“When We’re Running Out of Hope…God is at Work” a sermon on Matthew 11:1-11 & Isaiah 43:19-21

Matthew 11:1-11
Isaiah 43:19-21
“When We’re Running Out of Hope…God is at Work”
Preached Sunday, December 7, 2025 

Picture this with me - a man in the wilderness, wild in appearance, so assured of his actions and words, a force to be reckoned with. He was not a lone crazy man that was ignored by passersby, no - crowds flocked to see him, news of his charisma and his message that justice was coming spreading far and wide.

This man is John the Baptist at the height of his ministry. This is normally where we approach John in the season of Advent - at the height of his ministry, at the pinnacle of his cult of personality. In hungry religious circles, he was the Good News that they so desperately needed - a message that judgement for those who oppressed and lorded power over them was coming. This season marked by a lack of hope was not going to last long.He preached for the brood of vipers to repent, he warned that the ax was at the root of the tree for those who abused power, he promised that someone even greater than he was coming - someone who would usher in the Kingdom of Heaven when all is made right with the world.

But this is not the John the Baptist we heard about in today’s Gospel text. John is no longer the brave and triumphant prophet boldly proclaiming a radical message. No, after he baptized Jesus and Jesus entered the wilderness for 40 days, John was arrested and has been in prison for the entire duration of Jesus’s ministry thus far. He was imprisoned for criticizing and questioning the legality of Herod’s marriage. He preached truth to power and upset those in power…so they arrested him and threw him in prison. John is just about at his lowest.

Last week we read from the book of Lamentations of a person crying out to God in their lowest point: “I called on your name, O Lord, from the depths of the pit.” John is calling out to God from the depths of the pit. He has been brought low, locked away in a prison cell, knowing that his imprisonment might well end in his death - and as readers of this text - we know that it does eventually lead to his gruesome beheading. His hope is running thin. He sends a messenger to Jesus to ask, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”

There are a couple things going on in John asking this question.

First is the disconnect between John’s vision for the Messiah and the ministry of Jesus. Theologian Stanley Saunders puts it like this: “John’s own ministry, which carried a healthy dose of judgment, seems to have roots especially in Malachi 3:1-5, which says that the one who prepares the way for the day of the Lord’s coming refines and purifies the people with both soap and fire. Jesus’ ministry, in contrast, has focused on healings, exorcisms, and public banquets with tax collectors and sinners—in other words, strong on healing and restoration, but weak on judgment and vindication. As John sits in Herod Antipas’ prison, awaiting death … he may be wondering whether and when the liberation of God’s people from bondage and oppression will really take place.” End quote. And this is not the metaphorical liberation - John is literally wondering if Jesus and his followers are going to come knock down his prison door and release him, free him, liberate him - not just from his cell but from Herod and the powers that be.

The other thing going on in John asking, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” is that he is wondering if his ministry was all worth it. He is at a low point. “Did I get it all wrong? Did I really hear that voice coming down from heaven when I baptized him? Did my ministry and my life make a difference at all? Did everything I did and everything I am…does it amount to anything?”

How many of us, at some point in our lives, have asked these same kinds of questions? Perhaps at a low point, in the depths of the pit of our inner lives, in days of depression, in days when you’re feeling beat up, undervalued, underappreciated. Perhaps at the end of a career, at retirement, or a time of looking back and wondering…Maybe when adult children are out on their own and making decisions that hurt your heart - did I do enough? Whenever you’re looking back and wondering, “Did I make the right choice? Did I take the right fork in the road?” When you’ve had setbacks…. When, when, when…

“Was all this work worth it? Am I on the right track? Does all I’ve done and am doing amount to anything?”

It is at this point in John’s life and our lives that hope is running thin.

So John sends this message to Jesus and what was Jesus’s response?

“Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, those with a skin disease are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.”

Jesus is performing miracles. Jesus is doing the work of the Messiah, all those things that would herald the coming Kingdom of God. Wholeness…

Except something is missing from that wonderful list. Did you pick up on that? Isaiah 61 talks about that Lord’s Day, the prophecy that Jesus is fulfilling and it says this:

“The spirit of the Lord God is upon me
because the Lord has anointed me;
he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,
to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives
and release to the prisoners,”

Jesus’s list has six wonderful things, MIRACLES, amazing things that proclaim that Jesus is the Son of God, that Jesus is the one that John was to prepare the way for - the blind see, the lame walk, the leper is cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have Good News….but that’s six things. The number 7 represented wholeness in the ancient Near East and Jewish custom. We are missing the 7th thing - release of the captive.

