Reverend Jonathan Waits
Important Origins (Matthew 11:1-24)
Date: January 5, 2025
I have an important question for you as we get started this morning: Have you taken down your Christmas lights yet? Our tree was down on the 26th, mostly because we wanted full access to our living room again. The outside lights, though, we usually leave up at least a few days longer. We actually just got them all down in the last couple of days. We always put a line of lights across the front of our house, but it can’t be one continuous line because we have this weird extra roofline that breaks right at the front door. We’ve tried taking a string of lights across the gap, but they always look weird hanging loosely in this sort of no man’s land. So, we just break the strands of lights up and run cords to two different places.
In our first Christmas in the house back a few years ago, my OCD had me exploring ways to run a string of lights along the extra roofline for the sake of making the whole thing look more complete. The trouble is, there’s no way to reach the extra roofline from a ladder like you can the rest of the roofline. Instead you have to put a ladder up to the bottom of it right by the front door and climb up the roof to get there. I’m pretty sure I was home alone working on the lights that year—which is always a time when bad decisions are made involving ladders and Christmas lights—and I thought long and hard about getting on the roof in order to make the front of the house look extra good. Well, I didn’t have any of the wisdom sparkles on my head or in my beard then—some of you have incorrectly identified those merely as gray hairs—and so the idea sounded pretty good at first. But then I got to the top of the ladder and realized just how steep our roof is and how loose the shingle gravel really is and doubt started to creep in. Maybe I would have been fine, but the more likely outcome was a trip to the emergency room, which wouldn’t have made for a very fun start to the season.
I tell you all of that to say this: Sometimes doubt can be a really good thing. My doubting that I was going to be able to successfully climb the roof for the sake of putting up Christmas lights where they really didn’t need to be kept me from getting hurt. Your doubts about drinking that milk that was several days past its expiration date probably kept you from getting sick. Doubts about driving on that tire that looked a little low kept you from dealing with a flat tire on the side of the highway. Listening to justifiable doubts has been keeping humanity going for thousands of years.
On the other hand, though, doubt can also be a really bad thing. It can leave us missing out on experiences that could otherwise be life changing. It can result in our missing out on great financial opportunities. It could mean missed Gospel opportunities. In the context of a relationship, if doubts enters the mind of one party or the other without direct cause—perhaps as the result of painful experiences in the past that are coloring a view of the present and the future—that can be crippling of or even destructive to the relationship.
Doubts are one way our brains tell us that we need to tread carefully on the ground before us. Maybe it’s fine. But maybe it’s not. Either way, caution is in order. Rushing forward without thought or planning would be decidedly unwise. Where doubts are warranted—like when I was seriously considering climbing up on the roof without my incredibly smart bride at home to remind me that it was a stupid idea from the start—they are at worst neutral, and at best helpful guardrails in protecting us from foolish decisions. Where they are not, however, they carry the potential of wreaking destructive havoc on our lives and relationships.
The thing is: Doubt is everywhere. It’s a part of our lives whether we want it to be or not. Living life without any doubt isn’t attainable or, honestly, as we said, even desirable. Yet there are still those negative aspects of doubt for us to deal with. This means that we have to learn to manage doubt in healthy, productive ways so that it doesn’t do us undo harm.
The beginning of a year like this is often when a preacher is going to try to find something inspiring or challenging or otherwise encouraging to lay on their congregation. And, we did some of that last week. But as we get started into this new year, I think it’s worth being honest together about the fact that doubt is a real thing, and a real thing that is a struggle for not a few folks. And here in the context of the church, it’s worth our time to be honest about the fact that religious and spiritual doubts are a real thing for not a few professed followers of Jesus. And so, for these couple of weeks, in a short series called, When in Doubt, I want to tackle the subject of doubt together. Now, there have been whole books written about doubt, so we’re not going to cover it exhaustively in two weeks. But with those religious and spiritual doubts that so many of us have, and with all of the things I am convinced God has planned to do in and through us over this next year—things that doubt could disrupt in frustrating and even debilitating ways—we’re going to talk about how we can keep on the path God has laid out for us without getting bogged down by doubt.
