St. John the Baptist's query to Jesus

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St. John the Baptist sent his disciples to Jesus to ask “are you the one?”
Why did he need to do this since he baptized Jesus at the river Jordan?
Didn’t he know already who Jesus was?
 
Yes he did know. That’s why he’s asking.

Think of it like this, you and someone else are going to the movies and the tickets are bought and the car is warmed up and ready to go and the other person is just messing around with their phone when its time to go. So you say, “Are we going or am I going alone?” You know perfectly well you’re going, but you ask the question as rhetorical emphasis to make the point that its time to go, not because you think that the other person has forgotten you’re going to the movies.

Well think of the sense in how that question is asked and apply it to John’s question. He is in prison, about to die, he knows he is a prophet and that Jesus is Messiah and yet there he sits in prison about to die. And so he sends his disciples to Jesus to say, “Are you the Messiah or are we looking for another?” In other words, “GET A MOVE ON MAN I’M ABOUT TO DIE OVER HERE!!!”

And it is clear from Jesus’ response that he takes the question that way. “Tell John the blind see, the deaf hear, the dead are raised…”

Jesus reminds John that He, as God, knows perfectly well what John’s predicament is, but that His mission is not to save John the Baptist but Israel and the whole world; a mission His works and signs show He is about the business of fulfilling. So the Lord is not indifferent to John’s suffering it is just that sometimes God’s salvation for us is not about saving our necks but instead saving our souls.
 
My pastor said in the homily that John asked this question because he was in prison, and like pretty much everybody else at the time, they still held the idea that the Messiah would be akin to a revolutionary leader that would break them free of King Herad and the Romans, similar to Judas Thaddeus in the Maccabean Wars.

I’m not sure if it’s true John the Baptist would have assumed that or not. I would think a prophet would have greater insight than the laborers Jesus took in as his apostles, but maybe not. He might have had the idea of there being a bigger picture than that, but he might have thought Jesus would be a Lion of Judah, not a Lamb of Israel. He had to face the reality that like many of his predecessors, he would not be liberated in this life, but instead martyred.
 
But John was also Jesus’ cousin. You would think he’d have a bit more information. I’m not sure how much they ever (if ever) saw each other as children, but you’d think that he’d know a bit more about his cousin than the common person.

bogeydogg’s explanation makes a bit more sense to me.
 
I looked on the USCCB web site-electronic version of the NAB. Interesting that John the Baptist seems to parallel the apostles early expectations of the Messiah.
  • [11:3] The question probably expresses a doubt of the Baptist that Jesus is the one who is to come (cf. Mal 3:1) because his mission has not been one of fiery judgment as John had expected (Mt 3:2).
  • [11:5–6] Jesus’ response is taken from passages of Isaiah (Is 26:19; 29:18–19; 35:5–6; 61:1) that picture the time of salvation as marked by deeds such as those that Jesus is doing. The beatitude is a warning to the Baptist not to disbelieve because his expectations have not been met.
  • [11:7–19] Jesus’ rebuke of John is counterbalanced by a reminder of the greatness of the Baptist’s function (Mt 11:7–15) that is followed by a complaint about those who have heeded neither John nor Jesus (Mt 11:16–19).
  • [11:9–10] In common Jewish belief there had been no prophecy in Israel since the last of the Old Testament prophets, Malachi. The coming of a new prophet was eagerly awaited, and Jesus agrees that John was such. Yet he was more than a prophet, for he was the precursor of the one who would bring in the new and final age. The Old Testament quotation is a combination of Mal 3:1; Ex 23:20 with the significant change that the before me of Malachi becomes before you. The messenger now precedes not God, as in the original, but Jesus.
  • [11:11] John’s preeminent greatness lies in his function of announcing the imminence of the kingdom (Mt 3:1). But to be in the kingdom is so great a privilege that the least who has it is greater than the Baptist.
  • [11:12] The meaning of this difficult saying is probably that the opponents of Jesus are trying to prevent people from accepting the kingdom and to snatch it away from those who have received it.
  • [11:13] All the prophets and the law: Matthew inverts the usual order, “law and prophets,” and says that both have prophesied. This emphasis on the prophetic character of the law points to its fulfillment in the teaching of Jesus and to the transitory nature of some of its commandments (see note on Mt 5:17–20).
 
Over the years, I have heard many interpretations of this passage, and I wonder if we are looking for a meaning that isn’t there. John was human. He was in prison under harsh conditions and he knew he was going to die. He spent his entire life as and ascetic committed to the cause, and perhaps, in a moment of doubt, he needed that confirmation and assurance of those truths he proclaimed. In fact, he possibly wondered why Jesus did not save him.
 
