Third Sunday of Advent, Year A
In this episode of The Sunday Catholic Word, we focus on four apologetical themes that all arise out of the Gospel reading for the Third Sunday of Advent (Year A), which is taken from Matthew 11:2-11. The four themes are as follows: 1) the Messiahship of Jesus, 2) the divinity of Jesus, 3) the historicity of the “messenger” text, and 4) the greatness of John the Baptist in relation to the Blessed Virgin.
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Speaker 1:
This is the Sunday Catholic Word, a production of Catholic Answers. The only podcast to look at the Sunday Mass readings from an apologetics perspective.
Karlo Broussard:
Hey everyone, welcome to the Sunday Catholic Word, a podcast where we reflect on the upcoming Sunday Mass readings and pick out the details that are relevant for explaining and defending our Catholic faith, for doing what we call apologetics. I’m Karlo Broussard, staff apologist and speaker for Catholic Cancers and the host for this podcast. In this episode, we’re going to focus on four apologetic themes, all of which arise out of the gospel reading for the third Sunday of advent year A. The gospel passage comes from Matthew chapter 11:2-11, and it reads as follows. “When John heard in prison of the works of the Messiah, he sent as disciples to him with this question, “Are you the one who is to come or should we look for another?” Jesus said to them and reply, “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, proclaim to them and blessed it is the one who takes no offense at me.””
Jesus’s testimony to John, “As they were going off,” verse 7 there, “as they were going off, Jesus began to speak to the crowds about John, “What did you go out to the desert to see? A reed swayed by the wind? Then what did you go out to see? Someone dressed in fine clothing? Those who wear fine clothing or in royal palaces. Then why did you go out to see a prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet, this is the one about whom it is written. Behold, I am sending my messenger ahead of you. He will prepare your way before you. Amen, I say to you, among those born of women, there has been none greater than John the Baptist, yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.”” Now, as I said, there are four apologetical themes here that we’re going to focus on.
One, the messiahship of Jesus. Two, the divinity of Jesus. Three, the historicity of this messenger text. And then four, the greatness of John the Baptist in relation to Mary. So let’s start with theme one, the messiahship of Jesus. The focused text is verse 3 there. Starting with verse 3, “John the Baptist sends his disciples to ask Jesus point blank, “Are you he who is to come or shall we look for another?”” And then Jesus responds in verse 4, answering in the affirmative, basically. “Go and tell John what you hear and see. The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up and the poor have good news preached to them.” Now you might say, do what? How in the world does this response answer the question in the affirmative that “Yes, I am the Messiah?”
Well, we have to understand the Old Testament backdrop here against which Jesus is answering the question. He’s actually quoting or blending together two prophecies from the Old Testament, each of which speak of the coming Messiah. So Jesus is answering the question as a good Jew, which any good Jew knowing the prophecies, would interpret Jesus’s answer as an affirmation, “Yes, I am the Messiah.” So the first of the two prophecies comes from Isaiah 35:5-6, and this is actually the first reading for this upcoming Sunday’s liturgy of the word. We read this, “Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened and the ears of the death unstopped, then shall the lame man leap like a deer.” Three miracles, right? Three things that Jesus puts in his own response to the question, “Are you the Messiah?” Jesus is clearly quoting from this passage. Moving on, “And the tongue of the mute sing for joy, for water shall break forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert.”
That text is considered to be a messianic text. These things will happen when the Messiah comes. Another prophecy that Jesus blends with his list of things that are happening is Isaiah 61:1-2, “The spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to bring good tidings to the afflicted.” Remember, what did Jesus say? “The poor have good news preached to them.” The prophecy continues. “He has sent me to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to those who are bound, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor in the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourned.” Yet again another Messianic text. So what Jesus is doing here is he’s picking from these two prophecies and listing the things that the prophets have said would happen whenever the Messiah would come and in response to the question, “Hey Jesus, are you the Messiah?”
He says, “These things are happening.” And these things are the things wrought by Jesus. Jesus is the one performing these miracles, clear indication that Jesus conceives of himself to be the Messiah and has vindicated that self-identification of him being the Messiah by performing the very miracles that the prophets had foretold would be performed when the Messiah comes. So Jesus again clearly is affirming for John that he is the Messiah and doing it in good old Jewish fashion. Now, not only does Jesus affirm his messianic identity in this gospel passage, but he also affirms his divine identity. And the focused text here, at least the first of the two focused text is Jesus’s partial quote from Isaiah 35:5-6. The signs that Jesus lists here, “The blind regain their sight, the lame walk.” According to Isaiah in the previous verse, accompany God coming in vengeance.