Guiding us on this little journey is going to be a chapter out of Matthew’s Gospel that, honestly, until we studied it together at the Gathering Place a few months ago, I didn’t know had so much to say about doubt. Yet as we talked through what we found in this chapter, the theme was so strong that it struck me as something the whole church needed to hear about and not just the steadily growing group on Wednesday nights. (Which, by the way, if you’re not already a part of, you really should be because you’re missing out.) So, if you have a copy of the Scriptures handy this morning, find your way with me to Matthew 11, and let’s start a conversation about doubt.
Whenever you start a new venture, one of the things you need most is a cheerleader. You need someone who is a passionate and committed fan who can help you spread the word about what you have going on, and direct people your way. Jesus had this in His cousin, John. They were first introduced when both of them were still in their respective mothers’ wombs. Luke tells us about the incredible scene when Mary first walked into Elizabeth’s house, bearing the Lord of Heaven and Earth in her tummy, and John, still in Elizabeth’s tummy, leapt in joy at the presence of His Lord. John had been excited about Jesus since before either of them were breathing on their own. What their relationship looked like from there, we don’t have any idea. We don’t know if they grew up together. We don’t know how close they were as kids. We don’t know how connected their families were. But we do know that when John started his own ministry that was incredibly large and successful by at least every worldly measure, His message was a simple one: repent because the Messiah is coming. And he knew who the Messiah was. The first time he laid eyes on Jesus when his cousin came to visit his ministry at the Jordan River, he declared, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world!” Suffice to say, Jesus had few people in His corner and who were as convinced of the rightness of His mission as John.
At some point in his own ministry, though, John punched above his weight class, drew the ire of Herod Antipas, and more specifically, Herod’s wife, Herodias (who was also his ex sister-in-law and his niece…and you thought your family was complicated), and was arrested and thrown in the royal prison to rot. Well, when your cousin is the Messiah, the prospect of being thrown in prison by the Roman King of the region isn’t all that intimidating of an idea. So, John punched up with boldness perhaps expecting that his cousin would help him out when he needed it. But then Jesus didn’t. And then a few days turned into a few weeks, and John wasn’t perhaps so confident as he once was.
We know this because in Matthew 11, we find the story of a time when John sent some of his own disciples to Jesus with a message. Look at this with me now in Matthew 11:1: “When Jesus had finished giving instructions to his twelve disciples, he moved on from there to teach and preach in their towns. Now when John heard in prison what the Christ was doing, he sent a message through his disciples and asked him, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else.’”
Now, just think about that for a minute. Again, John was one of Jesus’ biggest cheerleaders on earth. No one was as confident in who Jesus was and what Jesus could do as John was. His confidence ran circles around that of the disciples. And yet a few weeks in prison had him sending about as doubt-filled of a message to Jesus as you could possibly imagine. Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else? Are you really the guy, Jesus? I’ve been telling everyone about you. I’ve been telling them all about who you are, and what you are going to do. I’ve been getting them all ready for your kingdom and the day of the Lord’s favor. But I’ve been sitting in this cell for a long time. I know you know about it. And you don’t seem to be doing anything about it. Jesus, I’m your biggest cheerleader. We’re family. I jumped with joy at being in your presence before either of us was even born. Why haven’t you come and bailed me out? Have I been wrong about all of this?
That’s doubt.
And if John, Jesus’ biggest cheerleader on earth, could fall to doubt because his circumstances weren’t turning out in the way he had planned for them to go, then any of us could. And yet, instead of Jesus scolding John for expressing such existential doubt in His mission and identity, He invites his disciples to see with their own eyes the truthfulness of the things John had been proclaiming so they could go and report back that, yes, Jesus really is the one who is to come. He may not have handled John’s situation the way John wanted, but He really was the guy. Jesus, for His part, goes on to praise John’s character and faithfulness in terms we should all desire to have used of us, including proclaiming in v. 11 that “among those born of women no one greater than John the Baptist has appeared…” It’s hard to imagine much higher praise than that.
