Has It All Been Worth It?

This sermon was preached by Pastor Ted Carnahan for the Third Sunday of Advent, December 14, 2025.

Grace, mercy, and peace be with all of you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

I don't know about you, but when I think about waiting, I think about being bored. I think about being restless. And I think about the Department of Motor Vehicles.

Now, it's not so bad here, but I grew up in the St. Louis area, where the DMV was a little bit more populated with other people who had other things to do. And they seemed to be incapable of reading signs. And they seemed to be incapable of having their paperwork in order. And so it always seemed like time slowed to a crawl as I waited for my turn at the Department of Motor Vehicles.

Waiting is a universal experience. All of us have had to deal with the experience of waiting expectantly. But how many of us have had to wait in the midst of discomfort? How many waiting in the midst of suffering? Perhaps a good deal number of us?

Waiting in the Bible

There are many in the Bible who have had to wait:

• Abraham and Sarah waited until Sarah was 99 years old before she could conceive a child. Isaac, the fulfillment of God's promise to Abraham.
• Elizabeth was childless into her 60s until John the Baptist was conceived. And even then, Zechariah couldn't hardly believe it. And had to be struck dumb, not able to speak until the child was born and John the Baptist was named.
• And of course, we can't forget the Blessed Virgin Mary. Waiting nine months for the birth of this boy. Miraculously conceived. Who is Emmanuel. God with us.

Today we reflect on the waiting of another person, John the Baptist, who has had a rough life. Rough living in the wilderness has made him hardened to a lot of the suffering that you and I would not be able to endure. He was a man who was from his adulthood clothed in camel's hair, basically wearing an itchy suit of clothes. Living rough in the wilderness. Being provided for by God's hand, but not with delicious, sumptuous steak and bacon - no. He's being provided with locusts to eat and wild honey.

John the Baptist's Ministry and Imprisonment

He was a man who eventually, in his preaching, had the opportunity and the blessing of getting to baptize Jesus Christ. And in baptizing Christ, united Christ with baptism in such a way that you and I, receiving baptism, take on his blessedness and give to Christ our sin.

He was also, apparently, something of a political maven. Because when he heard that King Herod had married his own brother's wife, Herodias, he was so incensed with this violation of Jewish law.

Remember, Herod is king of Judea, the province of Judea, Roman Empire. He is king. And here is this man who supposedly is king of the Jews, who is not living according to the Jewish law. So when John got wind of that, he began to preach against that publicly. And if there's one way to get your butt thrown in prison, it's to preach publicly against the marriage of the king. And so, of course, he got arrested. And he sits in prison.

Now, we know that Herodias hated John with the a passion and fire of a thousand blazing suns. If it were up to her, he would have been executed the same day he was arrested. But Herod actually kind of liked the guy. He had sort of a weird love-hate relationship with John the Baptist. On one hand, he didn't like that he was defying his authority as the king. But on the other hand, he found him fascinating.

And so he sort of kept him as a pet. He would keep him in prison. And then once in a while, he would get John out of the dungeon. He would rail against him for his marriage to Herodias. It was kind of like a train wreck. It was a terrible thing to look at, but he couldn't look away.

And so John's in prison. And he's been in prison for a while. We don't know exactly how long, but he has been waiting a very long time. And it's not a comfortable place.

You have to understand that prison in those days is not the same as prison now. Even the idea that you would be fed in prison was not always something that took place. And to survive a long time in prison, you had to have friends and relatives who were willing to come and bring you food because what they provided, if they provided anything at all, was less than what was needed to survive, usually.

And so John is in prison. And he's waiting. And he's beginning to lose heart. Because he was among those who thought that this Messiah who was coming, who he thought he had recognized, in Jesus.

Remember, it's John who says, "Look, here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." And he baptizes him, but he's unwilling to do it at first. He says to Jesus, "I need to be baptized by you, and you're coming to me for baptism?" He says, this one is the Messiah. This is the one in whom Israel has hoped. This is the one who's the fulfillment of the prophecies of Isaiah. This man he baptized and he believed would be the salvation of Israel.

Well, John's in prison, and he hadn't done anything wrong except tell the truth. Has the kingdom come in Jesus or not? Because Herod's still in charge. And with Herod still in charge, it's hard to see that things are getting any better at all.

And so he sends his disciples after they come and visit him in prison with a message. For Jesus, "Are you the one who is to come, or am I waiting for someone else? Are you the Messiah who's going to take away the sins of the world, right the wrongs of the Romans, and kick their butts out? Are you the fulfillment of the promises made to our ancestors, or should we be waiting for somebody else?"

In short, what John wants to know is: has my ministry been in vain?

Jesus' Response and Assurance

Jesus answers (in classic Jesus fashion) not with a yes or a no, but instead sends the disciples back with this message: Look at the miracles. The blind see, the lame walk, the deaf can hear.