They’re in verse 4 of Isaiah 35, Isaiah prophesied, “Here is your God. He comes with vindication, with divine recompense he comes to save you.” And then he goes on to list the various things that will take place. “The blind regaining their sight, the lame walking.” Et cetera. So the coming of Almighty God is connected with these signs, these miracles that will be performed. So if these signs accompany God coming and Jesus says that these signs were accompanying him and his ministry, well then we have here a subtle hint to Jesus’s self understanding as being divine. He is the God who comes with vengeance, with divine recompense to save us. And there’s the message of salvation. It’s going to be not a temporal salvation, saving from physical enemies, but eternal salvation, salvation from our ultimate enemy, Satan, death and sin. And so here again, Jesus is subtly hinting at his divinity.
Now, the other focused text for Jesus’ divinity here is John being identified as the messenger to prepare the way for God. Recall from our last episode, we came across evidence for Jesus’ divinity in the gospel reading from Matthew chapter 3:1-2, where Matthew makes the connection between John the Baptist and the voice in the wilderness. But this is not the only time when this connection is made. It’s also made in this week’s gospel for Matthew 11:2-11, particularly verse 10. But unlike Matthew 3, here, it’s Jesus himself who makes the connection and thus hints at his own divinity. Whereas in Matthew 3, it was Matthew who was drawing the connection between Jesus and God or Yahweh and the Old Testament. Here, it’s Jesus himself. So in reference to John, Jesus says in verse 9, “Why then did you go out? To see a prophet? Yes, I tell you, in more than a prophet, this is he of whom it is written. Behold, I send my messenger before your face who shall prepare your way before you.”
Well, the Old Testament backdrop here is Malachi 3:1. This is a quote. Jesus here is quoting the first half of Malachi 3:1, which is followed by God saying “The Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple.” And of course, this is basically the same prophecy that Isaiah makes in Isaiah 43. So like in Matthew 3, here in Matthew 11, Jesus identifies the messenger who prepares a way for God as John the Baptist, but who is John preparing the way for? Jesus. Therefore, Jesus in a subtle but clear way reveals that he understands himself to be the one for whom the way is prepared, namely Yahweh, Almighty God.
So we have evidence that Jesus understood himself to be almighty God. And of course, the various miracles that he’s listening, that he performed, vindicates that self understanding of being Almighty God. Now, you might ask, “Well, what’s the importance of Jesus’s self understanding of his divinity?” Well, one reason is that the divinity of Jesus is not something that his believers made up, right? Because somebody could say, “Well, this idea that Jesus has God, his followers and his early believers, they’re the ones who sort of made this stuff up that he is God, and you can’t really find it from the lips of Jesus himself. That’s something they made up later as legendary developments.” Well, here we have evidence to refute that claim and show no, that Jesus actually did understand himself to be Almighty God. And of course, this leads us to the second reason why this is important is because it provides us reason to believe in Jesus, that he is God made flesh.
If Jesus claimed to be God and he rose from the dead, well then we should believe him for who he says he is, Almighty God. And so it’s important for our apologetic endeavors to establish reasonable grounds for belief in Jesus, to assent to what Jesus teaches us and to give our lives over to Jesus. He claims to be God. He vindicated those claims to be God, particularly most profoundly through his resurrection, and therefore, it’s reasonable to believe his claim and accept that claim that he is Almighty God. He is Lord. Because the alternative explanations of him being a liar and a lunatic are unreasonable. Now, there’s another important point here for apologetical purposes, and that is the historicity of the text, particularly verse 10.
Scholars have argued for its historical reliability on three grounds, and verse 10 being, “This is the one about whom it is written. Behold, I’m sending my messenger ahead of you who will prepare your way before you.” But just hold the general text itself. The first criterion that is met here for historicity purposes is early testimony. Because this saying of Jesus, where Jesus is quoting this Old Testament passage and applying it to himself is shared by both Matthew and Luke. So you can check out Luke 7:27 there. Now, if the common view that Matthew and Luke shared the older source called Q is true, well then this saying dates very early in the Christian community, thus satisfying the criterion of early testimony. Now, there is a lot of debate among scholars about this so-called Q source, but if it is true, then this text would meet the criterion of early testimony and thus provide reason to think it is historically reliable. Now, another criterion that is met here is the criterion of embarrassment.