It’s a rather different reaction from the one Jesus had to some other doubts. You see, there were some towns in the region where Jesus had preached and worked miracles, but the people didn’t really seem interested. They heard with their own ears all the things Jesus said, and saw with their own eyes all the things He did, but these didn’t move the needle for them at all. They doubted Jesus not because of the difficulty of their circumstances, but more because of their rank, apathetic unbelief. The contrast between Jesus’ reaction to John’s doubts and His reaction to their doubts couldn’t be much sharper.
Jump down to v. 20 with me. “Then he proceeded to denounce the towns where most of his miracles were done, because they did not repent: ‘Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles that were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented in sackcloth and ashes long ago. But I tell you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you. And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? No, you will go down to Hades. For if the miracles that were done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until today. But I tell you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom on the day of judgment than for you.’”
Ouch! Right? Sodom and Gomorrah are the standard biblical go-to towns for people who are utterly committed to wickedness and unbelief. And Jesus was saying the people of these towns were worse than them. That’s like saying someone today is worse than Hitler. Sure, people throw that around as an epithet on occasion, but everybody knows they’re just being hyperbolic to make the point that they consider someone to be really, really bad in a more memorable way. But that being the case, let’s not let the point be lost on us here. The doubts expressed by the people of these three towns made them at least in Jesus’ mind worse than the most hardhearted unbelievers His culture could imagine. When Jesus Himself declares you to be some of the worst people in the world, it’s probably safe to say that you aren’t on very stable ground.
Can we just pause here to ask the rather obvious question? What’s the difference between the doubt expressed by John the Baptist and the doubt expressed by the people of Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum? Because in the one case, Jesus responded with encouragement and the observation that the person expressing the doubts was the greatest person to ever live, but in the other case, Jesus responded by declaring the people expressing doubt to be the worst people to ever live. What gives?!?
I think the answer lies in a few verses that lie in between these two expressions of doubt. Jump back to v. 16 with me. After offering high praise of John the Baptist to an audience that absolutely knew who he was because everybody then knew who John was, Jesus reflected a bit on how the culture respectively reacted to John and also Himself. Listen to this: “To what should I compare this generation? It’s like children sitting in the marketplaces who call out to other children: ‘We played the flute for you, but you didn’t dance; we sang a lament, but you didn’t mourn!’ For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they said, ‘He has a demon!’ The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.”
This is an odd little saying from Jesus whose meaning isn’t totally clear on a first read. The first set of children in Jesus’ little riddle are members of the kingdom of God. The second set of children are the rest of Jesus’ culture—and ours. In the little riddle there in v. 17, the members of God’s kingdom call out to the culture around them, “Hey, we did one thing to try to get your attention, but you didn’t like that, but when we did the opposite thing to try to get your attention, you didn’t like that either.” The implied question here is: What is it going to take to get your attention so that you’ll come and join with us? The answer to the riddle is nothing, because they don’t want to.
John the Baptist came proclaiming God’s kingdom through asceticism and a strict adherence to the Law. And while that certainly got the attention of some, most ignored him and doubted God’s kingdom was really coming. That is, they could keep living however they pleased. Jesus came proclaiming God’s kingdom in a way that was earthy and broadly invitational and almost the total opposite of John’s approach, and people rejected His invitation too, doubting that God’s kingdom was really coming.
Okay, but what does that have to do with the respective doubt expressed by John and the people of this trio of towns? It’s the source of the doubts. John doubted because his circumstances were bad and he was struggling to see how Jesus could really be who John had been proclaiming Him to be through the fog his hard circumstances were creating. To put that another way, John’s doubts came out of a place of faith. The people of Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum doubted because they just didn’t care. They were sufficiently committed to doing life their own way that they just weren’t interested in receiving what Jesus had to offer. Their doubts were from a place of disinterested skepticism. The fruit of God’s kingdom was right there in front of both parties. Jesus had invited them to observe and respond accordingly. John presumably did. These other folks didn’t. As a result, John was encouraged and praised, and the others were not.
