Expectations; have you ever met someone in person whose appearance surprised you? By that I mean you had either talked to them on the phone or perhaps seen them in pictures but when you actually met them, you were a bit taken aback. They were not quite how you had pictured them. Some years ago, Diane worked with the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation and I had the opportunity to actually meet such American heroes as Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, and Wally Schirra – some of the original Mercury astronauts. A couple of things about them surprised me, first, how nice and genuine they were – they were really nice guys, and secondly, I expected them somehow to be taller. In our world today people tend to have a picture of who Jesus is and even what Christianity is in their minds but like me with the astronauts, when we actually meet Jesus, when we actually know what Christianity is, Jesus is different than we expected; Christianity is different than we thought.
In the beginning of our Gospel reading, the people were full of expectations about the coming Messiah. They didn’t know what he would be like exactly—would he be John the Baptizer or like him? Some of the people were thinking that the coming Messiah would be religious like John, but he would be a military guy, after all the Romans would need to be driven out of Israel. Many people wondered whether John himself was going to be the Messiah. Talk about surprising people by his appearance—John was surprising. He dressed in a garment of camel hair and had a leather belt. He ate locusts and wild honey. The wild honey sounds good, the grasshoppers—hmm. John as you know was this prophet whose sermons were mesmerizing. Thousands of people came to hear him preach. The Bible says that the people of Jerusalem, all Judea, and the region around the Jordon came out to listen to him. We also know that many from the area of Galilee came out to hear him, men like Peter and James, and John, and Andrew and Nathanael and Phillip. When they listened to John’s sermons, many of them were convicted of their bad behavior and evil thinking and were baptized. The baptism of John was a baptism of repentance—this meant that people were making a commitment to wash off the old behavior and come clean, if you will, by living a new life. But this new life that they committed themselves to keeping was one they had to do by their own efforts, by their own will-power. John was a powerful preacher and his words carried the power of God’s Holy Spirit, but despite his forceful and charismatic character, and the people’s hopes and expectations, John told them that he was not the Messiah. The Messiah was still to come.
The Jews looked forward to the Messiah’s arrival and they tried to guess what he would be like. And when you listen to people in our culture about who Jesus is in their minds; it is clear that our culture, just like the ancient Jewish culture has a misconception of Jesus and what he came to do and what his followers ought to be like.
For example, some people think that Jesus was simply a great teacher, one who was ahead of his time. He tried to teach humans how to live unselfishly. He did this through his sermons and through how he himself treated the people around him. Others might say he came to be the ultimate good example of how to live. These people would say that Jesus dying on the cross was a sad thing and perhaps really not a necessary thing—but still it could be used as an extreme example of love for fellow humans. In the mind of these people, to be a Christian is to go along with the ideals of Jesus, to love other humans as one loves oneself. To be a Christian is to do good things for others and to try to better the lot and living conditions of those less fortunate. To be kind and generous, that is the heart of Christianity they think. That is what our culture teaches us that Christianity is. And don’t get me wrong—these are good things. But this sort of thinking is similar to the baptism of John. It is committing oneself to do these good works by one’s own will-power, by one’s own efforts.
But Jesus was different than the expectations of the people of his day. He is different than what our culture teaches us. Perhaps the main difference is in his expectations of us. Jesus calls us into a relationship of dependence upon him. In John chapter 15 Jesus talks about us being branches that grow out of a vine and he is that vine. If we the branches are not firmly attached and connected to him, the vine—we have no life! Jesus talks about us being sheep and he as the Good Shepherd. Sheep are dependent upon a shepherd. We are dependent upon one who will lead us to our food and protect us from dangers. Jesus tells us also that He is the door and the only way to life is through him. Jesus tells us that he is the bread of life. In order to survive and live we need to feed from him. Over and over Jesus taught through different pictures and sermons that we are to be dependent upon him. We are expected to be in a relationship of dependence.
We are also called into a relationship of follower. Jesus said that if anyone would be his disciple he needed to deny himself and follow him. We are supposed to follow where Jesus leads. Jesus tells us that we are to follow him and pick up our crosses. We are to follow him and lay down our lives. We are to follow and obey his commandments. We are to be as attentive to his words and leading as he was to his Father’s—and he told us that he did nothing without looking to his Father.
So we are expected to be dependent. We are expected to be followers. And the primary thing Jesus expects from us is faith and belief in him. After all, we will not be able to be dependent upon him; we will not be willing to follow him if we do not believe he is who he claimed. So we are expected to believe that Jesus is God in a human body that came to die for us and was resurrected from the grave and that he will come again. We are to believe that he is our only hope for eternal life and safety from the wrath of God. It is only through understanding this and really believing that we will be able to be dependent and be able to follow.
What it comes down to is that it is not as important that Jesus meets our expectations. He after all is God and sometimes we just do not understand why God does what he does. They did not understand it when Jesus was here on earth and we do not understand now. But while it is not that important that he meets our expectations any more than it would have been important that the astronauts met my expectations, it is important that we work to meet his expectations. So let us grow in our faith, grow in our dependence upon him, and be better followers of Jesus our Lord and Savior. Amen.
