Are You The One?

“Are you the promised One for which we wait?”
Asked John the Baptist from his prison cell,
Of Jesus. Mayhap he fretted his fate,
Hoping to avoid that which soon befell!
“Go back and tell John what you hear and see;
The blind receive sight; the deaf can hear plain;
Those with leprosy of disease are free;
The lame walk; the dead raised to live again!
Blessed is the man who does not fall away
On account of me,” the Savior replied;
He praised John Baptist to the crowd that day
As the messenger who was prophesied*!
The Jews no longer need the extra chair;
Elijah came Jesus’ way to prepare!

*Malachi 3:1

At the time that John the Baptist sent this wuestion to Jesus, he was imprisoned in the palace of King Herod, soon to be beheaded. Even though he had identified his cousin Jesus as the long-awaited Messiah to the crowd at His baptism, he may have begun to doubt, as did nearly all the Jews, because he, too, probably expected an aggressive military leader in the promised One; instead Jesus was gentle and emphasized love of enemies rather than conquering them. John may have expected Him to rescue him from his predicament. Actually, what he had heard was the truth. God never intended to overthrow Israel’s oppressors by force, but by love. “Not by might, nor by power. but by my Spirit” said God in Zechariah 4:6.

“Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy.” (Isaiah 35:5-6)

Seven hundred years before the birth of Jesus, Isaiah prophesied the Messiah would be a healer, not a military leader. Of course, the prophets used a lot of strong adjectives of conquering heroes about Him also; because of the Jews’ dulled spiritual insight, they expected the strong conqueror rather than the gentle lover. However, when Jesus answered John’s question, he quoted Isaiah’s healing, which is exactly what He really was doing, rather than military conquest, because spiritually the conquests made by God are those of healing, not of force.

Another factor that may have influenced Israel to expect a different kind of savior was the prophesies that the Messiah would be like or stronger than David. He had been very successful in war, and God had blessed Israel militarily in the nation’s establishment. This naturally led them to look for a Messiah like David, a military leader; however strength to God is not military force but self-control and virtue.

“That if you confess with your mouth ‘Jesus is Lord’, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans
10:9)