Hello my friends,

As we continue our journey through advent, I wanted to explore the intersection between doubt and faith with you today through the lens of Matthew 11:2-11 where we hear John the Baptist ask a deeply vulnerable question of Jesus, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” When we remember that John is the one who baptized Jesus, heard the voice of God declaring Jesus as God's son, and the spirit descending on Jesus like a dove, and yet still asks this question, it should provide needed context for our vulnerable questions as well and the actions we are called to embody.

Recommended Resources

​-How We Learn to Be Brave: Decisive Moments in Life and Faith By Mariann Edgar Budde I just finished this book and found it helpful and inspiring. If you are looking for a book that helps you process your own journey of faith by listening to another, this may be just the one for you.

​-"I have not come to bring peace, but a sword." I reference this quote below and so I wanted to provide this full commentary I write a while back on Matthew 10:34-39, where Jesus says this often misunderstood and misquoted phrase.

​-Keeping the Boise Brick House Open Go Fund Me. This local nonprofit has been a lifeline for many young people in our area. They provide meals, snacks, tutoring, a safe place for studying, and so much more. Due to recent funding cuts, they are facing the possibility of closing. They only need $30,000 to stay open and they have already raised nearly $10,000. If you're looking for a place to do end of year giving or just support a needed program that helps so many, please consider Boise Brick House. Tap the link above to read more.

​-Church Windows: Adult and Children's Coloring Book of Stained Glass Windows by Rev. Stacie Jean Ballard. My good friend Stacie just recently published this wonderful coloring book for both adults and children! Sometimes just sitting down to color can be so cathartic. Since my children came along, I am coloring much more often than I've ever done before. I'll turn on some relaxing music and let my brain just focus on color, lines, and time with my kids. If you're looking for something relaxing and creative, this is a great resource to have.

​-The Paradox of Pleasure by Hidden Brain. This was one of the most insightful and thoughtful episodes of Hidden Brain in the last several years, which is saying a lot as Hidden Brain always produces such insightful episodes. This particular episode is so profound and deeply applicable to our world today. Tap the link to read the episode description and listen.

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“Are You the One?”

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Matthew 11:2-11

New International Version

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​When John, who was in prison, heard about the deeds of the Messiah, he sent his disciples to ask him, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?”

Jesus replied, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: 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. Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me.”

As John’s disciples were leaving, Jesus began to speak to the crowd about John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed swayed by the wind? If not, what did you go out to see? A man dressed in fine clothes? No, those who wear fine clothes are in kings’ palaces. Then what 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:

“‘I will send my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way before you.’

Truly I tell you, among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet whoever is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.

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​Communicating Doubt

We respond to doubt in others the same way we respond to doubt in ourselves.

If we treat doubt in ourselves as unwanted and with suspicion, we will do that with others as well. If we treat doubt with curiosity and contentment, we will also do that with others.

I am thinking on these things quite a bit as I am working to grow in my communication skills. Not only as a writer, but as a husband, father, and friend. Those details in how we communicate reveals a lot about how we see ourselves and others.

One of the biggest lessons I've learned is that we can often find ourselves getting upset at others who freely communicate in ways we don't feel free or won't allow ourselves to be free to communicate ourselves. For example, if someone directly communicates their needs and we have been formed in a way that our needs are an inconvenience or unimportant or shamed, we may find ourselves upset or even offended when someone freely expresses what they need.

I mention this because it has a lot to do with our spiritual lives and how we define, relate to, and communicate doubt. Some of us we brought up in religious traditions that welcomed doubt and questions, developing within us a natural openness to the presence of doubt in our lives and in the lives of others. Others of us were brought up in religious traditions that suppressed doubts and questions, developing within us a natural propensity to see doubt and questions as a threat.

I have come to believe that when we begin to stifle and demonize doubts and questions we are just steps away from stifling and demonizing ourselves and others. For how can we separate doubt, curiosity, and questions from simply being human?

How we who claim to follow Jesus then, who is fully human and fully God, treat doubts and questions, reveals what we believe about being human and worshiping God.

I invite you to ponder this as we continue on.

The Question

John the Baptist asks his question from a cell.

Matthew tells us that John sends word to Jesus from prison, not from the riverbank where the heavens once split open, not from the moment when he watched the Spirit descend and heard God's voice declare who Jesus is, "my son in whom I'm well pleased." The question “Are you the one who is to come, or should we wait for another?” does not rise from ignorance, but from suffering. It is not the question of a critic, but of a faithful witness whose world has collapsed.

Historically, John’s imprisonment would have been brutal. Roman prisons were not places of rehabilitation but of coercion and terror. They were dark, overcrowded spaces meant to extinguish hope and assert imperial dominance. For someone like John, whose ministry openly challenged the false peace of Rome and named the violence beneath Rome’s claims of order, prison was the Empire’s answer to prophetic truth.

And from that place, John asks Jesus a question.

Doubt Without Shame

The Greek phrasing of John’s question is important. The verb translated “wait” or “expect” (prosdokōmen) is actually plural. John is not merely asking for himself. He is asking for his people. Even in confinement, even while dependent on others for food, connection, and sheer survival, his concern is communal: Is this truly the One we have been waiting for?

This is not the cynicism of apathy. It is the doubt of yearning.

Here is what the text quietly refuses to do. It does not scold John. Jesus does not rebuke him for questioning. He does not remind John of the baptism, or insist that “real faith doesn’t ask questions.” Instead, Jesus honors the question by answering it.

That alone is a word of grace for us.

It reminds me of when Thomas doubted the testimony of Jesus' resurrection from his fellow disciples, responding "unless I put my finger in his wounds, I will not believe." Instead of condemning Thomas, Jesus answers and offers him his wounds.

