BROADCASTS.com

John\u2019s disciples told him about all these things. Calling two of them, he sent them to the Lord to ask, \u201cAre you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?\u201d\xa0 When the men came to Jesus, they said, \u201cJohn the Baptist sent us to you to ask, \u2018Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?\u2019\u201d (Luke 7:18-20).

\xa0

Jesus is the one who raises the dead.\xa0 He raises dead hopes, dead-end lives, and even our own dead bodies one day.\xa0 Jesus just proved it as he raised the dead widow\u2019s son just 4 verses previous.\xa0

The reaction of the crowd to this act of resurrection was to praise God.\xa0 The reaction of John the Baptist was doubt and despair.\xa0 Or at least that\u2019s how we often read it.\xa0

Why might John have had cause to despair?\xa0 Well, he was imprisoned, for one.\xa0 So while Jesus was proclaiming good news to the captives, John\u2019s chains had notably not been released.\xa0 Nor had a baptism of fire seemingly rained down.\xa0 Nor had Herod or Ceasar been dethroned or kicked out of Jerusalem.\xa0 No political victories in Jesus\u2019 column yet, and vanishingly few spiritual victories for the vast majority of Jews, including John, either.

It does not always look like our cause is winning, either.\xa0 We\u2019re tired.\xa0 We\u2019re facing mental health challenges, loneliness, a sense of powerlessness, and much sadness.\xa0 Especially now in the wake of Jerilee\u2019s death, another young mother robbed from her family\u2014we can feel the helplessness of grief in the face of these powers of cancer and death that despite our best efforts, we just can\u2019t control.\xa0 And so we wonder: is Jesus really God here?\xa0

The power of John\u2019s question, is that he asks it to Jesus. \xa0Doubt and questions are a good thing in the life of faith.\xa0 They mention the important unmentionables in those places where we see and feel a deep disconnect between the promises God has given and the reality we live.\xa0 But to be questions of faith\u2014a faithful doubt\u2014they must be questions that we eventually ask to Jesus.

Perhaps there\u2019s a different way to understand John\u2019s question though.\xa0 And I think this side speaks something true about doubt as well.

Perhaps John\u2019s question was born more of a faithful searching than a despairing disbelief.\xa0 Luke doesn\u2019t have John meeting Jesus until this moment, and so perhaps John was simply searching for the Messiah he had preached and prepared the way for all these years.\xa0 Was it Jesus, or should he continue his search?\xa0 Seeing John\u2019s question this way speaks of a desire to know this Messiah.\xa0 A desire to keep looking until he finds.\xa0 A committed faith that\u2019s seeking understanding.

Much doubt is born from both of these places: both the place of despair, and the place of searching.\xa0 \xa0\xa0

Both sorts of doubt are faithful when they ask their hard questions to Jesus.\xa0

\xa0