that dream, even as we await, with the prophet, a time when “they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.”

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       To read Pilgrim’s Advent Dreams, see: www.churchofthepilgrims.org/adventdreams.html