What this story offers us is an invitation to reflect a bit on our doubts. You see, doubts are normal. We all have doubts about all sorts of different things. More specifically, we have doubts related to our faith in Jesus. And if you are the kind of person who might indignantly insist that you don’t and have never had any doubts, let me challenge you just a bit. From the standpoint of the world, we believe some weird stuff. I mean, the Trinity? One person can be three persons at the same time? Come on. We believe that a virgin became pregnant and remained a virgin throughout her pregnancy. We believe that a dead person didn’t stay dead. We believe that a man once walked on water, told a storm to stop and it did, and fed a crowd of 15,000 or so with a few loaves of bread. We believe that when we die, our spirits—which no one has ever seen or measured with any kind of scientific instrument—go…somewhere else (we don’t know where)…to hang out with a formerly dead guy who didn’t stay dead, but isn’t around physically anymore because He’s in this other…place? If you’ve never had any doubts, you probably haven’t thought very hard about what exactly it is you believe. You should probably do that…but carefully, and with someone who can help you positively process through it. Doubts are normal, but where they come from matters.
So, if you’re struggling or have ever struggled with some kind of doubt related to your faith and relationship with Jesus, where’s that doubt coming from? Where did it come from? Was it just the result of your trying to wrap your brain around a hard and complicated bit of doctrine? That’s okay. Again: we believe some weird stuff. I think there are very good reasons to accept orthodox Christian doctrines as true, but that doesn’t necessarily make them easy…especially if you spend time really thinking through them. I have some resources (including myself) to help you do that if you are there. You can always come talk to me or shoot me an email with your hardest questions, and I’ll help you work through them. Many of you know that to be true because you’ve done it. Doubts are normal, but where they come from matters.
If not a hard doctrine, then, were your doubts the result of your walking through hard circumstances of some sort? When my grandma passed away a few years ago, it was after a long, difficult, and frustrating journey with dementia. When someone has walked—or if someone is walking that path—it’s not at all unusual for them to at some point at least process the thought: If God really is good like He’s supposed to be or even exists at all, then what are we doing here? The same thing goes for folks who have or are walking a journey with chronic illness or incurable cancer or something else along those lines. When someone has experienced a devastating relational wound and the person who dealt it hasn’t seemed to face any kind of consequences for having done it, doubts in God’s character or existence are just about par for the course (and this is doubly true if the wounding happened in the context of the church or was dealt by someone claiming the mantle of Christian). Doubts in these kinds of situations are normal. Doubts are normal, but where they come from matters.
There’s one more category of doubt here. It could be that your doubts are or were the result of the fact that you just don’t want it to be true. The evidence for the truthfulness of God’s existence and basic character traits really is as undeniable as the apostle Paul declares it to be, but in your most honest moments, you just don’t want that to be true. And you can claim that you don’t really have a dog in the fight, but this is the kind of fight that everybody has a dog in whether they realize it or not. Apathy isn’t an option here. The truth is that if it were true, you’d have to make so many little changes—and perhaps some big ones too—to your lifestyle, that you honestly just don’t want it to be true. It would be far too inconvenient and even costly. You’d have to stop driving like that or going to this place or consuming this thing or talking like that or using your money in that way or sleeping with that person or supporting this idea or lifestyle or using your phone in that way or searching the internet for that thing and so on and so forth. And you just aren’t interested in making those kinds of changes. So you adopt a posture of doubt and sit in it. That is, unfortunately, normal. Doubts are normal, but where they come from matters.
Hear this well: While Jesus is pretty gentle with those first two kinds of doubt. He doesn’t have much patience with this last one. Matthew 11 here makes that clear. Doubts are normal, but where they come from matters.
So then, what’s the source of your doubt, really? Ask yourself that question, and hold on tight for the answer. When you gain some clarity here, the journey from where you are to an unshakable faith will become a whole lot clearer. And given the things God wants to do in and through us both as individuals and as a whole church in the year ahead of us, an unshakable faith will make things a whole lot easier.
Okay, but how do we actually deal with our doubts? Knowing where they come from doesn’t make them go away. The answer to that question for now is to come back next week as we finish up the chapter, encounter together just who Jesus really is, and experience together why that is such a good thing.