Rumor Has It (Part Two)

Luke 7:19-23 shows us something curious about John the Baptist. In church services, we are force-fed the relationship between John and Jesus where John baptizes Jesus in the Jordan. He boldly proclaims, in John 1:29, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.”

I think we can all agree that, at the time of baptism, John seems confident of his cousin's role in God's plans for Israel. One point we reserve for Bible trivia, but seldom seriously consider, is the blood relation between John and Jesus. They were cousins. Mary's sister was John's mother. It's not like John and Jesus lived on opposite sides of the world. I think it is possible that the two of them grew up together.

It is possible they spoke often to each other on higher topics. It is, after all, more than evident that they chose similar paths in their adult lives. Both became masters of a sort, commanding apostles and disciples – and that was likely a position arrived at through already established societal structures such as the synagogue, the temple, or schooling within orders such as the Pharisees, the Sadducees, or even the Essenes.

How can it be that John goes from confidence in John 1:29 to doubt in Luke 7:19? As a concept, the Lamb of God can find an informal relationship to the Passover lamb. The constituents of such a concept might include 'being covered by the blood', 'redemption' or being 'set free', 'the first born being spared from death' or 'the death of the first born as a ward against death.' Not to be overlooked is the connection between the slaying of an unblemished lamb for the Passover celebrations, the 'body' and the 'blood', and the crucifixion, or 'slaying' at the time of Passover.

These well could have been topics of discussion between two cousins pursuing similar goals. Jesus might have referred to himself as the Lamb of God, and that could have been the reason John said what he said in John 1:29. And while John's statement seems bold and confident, it might have been nothing more than parroting what he had heard from his cousin.

Had that been the case, and John began to hear rumors of his cousin, his actions would have been justified. Yes, he had baptized his cousin, but he needed to know if Jesus was the one he and his disciples looked for. All of the major religious groups of Jesus' day looked for the coming of one who would set Israel free from the yoke of Rome. John's need to know, actually, aligns him with the prevalent mind-set of that era.

All established religious orders of that day lived in expectation of a coming Messiah as prophesied in the Old Testament law and prophets. The Pharisees and Sadducees found it hard to swallow that the coming Messiah could be found in the person of one of their own. For them, a messiah had to be big enough and Holy enough to justify their keeping of the law. The Essenes, on the other hand, imagined a day of reckoning that lay somewhere in the future, but the confrontation between the forces of light and dark would clearly see them come out on top. The fact that John entertained the notion that “he that should come” might be realizable in the person of a living contemporary could indicate a connection to the Zealots.

So John sent two of his disciples to ask. While they were there, they witnessed actual deeds rather than simply hear more talk. They saw with their own eyes everything that Jesus told them to report back to John. They saw sight given to the blind, fully functional legs given to the lame, and life given to the dead. They saw those with infirmities healed. They saw those with plagues healed. They even saw the incredible cleansing of lepers. They heard the Gospel and saw how the poor of the land had their hope restored.

In part one of this study I asked the question, 'where's the evidence?' The disciples of John returned to their master with evidence. That is how Jesus answered them. Doubting Thomas, in similar fashion, had his doubts answered with evidence. He told Thomas, in John 20:24-27, “Be not faithless, but believing.” Thomas had been offended in the truth of Jesus as reported by his fellow disciples. A week earlier, his fellow disciples had been offended in the truth of Jesus – in so much that Jesus ate fish and a piece of honeycomb in their presence as evidence of his risen reality. To John the baptist, and to all the rest of us, Jesus says pretty much the same thing, “Blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me.”

The evidence is there; we do not have to remain faithless.