What if the Messiah isn’t what you expect?
The third Sunday of Advent takes its name from the words of Saint Paul: “Rejoice always in the Lord”. Because of this it is the Sunday of joy: pink replaces purple for a day, and the whole liturgy invites us to a brighter, more confident hope of the Lord who comes. The evangelist Matthew presents John the Baptist as “the greatest of those born of women”: a man essential and courageouswho dedicated his life to preparing the way for the Lord. Yet, when he is locked up in prison he sends to ask Jesus if he is really the Messiah. Jesus does not respond with theoretical definitions, but with concrete signs announced by Isaiah in the 1st reading: the blind see, the lame walk, the deaf hear, the poor are reached by good news.
To grasp the significance of this response, we must return to the Baptist’s expectations. Giovanni had announced a strong, decisive Messiahcapable of making a clear judgement. He was waiting for an intervention that would restore the violated order. Jesus, on the other hand, enters history with a surprising meekness: he approaches the poor, heals, consoles, announces peace. He does not impose good by force, but heals wounds from the inside. It is a style that opens a profound question in John’s heart, born not from weakness but from the seriousness of his faith. The Baptist’s doubt in fact it arises from pain: the faithful prophet is in prison, while the persecutor continues to live in safety. In this contradiction the question he entrusts to his disciples resonates: “Are you the one who is to come or should we wait for another?”.
It is the question of those who have believed and no longer understand the ways of God; the question of every believer when evil seems to prevail and God is silent. Here a decisive passage opens. The great crowd-pullers always talk about justice and renewal to gain consensus. Jesus does not belong to this logic. He inaugurates a much deeper revolution: the revolution of goodness.
This revolution is born in the fragility of man; it does not eradicate evil instantly, but weakens it from within; He does not strike the wicked, but heals the wounded. It’s a change slow but realand this slowness disconcerts Giovanni. Therefore Jesus does not respond with a “yes”, but with an invitation: “Go and report what you see and hear”. He asks us to recognize God not in our expectations, but in the signs that he sows: sprouts of new life, wounds that heal, hearts that find hope again. This is how goodness enters history: slowly, but irreversibly. And he adds: “Blessed is he who is not scandalized by me.” Blessed is he who does not stumble into meeknesswho remains in trust even through doubt. Because faith is not the path of those who never doubt, but of those who, right inside the doubt, learn to trust in God as it is.
John will take this step, and just like that he will become the greatest. But “the least in the Kingdom of heaven is greater than him”, because whoever welcomes the new logic of Christ – the meekness, the goodness that saves – already enters the Kingdom and participate right now in the newness that the Lord has come to bring.