The miracles that Jesus does testify to who he is because the miracles that he is doing correspond to the miracles that Isaiah predicted would be a part of the messianic rule of God's Son.

And then he ends with these words, "Blessed are those who take no offense at me."

In other words: John, I know you've been waiting a long time, and this is not going as you thought it would. You had a different conception of what this messianic reign would look like. You thought that it would be an end to your immediate earthly suffering. You thought that it would be a fulfillment of a military promise to kick the Romans out and change the world in that way. It's not going to be exactly that way, but blessed are those, John, who take no offense at me and are willing to follow me anyway.

John has lived his life in God's hands his whole entire life. And now he's asking the question, has it all been worth it? Have all the struggles and ordeals that I've gone through, have all the bugs that I've eaten been worth this moment where I'm locked up in prison and it doesn't seem like I'm ever going to get out? And in that way, he wonders, was he really preparing the way for the Lord?

We have a lot in common with John when we ask questions like this: has it all been worth it?

• Has your job, the one that you've toiled at for years and years, is it worth it?
• Is the career that you followed and maybe now you're retired, is that worth it? Did it make an impact on the world?
• Have the struggles that you've endured in this life meant anything? Or has it just been one awful thing after another?

Promises from Isaiah

The prophet Isaiah gives us God's promises. Hundreds of years before John the Baptist is born, he speaks of a highway of righteousness. An elevated place upon which no one but the elect, the righteous shall tread. The way of peace that is being constructed through the wilderness for the coming of a king.

Isaiah there is speaking of a reality of suffering in his life, waiting that has been going on for a long time in his experience. He has been waiting in exile in Babylon. The Babylonian exile. If you're ever wondering what's going on in the Old Testament, the answer is almost always, the Babylonian exile. And that's what's going on here.

The people have been taken captive into Babylon. They've been hauled off to live in Babylon, which is near Baghdad. They're way away from Jerusalem and they're being kept there against their will. And not just for a day, a week, or a month, or even just a year, but for three generations, 70 years, they live in Babylon and their grandkids are starting to forget the Lord. And they're wondering if God is forgotten them. They're wondering if there is a Messiah who will make things right.

If you've ever waited a long time for a diagnosis or for things to get better or for times to become less difficult, or perhaps you're waiting for a loved one who is overdue in a snowstorm. Waiting a few hours or even a few days can be agony.

Sometimes when I visit people in the hospital, they tell me it's not the tests, the prodding and the poking and the illness that's the bad part about being in the hospital, but it is the waiting for the next thing and the next thing after that that's so difficult.

But after 70 years, how do you endure? Or for John, sitting in jail, what do you hold on to? Perhaps for a while, we could hold on to personal virtue, our own sense of self. But suffering rounds off the sharp corners of our willpower, and pretty soon we start to roll in the direction that the world is sending us.

We have to cling to something else besides ourselves. We have to hold fast to a promise that comes outside of us. A promise that God gives us in Isaiah today as He tells us to strengthen our weak hands and make firm our feeble knees. For the Lord is coming. He will come and save you. He will make justice and peace reign with you.

Christ's Fulfillment and Our Hope

And we see this in the person and work of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We ask: how long, O Lord? Or even as the altar is decorated today: Come, Lord Jesus! This is not just an idle, empty set of words, but it is the cry of our hearts when we see suffering and death surrounding us. It's a prayer to remind us that we have no permanent home here.

We ask, how long, O Lord? How long must we wait? But surely God must be doing something good in the waiting. We ask with John, are you the one who is to come? But we know that Christ has already seen this world and its sin and willingly went to the cross.

God's answer to the suffering of this world is to send His own Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, to live a perfect and sinless life. And then by His innocent suffering and death, destroy death itself, giving us a promise that not only has He risen, but that we too shall rise. The ultimate statement of God as Emmanuel, God with us, Christ crucified and risen. The womb will go to the cross and die.

And so we trust in the meantime and in the waiting that the One who unstopped the ears of the deaf and opened the eyes of the blind and preached good news to the poor, this Messiah will come again.

Jesus points us to His miracles in order to show John, that in vain, you're not getting out of jail alive. And we know later John will go on to be beheaded by Herodias' command. But it has all been worth it.

The difficulty that you face in this life as you wait for Christ is worth it. Because Christ comes to fulfill all promises that God has made. We must wait for Him, expectantly, hopefully, filled with His peace, because we know that no matter what we face in this life, even the sin that threatens to separate us from God is no obstacle to the love of God in Jesus Christ, who welcomes us and redeems us and puts us firmly in His household.

May you know the peace of this season, which comes from an expectant hope. And may the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, keep your hearts and minds strong in Christ Jesus. Our Lord, to life everlasting. Amen.