Matt 11:2-6
Now when John had heard in the prison the works of Christ, he sent two of his disciples, and said unto him, Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another?
Jesus answered and said unto them, Go and show John again those things which ye do hear and see: The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, and the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them. And blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in me.
It seems like the traditional interpretation of this exchange is Jesus is encouraging John to renew his faith. You know, “man up John, so you can take your upcoming beheading like a martyr... ” . Christians have this thing about martyrs, like if you're not a martyr, or at least willing to be one, you're not worthy...
But there's no real reason to interpret Jesus' intentions this way. In fact, this whole exchange seemed a bit odd to me. I mean, really, wouldn't a simple “yes” have been sufficient? So why the long-winded reply which doesn’t directly answer the question? Like Jesus wants John to figure something out for himself?
And what about “blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in me” – is John offended? About what?
Well, let’s back up to right after Jesus gets baptized by John. In Luke 4:16, Jesus states the Messiah's Mission by reading from Isaiah in the synagogue: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised…”
So by these signs we're supposed to recognize the Messiah, right?
So which of these are in Jesus’ reply to John? Preach the gospel to the poor: check. Blind receive their sight: check. Healing: check. Deliverance to captives: eh, wait… Jesus didn’t say that one. And he didn’t say “set at liberty” either. What the heck? Why leave those out? We're missing a couple of messianic indicators here.
Maybe a frustrated John is really asking, “If you’re the big liberator, why am I in jail? Where's that deliverance of the captives you were going on about, eh?”
Er, wait - so just why is John in prison?
“For Herod…bound him in prison for Herodias’ sake, for John had said unto Herod, It is not lawful for thee to have thy brother’s wife. Therefore Herodias had a quarrel against him…” (Mark 6:17-19)
Hmmm... John is in prison because he poked his nose into someone else’s personal business. Told Herod he was offending God, and implied Herod could fix things with the Big Guy by dumping the wife, which didn’t go over so good with Herodias. And now John is whining about it to Jesus. “How come I’m still in prison, aren't you going to do anything about it?”
So instead of the traditional rah-rah interpretation, maybe Jesus is telling John: You got yourself into this mess, you did this all to yourself. I can set you free by simply telling you to let go of “the law” - you're not bound by it - and don't worry about someone else’s business. You know, that whole mote-in-the other-guy’s-eye-vs-the-log-in-your-eye bit. It’s a simple thing, really. I’m saying you can free yourself from prison by changing your attitude, and you’re offended by that? You want to see some great miracle instead? The miracle is you changing your view of the world.
Not once did Jesus say anything about Herod's love triangle. John got himself killed for no good reason. He died because he believed someone else’s behavior was offensive to God. But in reality, only John was offended because Herod didn’t obey “the law”, and because Jesus wasn’t coming to his rescue. Nobody else, including Jesus, cared that Herod was having sex with his brother’s wife.
Christians have a way of poking a sleeping bear in the eye, and then, when the bear gets mad, blubbering about being persecuted. Somehow they associate being persecuted with being right, as opposed to just being annoying. Like it's their job to run around pissing people off by telling them how to behave.
The Point:
Let God take care of himself; you take care of you. And quit poking the bear – it’s just you who are offended, not God.