Policies are set in the hope that the party will still be in government to implement them. And the mandate of the majority governing party may be thwarted by some minor party which holds the balance of power - and claims a mandate to obstruct and frustrate.
I have often speculated what it would be like if our system didn't depend on ideological parties, if there were some other more objective means of determining the very best persons to guide and implement policies on finance, education, welfare, and so on.
Instead, the parties seem driven by ideology, and the electorate by personal and pragmatic considerations. One set of policies and priorities come to an end so that another set can be implemented. In practice, of course, it's never quite that way. Yet no one ever wants to admit they will build on the strong achievements of the previous administration, and no administration ever gets the country ready so that someone else can take over.
John the Baptist was in prison. He had heard that Jesus was now teaching and preaching in the towns of Galilee.
John had never regarded his ministry of calling people to repentance and baptism as an end in itself. He was preparing the way for someone greater - I'm not even fit to carry his sandals, he had said (Mt. 3.11). He saw his role in fulfilment of Isaiah 40.3 - the voice calling in the desert, Prepare the way for the Lord; make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God.
Now John was in prison. Matthew refers to this in 4.12 - at the beginning of Jesus' ministry. So, no longer able to preach, John was asking himself, has my ministry failed, or is it complete? "Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?" (11.3)
Why the question? we ask. The answer seems to obvious to us.
We need to hear the teaching of John. He called people to "repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near" (3.2) - the same words with which Jesus began his preaching (4.17).
But John seemed to expect that divine judgment - "the coming wrath" would be soon. "The axe is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire" (v. 10). The one who is coming "will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and with fire (v. 11a) - words picked up by Jesus (Acts 1.5) and fulfilled in the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost (2.1-4). John himself seemed to understand the words in terms of the winnowing of divine judgment in which the holy wind of God would separate the wheat from the chaff and the holy fire of God would destroy the chaff (Mt. 3.12).
Jesus spoke of judgment too. His second coming will be in glory and judgment (25.31ff). But his first coming was in humility and gentleness and wooing love. His call to repentance wasn't a call to avoid the coming wrath, but to receive the offered redemption.
So Jesus sent back a reply to John, "Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cures, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor. Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me" (11.4-6).
Isaiah had written, "Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then will the lame leap like a deer and the mute tongue shout for joy" (Is. 35.5,6a), "The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour..." (61.1-2a). The last words wre read by Jesus in his home town Nazareth (Lk. 4.18-19), stopping, as I have done here, before Isaiah's words, "and the day of vengeance of our God." His first coming was "the year of the Lord's favour" - the "day of vengeance" will come later.
Jesus is saying to John, Your ministry is fulfilled. The words spoken long ago by other prophets is fulfilled. John, this is the day of favour, the day of grace. This isn't the time of judgment. Don't "fall away on account of me."
John's disciples have gone as Jesus begins to speak to the crowd, "What did you go out into the desert to see?" (v. 7) Just who is this John the Baptist? Was he just "a reed swayed by the wind"? Did he have no more significance than that? "A man dressed in fine clothes?" (v. 8) Camel's hair (3.4) certainly wasn't a fashion statement! And John wasn't some smooth golden-tongued orator.
"A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet" (v. 9). In Malachi 3.1 we read, "See, I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple, the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come."
Other prophets had announced what the Lord would do. John was the herald announcing that the days of fulfilment had now come. "Among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he" (Mt. 11.11).
Humanly speaking, John holds the place of highest honour as the person immediately preparing for the arrival of the Messiah. Yet to be "born again" spiritually brings a person directly into the family of God.
Earlier, while John was still baptising people, before his imprisonment, before questions broke into his solitude about whether Jesus really was the Messiah, John's disciples brought him a report abut the popularity of Jesus. He said to them, "The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom wais and listens for him, and is full of joy when he heard the bridegroom's voice. That joy is mine, and is now complete. He must become greater; I must become less" (Jn 3.29-30).
Politicians are always afraid someone else will take their job. John had prepared the way. Jesus the Son of God has come. We welcome him, trust him, follow him. In our lives too Jesus must become greater and we must become less.
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