Perhaps it was shocking that Jesus sought baptism, still
even so afterwards, so John wanted a little reassurance.
 
I’m afraid that all the responses so far have failed to understand John’s character. Christ himself states that among those born of women there has risen no one greater than John the Baptist.

You must ask yourself why did John still have disciples? Many of John’s disciples had already left him to follow Jesus and that is exactly as it should have been. As John said, “He must increase, I must decrease”

So here is John in prison, nearing the end of his life, the Christ has come and yet he still has disciples following him instead of Jesus. John knows that they need to follow Jesus instead of him but he also knows that they have to choose to follow Jesus of their own free will. If he ordered them to leave and follow Jesus they would still in a sense be following him as it would be out of obedience to John’s command.

So how does he deal with them? He tells his disciples to go and ask Jesus if He is the one who is to come or should they look for another? How does Jesus respond?
“Go and tell John the things which you hear and see: The blind see and the lame walk; the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear; the dead are raised up and the poor have the gospel preached to them.”
Jesus, like John, leaves the choice to follow Him completely up to them. They were obviously fiercely loyal to John, probably zealous, and if you have had any dealings with people in the church who are zealously wrong about something, you know that they have to be treated with great care, otherwise they simply dig their heels in and refuse to budge on their position. John’s disciples needed careful treatment to be able to decide on their own that they needed to let go of John and follow Him whose way John had come to prepare.

John had no doubts at all that Jesus was indeed the Christ. He was a prophet after all.
 
prodromos said:
I’m afraid that all the responses so far have failed to understand John’s character. Christ himself states that among those born of women there has risen no one greater than John the Baptist.

You must ask yourself why did John still have disciples? Many of John’s disciples had already left him to follow Jesus and that is exactly as it should have been. As John said, “He must increase, I must decrease”

So here is John in prison, nearing the end of his life, the Christ has come and yet he still has disciples following him instead of Jesus. John knows that they need to follow Jesus instead of him but he also knows that they have to choose to follow Jesus of their own free will. If he ordered them to leave and follow Jesus they would still in a sense be following him as it would be out of obedience to John’s command.

So how does he deal with them? He tells his disciples to go and ask Jesus if He is the one who is to come or should they look for another? How does Jesus respond?
“Go and tell John the things which you hear and see: The blind see and the lame walk; the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear; the dead are raised up and the poor have the gospel preached to them.”
Jesus, like John, leaves the choice to follow Him completely up to them. They were obviously fiercely loyal to John, probably zealous, and if you have had any dealings with people in the church who are zealously wrong about something, you know that they have to be treated with great care, otherwise they simply dig their heels in and refuse to budge on their position. John’s disciples needed careful treatment to be able to decide on their own that they needed to let go of John and follow Him whose way John had come to prepare.

John had no doubts at all that Jesus was indeed the Christ. He was a prophet after all.
Click to expand...
I’ll buy that! 👍
 
prodromos said:
I’m afraid that all the responses so far have failed to understand John’s character. Christ himself states that among those born of women there has risen no one greater than John the Baptist.

You must ask yourself why did John still have disciples? Many of John’s disciples had already left him to follow Jesus and that is exactly as it should have been. As John said, “He must increase, I must decrease”

So here is John in prison, nearing the end of his life, the Christ has come and yet he still has disciples following him instead of Jesus. John knows that they need to follow Jesus instead of him but he also knows that they have to choose to follow Jesus of their own free will. If he ordered them to leave and follow Jesus they would still in a sense be following him as it would be out of obedience to John’s command.

So how does he deal with them? He tells his disciples to go and ask Jesus if He is the one who is to come or should they look for another? How does Jesus respond?
“Go and tell John the things which you hear and see: The blind see and the lame walk; the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear; the dead are raised up and the poor have the gospel preached to them.”
Jesus, like John, leaves the choice to follow Him completely up to them. They were obviously fiercely loyal to John, probably zealous, and if you have had any dealings with people in the church who are zealously wrong about something, you know that they have to be treated with great care, otherwise they simply dig their heels in and refuse to budge on their position. John’s disciples needed careful treatment to be able to decide on their own that they needed to let go of John and follow Him whose way John had come to prepare.

John had no doubts at all that Jesus was indeed the Christ. He was a prophet after all.
Click to expand...
This is great. I’ve been contemplating this since I heard the reading yesterday. John the Baptist is theologically complex, and I think this helps to explain his role as one always pointing to Jesus.
 
