John the Baptist sat in a prison cell increasingly depressed. His energetic preaching, spurred on the the Spirit of God, and the crowds pushing on the banks of the Jordan for baptism seemed so far away. Knowing he might never leave this hole, John wondered if his life’s work meant anything at all.

So John sent messengers to Jesus to ask, are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?

John baptized Jesus and heard the stories about Jesus. But John sat in jail while Jesus healed the sick and raised the dead. John saw none of this for himself. John, the precursor of Jesus, the one of whom Jesus said, among those born of women there is no one greater than John, never saw with his own eyes the miracles of Jesus. Instead, John lay in filth and darkness and doubt.

I love the way Jesus answered John’s emissaries: Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor.

Jesus referenced familiar passages from the book of Isaiah pointing to the Messiah, words John knew by heart. Who knows, perhaps the cousins learned these promises together as boys, or maybe they had discussed them late into the night under the stars? I have a feeling these were the exact words John hoped to hear.

Regardless, Jesus comforted John with the only message he and the world and all of us need to hear—indeed, the Messiah has come.

Luke 7 in reading the Bible cover to cover in 2022

Photo by Spencer Tamichi