So if John, who saw the Spirit descend, who heard God’s voice echo over the Jordan, can ask this question without condemnation, then the community of Jesus has no right to shame those who wrestle today. Those who ask from hospital beds, from detention centers, from gravesides, from exhausted pews, from behind screens endlessly filled with terrifying headlines, and all the frayed prayers. Faith is not fragile because it asks questions. Faith becomes fragile when questions are silenced.

The church is not called to be a tribunal for doubt, but a shelter for it. The word sanctuary is meant to be literal for the church, not just the description of a room where worship services take place.

We are called to be a refuge.

An Answer Made of Deeds

Jesus’ response is striking for what it does not contain. He does not offer John a theological thesis or a christological argument. He does not say, “Yes, I am the Son of God.” Instead, he says to John’s disciples, “Tell John what you hear and see.”

And what they hear and see is action.

The blind see.
The sick are healed.
Those pushed to the margins are restored to community.
The dead are raised.
And the poor experience good news as a lived reality.

In the original Greek, the final phrase about good news carries particular weight. The poor are not just informed of good news, it is describing good news happening to them. The reality of the poor begins to be shaped by good news. Liberation is not an abstract promise. It is embodied mercy.

This is how Jesus answers doubt, not with coercion, but with compassion made visible. With love in action.

And this includes John himself. Though Jesus does not free him from prison, he dignifies him publicly, naming John as more than a prophet, as one who stands in the long arc of God’s redemptive work. John’s suffering is not a sign of failure. It is the cost of faithfulness in a world threatened by truth. Jesus then concludes his description of John the same way I imagine John would about himself, "...yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he." The very people being healed, liberated, and cared for by Jesus.

Blessed Are Those Not Offended by a Gentle Messiah

Jesus includes in his message a paradoxical blessing: “Blessed is the one who is not scandalized by me.” The scandal is not that Jesus fails to act, but that he acts without violence, without domination, without mirroring the Empire’s methods.

In the chapter right before this in Matthew 10, Jesus says “I have come not to bring peace but a sword.” This quote is often misunderstood and misused. (See commentary in resources) Yet this is exactly what Jesus is talking about. He has come to act, but not act in the way Rome defines peace or even the way his people Israel expect the messiah to act towards Rome.

John, like many in Israel, may have expected a Messiah who would shatter chains immediately, topple rulers, and cleanse the land with force. Instead, Jesus heals bodies, restores dignity, and gathers the excluded. The kingdom comes, but it comes quietly, subversively, like yeast in dough, like a growing mustard seen, like a pearl buried in a field. Acting this way in a world that expects violence, coercion, and dominion is like a sword to the expected status quo.

The reality is, just like with John, this kind of deliverance that defies expectations of deliverance can test faith as much as suffering does. For the adjustment of expectations can be a kind of suffering too.

What This Means for the Church

Jesus’ response to John becomes Jesus’ question to us.

When people ask today, “Is this really who Jesus is?,” when they ask from behind bars, from deportation proceedings, from hunger, from despair, from poverty, our answer cannot be only words. Our credibility rests in whether our communities embody the same mercy Jesus names.

The gospel is most convincing where the vulnerable are being liberated, reconnected, and dignified.

If we claim to follow Jesus but remain indifferent to imprisoned bodies, displaced families, neglected poor, and silenced questions, then our confession rings hollow. The church does not only proclaim who Jesus is. The church participates in how Jesus answers doubt, through healing presence, solidarity, and costly love.

Action Steps

1. Make room for honest questions: Create spaces, perhaps with a small group, where doubt is met with listening and grace.
2. Stand with the vulnerable: Commit with others to accompaniment, visitation, immigration support, hospital chaplaincy, or shelters.
3. Let actions testify: Ask regularly: If someone judged our faith solely by our deeds, would they recognize the gospel?
4. Remember the imprisoned: Speak their names in prayer. Advocate for policies that honor dignity over punishment.
5. Practice communal hope: Refuse salvation narratives that solely focus on the individualism. Hope, like doubt, belongs to the community.

A Closing Prayer

Faithful God,
You are not threatened by our questions
nor offended by our trembling hope.
You meet us in prisons of iron and fear,
and you answer us not with force
but with mercy made flesh.

Teach us to be a people
who listen before we lecture,
who heal before we explain,
who stand with the forgotten
until good news becomes real.

When we ask, “Are you the One?”
shape our lives into your reply.
And make us a church
where doubt finds shelter
and the poor encounter joy.

Amen.

Now I'd like to hear from you! Did you find this helpful? What thoughts came to your mind as you read? Feel free to respond to this email and share your thoughts with me. I look forward to reading them. A Daily Advent Devotional: I recently wrote a daily devotional in hopes to provide a companion for people seeking to follow Jesus in our world today during this season as we head towards Christmas. You can read more about it here: $20.00 Solace: The Birth of Hope in a Time of Longing This devotional is an ebook, crafted as a daily scripture readings and reflections that begin on the First Sunday of... Read more Get it now! ​ Ways to support: If you'd like to support this project, you can do so through one-time-gift of any amount you feel is right. You can also subscribe through a $5/mo, $15/mo, or $25/mo. Several others have also asked for a recurring gift option that is different from the ones offered here, like this one. If you'd like me to set up a different option for you, please just send me an email with the word "support" in the subject line. As always, I really want to thank all of you for reading and for all the ways you support me and this project every single week. I'm thankful for the ways we are building this together and hope it creates a lasting, positive change in our world along the way! I sincerely appreciate you all, Ben Remember, you can now view this and all previous newsletters as well as invite friends to join through this link: https://benjamin-cremer.ck.page/profile.

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