What I sense in that passage is that John the Baptist said this to many of his followers that came up to him and asked about Jesus. A standard answer of “Why don’t you go ask him yourself?” Like 2 sisters who go to mum and ask about the other, what’s happening in their lives, and mum says, go ask her yourself. It’s a way of mum stepping out of the picture so that the 2 sisters talk more, which is mum’s intention. John was finished his task and he was passing the last of his disciples over to Christ. John saw with his own eyes the revealing of the Trinity to the world at the baptism of Christ, he wasn’t having a crisis of faith. The Baptist knew Christ was going to give the baptism of the Holy Spirit and Fire. He knew Pentecost was coming!
 
Could it be that St. John the Baptist was beginning to have doubts?
 
PennyinCanada said:
John saw with his own eyes the revealing of the Trinity to the world at the baptism of Christ, he wasn’t having a crisis of faith. The Baptist knew Christ was going to give the baptism of the Holy Spirit and Fire. He knew Pentecost was coming!
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I love this. On our church bulletin yesterday the meditation claimed that John was having doubts. I just don’t believe that. He was born for the purpose to herald in the Messiah. I always saw him as the first Christian martyr — proclaiming the faith to his death.
 
Cateva said:
I love this. On our church bulletin yesterday the meditation claimed that John was having doubts. I just don’t believe that. He was born for the purpose to herald in the Messiah. I always saw him as the first Christian martyr — proclaiming the faith to his death.
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I really like what Penny said also. In my previous post I asked if maybe the Baptist was having doubts; by that I mean that sometimes when God does not act when we want in the way that we expect that it is possible for doubt to creep in. Certainly this condition could be exacerbated by the confines of a prison cell. Look at the disciples, how many of them “just didn’t get it” until Jesus’ resurrection, and even then St. Thomas needed to have tangible proof. I don’t think that perhaps having the same questions makes John any less of a saint, it just shows that he was human like the rest of us. By the way, I’m not saying he had doubts, I’m just saying that it’s ok if he did.
 
psalm51mercy said:
St. John the Baptist sent his disciples to Jesus to ask “are you the one?”
Why did he need to do this since he baptized Jesus at the river Jordan?
Didn’t he know already who Jesus was?
Click to expand...
Maybe his idea of what the messiah is was different from what the Messiah intended to be. Also, how literal do we have to take the gospels as each was written for an intended audience and each “set up” the life of Jesus to follow suit. We don’t know, we don’t have to know.
 
kingston1 said:
Maybe his idea of what the messiah is was different from what the Messiah intended to be.
Click to expand...
As a prophet, his idea of what the Messiah was is what was revealed to him by God. He called Christ the “lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world”, he knew that Christ would be sacrificed.
 
I think John is not expressing doubt but that belief that Jesus was the One who baptize the nations with fire. I don’t think he doubted at all, but much like the Apostles misunderstood Jesus’ work even after the resurrection (hence them asking Jesus if He would give them the Kingdom at the Ascension not realizing He already had given it to them) John is expressing the common Jewish understanding that the Messiah was for the Jews. And as such since Messiah was here now it might be a good time to get things rolling.

However, I had never considered that John is pointing them toward Christ. I think linguistically that is a little difficult especially given that Jesus reply to John’s disciples is not “What do you see…” but “Go tell John what you see.” It seems Jesus is speaking words of comfort to them for the sake of John and not for themselves, but I will ponder it.

God Bless
 
prodromos said:
As a prophet, his idea of what the Messiah was is what was revealed to him by God. He called Christ the “lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world”, he knew that Christ would be sacrificed.
Click to expand...
As Psalm51 mentioned earlier, maybe it was as simple as John was expecting a fiery Messiah with a pitchfork and judgment. This is exactly what my Jesuit Priest said during his homily. Sounds reasonable to me. He was about to die. He was alone and he started to have an inkling of doubt. His version of Messiah, the fiery King come to separate the wheat from the chaff, was different from Jesus’ version of Messiah, the Lamb who takes away the sins of the world.
 
Its obvious John knew what was going on.

John 1:29 The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.

When I heard the Gospel I thought this is just like when Christ told John at His baptism, lets do this to fulfill all righteousness, i.e. its the Father’s will. Now Christ is saying, **lets **make it clear, see all these prophecies about the Messiah are coming to pass and John’s great work given to him by My Father of preparing My way before Me is almost complete. John’s place in heaven will be exalted and it will be spoken of for generations within My Church.
 
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