Transformation

 

Reflection for the Third Sunday in Advent (Gaudete), the 11^th of December 2022, in the pew notes at St Peter’s, Eastern Hill, Melbourne.  Written by Philip Harvey. 

Jesus answers questions with return questions. He gets you to think about what you’re asking. Other times he answers questions with wise circumlocutions. Asked if he’s the Messiah, he replies with a stack of events that must add up to Yes, you’d think, but leaves you then to make up your own mind. ‘The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.’ 

These happenings contradict all the empirical norms, yet no one disputes that they are happening. Inasmuch as he is riffing the prophet Isaiah, if that’s what he’s doing, Jesus is making clear that the moment has arrived. 

What is happening is personal transformation. Those who encounter Jesus, his words and actions, are spoken to. They are healed according to their need, given new life in ways not previously conceivable. His reply to the question are you the Messiah is not a brag sheet of attributes and achievements. He is showing what happens when we encounter the transformative love of God. There are none so insightful as those whose sight has been restored. To overcome the powers of death is to see and live existence anew. To be on side with those who have nothing is to begin to offer hope in a state of pure necessity. Such transformation is available to anyone at all, everyone in fact. 

As both Jesus and his cousin John the Baptist say, transformation comes first with repentance. It’s personal. It starts with us. He confirms John’s ministry in the process. 

Jesus’s astonishing circumlocution comes with an unusual blessing. ‘And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.’ Is this a form of advance forgiveness? The blessing comes from a knowledge of contradiction, that not everyone is going to adopt his way immediately. There are those who will give up on his teaching, who find it doesn’t meet their expectations whether high or low, doesn’t suit their lifestyle, or is just too hard to handle. Yet for all that, his way remains open at any time. Transformation is available. 

Isaiah 35: 1-6, 10. Psalm 146: 6-10. James 5: 7-10. Matthew 11: 2-11.