Notice that John the Baptist doubts Jesus’s identity. This actually works contrary to the gospel writer’s intention to persuade their audience, like why should their audience be convinced about Jesus’s messiahship and or divinity, but particularly messiahship because that’s what John the Baptist is asking about. Why should their audience be convinced about Jesus’s messiahship if John the Baptist, his own cousin was wasn’t absolutely certain? Do you see how it sort of works contrary to the gospel writer’s intention to persuade his audience here or their audience? Because we have multiple sources here. If the gospel writers were fabricating this story, then they wouldn’t have included such an embarrassing detail. That they include it supports their credibility. And then finally this messenger text and the saying of Jesus coheres with other authentic material. And this is expanding the scope to include Jesus is saying about the various wondrous deeds that are being performed as signs and evidence that he is the Messiah.
So all of the signs that Jesus lists as signs of the Messiah are also found in the Dead Sea Scroll 4Q521, kept by the Assines in Kuman. He reads as follows, “For the heavens and the earth shall listen to his Messiah and all that is in them shall not turn away from the commandments of the holy ones. He will honor the pious upon the throne of the eternal kingdom, setting prisoners free, opening the eyes of the blind, raising up those who are bowed down. And the Lord shall do glorious things which have not been done, just as he said, for he will heal the injured, he shall make alive the dead. He shall proclaim good news to the afflicted.” Notice at the time when we shall listen to the Messiah, all of these things shall be performed and done. These are the same things that Jesus lists as being performed and happening in response to the question, “Are you the one who is to come? Are you the Messiah?”
Jesus’s response can only be understood against the backdrop of the Jewish tradition found both in the Jewish prophecies of the Old Testament, as well as this particular Dead Sea Scroll, and that gives us clear indication that Jesus is affirming his messiahship. And that what he is saying coheres with other authentic material, lends credibility to its historicity. That it is highly likely that it has come from Jesus Christ himself and that it is not some legendary development or made up later on down the road. Finally, we come to our last theme here, and that is the greatness of John the Baptist in relation to Mary. This comes about in verse 11 where we read “Among those born of women, there has been none greater than John the Baptist.” Now the objection is, or the question becomes, “Well, how can Catholics say that Mary is the greatest human being, barring Jesus, when Jesus says that John is the greatest among those born of women?” There seems to be a contradiction between what we believe as Catholics and the Bible, right?
Well, au contraire. Let’s see how we can respond to this objection. Notice that the objection assumes that Jesus is saying John is the greatest human being among human beings, but that’s not what Jesus says. He simply says, “Among those born of women, there is none greater than John the Baptist.” Now, it’s possible that Jesus is saying John is the greatest human being among all human beings, but it could also refer to some other category like, he’s the greatest within some other category born of women. We’d need further evidence from the context to specify which category Jesus is referring to. So for example, I could say Joe’s the greatest among those born of women.
And the context specify that we’re talking about Joe being the greatest runner among those born of women or the greatest tennis player among those born of women, or the greatest swimmer among those born of women. Fill in the blank on down the line. So the question is, does the context specify which category Jesus has in mind? Does he have the human being category, the category of human beings, or does he have some other category in mind within which John is the greatest born among women? Well, when we look at the preceding verses, we discover that Jesus is talking about the specific category of prophets, of which John is a member. Check out verse 9. Jesus asked, “Why then did you go out? To see a prophet?” He then answers “Yes, I tell you and more than a prophet.” That Jesus then quotes the Isaiah passage and immediately says, “Among those born of women, there has been none greater.”
In other words, among those prophets born of women, John is the greatest, and his greatness lies in him being, of course, the precursor for the Messiah. So the Catholic belief that Mary is the greatest human being aside from Jesus doesn’t conflict with this Bible passage. Well, my friends, that does it for this episode. For the third Sunday of Advent year A, we looked at four themes that are relevant for doing apologetics. One, the messiahship of Jesus. Two, the divinity of Jesus. Three, the historicity of the gospel passage itself. And four, the alleged conflict between our belief about Mary and Jesus’s statement about John the Baptist. Hopefully that was helpful for you, my friends. Thank you for subscribing to the podcast and please be sure to tell your friends about it and invite them to subscribe as well. Be on the lookout for next week’s episode, and I hope you have a great and blessed third Sunday of Advent. God bless you all.
Speaker 1:
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