Is Christ Enough?

Homily, Advent Sunday 3A

One detail in the Gospel that Sts. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all share, and that they are deliberate to point out, is that after John baptizes Jesus in the Jordan River, Herod had John arrested and put in prison before Jesus began His public ministry, His own preaching and working of miracles in earnest. So today, as we hear of John the Baptist sending his disciples from where he is being kept in prison, it’s understandable that John may have been growing impatient or discouraged while he waited in custody, or he was growing curious about all the miracles Jesus was doing, the controversies and conflicts with Pharisees and Sadducees, all the reports and rumors he had been hearing secondhand about Jesus while John was stuck in prison, no longer free to witness these things himself. Many of the early Christians thought that it wasn’t so much that John the Baptist was having any real doubts himself about whether Jesus was really the Christ but that he was trying to strengthen the faith of his own disciples by sending them to Jesus with this question and allowing them to witness the miracles and teachings of Jesus firsthand.

But the question they ask is a crucial one, and if we’re honest, it’s a question that in our own journey of faith we often end up asking Jesus ourselves: “Are you the One who is to come, or should we look for another?” Are you the Messiah? Are you the answer to all the hopes of Israel, the answer to the hopes and dreams of every person on the earth? Or should we keep looking for something or someone else? The question even sounds a bit like what we heard in Luke’s Gospel a few Sundays ago on the Feast of Christ the King. At the crucifixion, many—including the wicked thief crucified beside Him—taunted Jesus with this question, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself! And us!” Come down from the Cross! Free me from this prison, from this sentence of death!

Jesus responds: “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind regain their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have the good news proclaimed to them.” But objections arise almost immediately in our hearts. That’s all well and good for those who were healed, restored, cleansed, and raised in the time of Jesus, but we know plenty of people who are still blind, whether physically or spiritually, plenty who are lame, or deaf to the truth, or dead and imprisoned in their sins, suffering poverty much worse than any lack of material goods. But God still gives the same Answer, because He has no other to give. In giving us Christ His only Son, God has given us everything. And Jesus gave His all for us on the Cross, even to the final drop of His Most Precious Blood. Jesus continues to give His all for us in this Eucharist. And yet, many do not believe. Most people in the world today do not have faith. But do you?

You can only answer for yourself. Is Jesus enough for you? Is Jesus enough for me? Or am I still looking for another? Something or someone else to satisfy my heart? Am I still looking for power, pleasure, health, wealth, fame, or influence? Is Jesus enough, or isn’t He? St. John of the Cross puts it like this: “In giving us his Son, his only Word (for [God] possesses no other), he spoke everything to us at once in this sole Word—and [God] has no more to say. . . because what he spoke before to the prophets in parts, he has now spoken all at once by giving us the All Who is His Son. Any person questioning God or desiring some vision or revelation would be guilty not only of foolish behavior but also of offending him, by not fixing his eyes entirely upon Christ and by living with the desire for some other novelty.”

Jesus is the answer and fulfillment of every human hope and everything we most truly desire. Jesus is the healing for every wound and affliction we can experience. Jesus is the One, the only One, who can bring us to life from the dead. Yet how often we keep looking for someone else, for something else to bring us peace, to bring us joy, to bring fulfillment and meaning to our lives! Are you the One who is to come, or should we look for another? Jesus is the One. God has made us for Himself, and our hearts will be forever restless until we can learn to finally rest in God. No one else and nothing else can fill you the way that Jesus wants to feed you in this Eucharist. Do we believe that? We’re never going to convince anyone else of the power and love of Christ, of the truth and beauty of our Catholic faith, if we don’t first believe it ourselves with all our hearts and find our rest, our hope, our one true joy in Christ our Lord. He is the One, and there is no other. Let us rejoice and be glad that He has saved us.