Seeing Through Prison Walls: Luke 7:18-23 - Sixth Sunday after Epiphany

The truth hurts… Sometimes, it hurts the person telling it more than the person who needs to hear it. 

John the Baptist spoke out publicly against King Herod Antipas for coveting and then marrying his brother’s wife. 

Unfortunately for John, Herod nor Herodias were not the type of people who turn the other cheek to what they saw as a personal insult. Herod throws John into prison. 

Life in a Roman prison was no picnic, and with each passing day, John knew that his chances of making it out of there alive were decreasing rapidly.

Image by Jeff Jacobs from Pixabay

Even though he’s known Jesus his entire life, even though he baptized Jesus and saw the Holy Spirit descending upon him like a dove, he’s beginning to have doubts. 

John the Baptist, and nearly every Jew living under Roman occupation had been waiting desperately for the Messiah to come and throw off the yoke of their oppressors. When Jesus shows up, and people witnessed his miracles, they began to believe that he was the One. But the Romans remain in power. And the opposition to Jesus intensifies. 

So, John sends his disciples to Jesus to ask him an important question: “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?

It feels almost callous for Jesus to tell John that “the blind see; the lame walk; the lepers are cleansed; the deaf hear; the dead are raised; the poor receive good news.” What’s that news even worth to him, especially since we know that Herod is about to murder him? 

John the Baptist’s struggle is that he cannot see the coming of God’s Kingdom through prison walls. 

How do you see God when all you see is evil? How do you trust God when evil keeps winning? How do you see to heaven when you’re going through hell?

Ask anyone who’s an unbeliever: why don’t you believe? Most of them will tell you it’s because of all the evil and suffering in the world. Ask someone why they don’t go to church, and they’ll likely tell you it’s because church people are hypocrites.

Personally, I struggle (spiritually) with evil than I do with death. Don’t get me wrong, death is evil. Cancer is evil. Natural disasters and pandemics are evil. But human evil is worse. 

The evil of the natural world pales in comparison with the evil of the human heart.

What is hell on earth but enslavement? War? Human trafficking? Domestic violence? Child abuse? Elder abuse? A school or workplace full of bullies?

As a sinner, it would be dishonest of me to deny my own evil thoughts, desires, words, and deeds. But you cannot deny the pain in your soul when someone sins against you, especially when they are someone you love and trust, or someone who calls themselves Christian. 

One way the evil inside of me shows its ugly head is when I take delight in people getting what I think they deserve.

John will not live to see the downfall of his killer, when Rome strips him of this throne and sends him into exile. 

But we don’t put our hope in the inevitable downfall of our enemies. Your hope is in the crucified and risen Christ, whose death and resurrection breaks the backs of death and evil. 

Jesus may not have given John the answer he was hoping for, but it is still good news. The evil that was oppressing him was being defeated—not from the top down, but from the bottom up: “the blind see; the lame walk; the lepers are cleansed; the deaf hear; the dead are raised; the poor receive good news.” These acts of mercy and these deeds of love reveal that Jesus is God’s Son. Moreover, they reveal that God’s means of defeating evil will not be with swords and armies, guns and bombs, but with through grace, compassion, and forgiveness. Your good deeds, and the good deeds of this church, break the backs of death and evil more than you could ever know. 

There will be times when your experience will be much like John’s, in which you are imprisoned for weeks, months, or years, by something so terrible that every day is a fight just to survive. There’s no light, no support, no comfort, nothing. You don’t see the Kingdom of God through prison walls.

This was Jesus’s experience as he faced the cross and as he bore the cross. This was John’s experience inside Herod’s prison. But we know the cross is not the end of the story. A brutal execution will not be the end of John’s story. 

Sometimes, the only hope you can hold onto is the promise that evil will not have the last word. Evil may have the last word in the chapter of now, but a larger story is still being written. 

To live victoriously, to know freedom, is to orient every thought, every word, every action on the promise of resurrection. You may be imprisoned, but you are not a prisoner. Don’t lose your soul to bitterness and despair. Live with confidence that the page will soon be turned, the prison walls will fall, and new life will begin. Let faith, hope, and love fill your thoughts, words, and deeds. Today is the day of your salvation.