John would have picked up on this when he received this news in his prison cell.

In other words, Jesus is answering John - Yes! I am the One! You got it right. What you did made a difference…and…your release is not coming. You will not be freed in this life, not by my hand.

Let’s use our Biblical imagination here for a second - what was John’s reaction to receiving this message? Did he have despair that he was not going to be released? Or did it kindle hope for the future work of God, even if he would not be a part of it? His ministry had come to an end - but that did not mean that it was all for naught.

Artist Lauren Wright Pittman did depict this moment of John receiving this news in a piece of art. In the artwork, John is in a dark prison cell but it captures the very moment he hears of Jesus' ministry and a lantern flares, filling the room with dancing light. John’s face is mid-laugh at this joyous news, even as a tear forms in his eye.

John was faithful. He did the work of God. The fruit is being borne and his hope is renewed, even as he is still physically in that dark place.

So let’s turn again to examining our own questions that come from places where our hope is running thin. The Sanctified Art commentary on this text says this about the questions we ask: We selected this passage because far too many of us can relate to John’s exasperation. We may also ask: ‘Have my efforts made a difference? Is God truly at work?’ This week, let’s validate these questions, but also introduce follow-up questions for self-inquiry: Is my hope solely dependent upon outcomes, tangible proof, or positive change? Can I practice hope even when I don’t see the fruits of my labor? Do I trust that God is at work, even if I cannot always see it? Might God be at work in ways I don’t expect?”

Our reading from Isaiah this morning captures God’s answer to us when we ask these questions:

“I am about to do a new thing;
now it springs forth; do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
and rivers in the desert.”

A similar sentiment is captured in the poem, “God in the Kitchen” by The Rev. Sarah Speed. She writes:

“I called home my first semester of college. I told my mom I was fine,
but I was homesick. She must have heard the truth in my voice.
The ache ate at me. It was a long, slow song, a million tiny ants
slurping the juice from a peach. I was tender and bruised,
in the doldrums of it all. But she could hear all of that. So three states away,
she preheated the oven. Three states away,
she tossed blueberries in a thin layer of flour. Three states away,
she dusted a layer of streusel over the soft peaks
of a dozen warm muffins. And three days later,
I unboxed a package from home—
a dozen blueberry muffins, a love letter with my name on it,
a reminder that I was not alone.
If you’re running out of hope, count to three.
God is in the kitchen. She’s just waiting for yeast to rise.”

End quote.

Do you not perceive it? God is at work under the surface. A way is going to spring forth, a deluge of water in the desert, carving out a path. God is at work in the kitchen - we just don’t know it yet. We are called to hope even when we can’t yet see what the outcome will be, when we don’t know what the future will hold, when we don’t know if it all will be worth it. We are called to trust in the unseen, not yet revealed work of God.

It reminds me of the beloved song in our hymnal, “Hymn of Promise:” “In the bulb, there is a flower. In the seed, an apple tree. In cocoons, a hidden promise: butterflies will soon be free! In the cold and snow of winter, there’s a spring that waits to be, unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.”

Of course here in Ohio we know the cold and snow of winter - and we know the cold and snow of winter metaphorically too - when it’s dark too soon and too regularly - when we’re desperate for signs of God at work, but we can’t see it all underneath the frozen ground. We have to trust - God will bring us hope. God is at work, just under the surface.

And here’s another thing about what Jesus said to and about John… Jesus did not condemn John for his doubt in him or his questioning of him. John tells the messengers to go and tell John the Good News and then Jesus still praises John for the type of man and faithful follower of God that he is.

So too, Jesus does not condemn us for our moments of doubt or questions; Jesus does not scold us for our times when our hope runs thin; Jesus does not leave us to our low places…

Jesus says to us - take heart. Have hope. Do not fear. Do you not perceive the new thing I’m doing?

God is at work, just under the surface.

Holy Communion, which we will share today, is an example of God at work beneath the surface. On the surface level, we are all just eating bread from a local bakery and Welch’s grape juice. But when we look closer, we can perceive the work that God is doing just beneath the surface. God is coming to us in bread and cup. God is working among us. God is uniting us in this meal. God is empowering us for the path ahead… Yes, God is at work here, just under the surface.

If we can let go of what was or what our expectations were… to make room for what will be, for what God is doing - a way out of no way…. If we could have but hope and trust that what God is at work doing just underneath the surface will be so so good…

Let us all have renewed hope. Amen.