Sign of a New Day (Matt. 11:2-6)
From his prison cell, John the Baptist sent an urgent message to Jesus: "Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?" (Matt. 11:3, NIV). For the reader of the Gospels, it is a surprising and unexpected question. Was this not the same John who so confidently announced the Messiahship of Jesus at the Jordan (John 1:29-36)? And why would he raise the question precisely after he had "heard in prison what Christ was doing" (Matt. 11:2, NIV)? What is important for our study here, however, is Jesus' response: "Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor" (vss. 4, 5, NIV).
Jesus' coded message to John was that His ministry was the sign of a new day dawning; the Messiah had, indeed, arrived. Surely in the back of Jesus' mind as He spoke were the glorious Messianic prophecies in the book of Isaiah, among others.
Read Isaiah 29:18, 19; 35:5, 6; 61:1-3. How do these passages relate to Jesus' ministry? Why do you think John and others were so slow to catch on?
The idea of Jesus' ministry as a fulfillment of prophecy and the dawning of the Messianic age comes through clearly in Matthew's own interpretation of events, in the way he anchors Jesus' activities in the broader, Messianic context: "This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah: 'He took up our infirmities and carried our diseases'" (Matt. 8:17, NIV; citing Isa. 53:4). We see this same idea playing out in Matthew's summary description of Jesus' overall ministry: "Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd" (Matt. 9:35, 36, NIV; see also Matt. 4:23-25).
Looking back, we marvel at how John and others could have been so slow to see who Jesus was. Of course, hindsight is always very clear. What about us today? How might we be just as blind to what should be obvious truths? More important, how can we change?
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