Brief synopsis of the readings: Again from Isaiah, the prophet proclaims that flowers will bloom in the desert and all will see God’s splendor. Strength will come for feeble hands, weak knees and frightened hearts. God will vindicate with salvation. The blind will see, the deaf will hear, the lame will leap and the mute will sing. Sorrow and mourning will flee. Matthew’s Gospel describes John the Baptist in prison. He sent disciples to ask Jesus if he (Jesus) was the one to come. Jesus replied that the blind regain their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised and the poor hear the good news. As John’s disciples walked away Jesus turned back to the crowd and told them that “there has been none greater than John the Baptist; yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.”

When we think about martyrs, those who died for their faith, we often bemoan the fact that they were robbed of a long life. On one hand they lost the ability to look back on their life with pride. On the other hand they were spared the aches and pains of growing old. I’m guessing that when Isaiah spoke about “hands that are feeble and knees that are weak” in our first reading there were several nods of understanding. We all wish for a world where things get easier, where justice is more prevalent and where God’s love is more obvious. But as time goes on it’s easy (and perhaps inevitable) to get a little weary. This isn’t the sleepy kind of tired, it’s the fear that all we have done hasn’t gotten us what we’ve wanted and perhaps it won’t.

We see that in John the Baptist. John has an interesting presence in Matthew’s Gospel. He foreshadowed Jesus’ ministry and baptized him in chapter 3, we read about him here in chapter 11 and he is beheaded on Herod’s orders in chapter 14. Today’s Gospel showed him in prison and he had to at least suspected his days were numbered. His doubts and weariness began to creep in. At first it seems strange. After telling everyone that the Messiah was coming he wondered if Jesus was the one, because if Jesus wasn’t the one John’s life would have been wasted. His cousin Jesus would have been just another fraud and his ministry would have been wasted. It’s worth noting, by the way, that John had his own disciples who approached Jesus.

And John’s weariness was understandable. To give a modern example, anyone who’s been to Boston is aware of the Boston Marathon and if you’ve lived there you’re familiar with “heartbreak hill.” It’s located at about mile 20 of 26 so you’ve been running for a while. It’s not a steep hill but what makes it heartbreaking is that it’s over a mile long and comes when you’re already tired. It’s easy to feel like the hill will never end, you’ll never finish, and it was all wasted. Heartbreaking. But it does end and you can only find that out by continuing to run.

Being comfortable with weariness requires us to recognize that our life story will end before God’s story does, that the crest of the hill isn’t beyond God’s reach. It’s worth noting that John the Baptist died before Jesus rose from the dead. Years ago I was talking with a college history professor who joked that most people believe that all world history happened with them as the apex, history’s final purpose. It was his way of saying that most people have a hard time imagining a world beyond their life.

I think this is why there’s so much attention paid to the “end times” and the belief that we are close. But every generation that has believed this has been wrong. It’s humbling to think of this but we are a link in a long chain that will go on after we’re gone. As an aside I also suspect that’s why it’s so difficult to get any traction on environmental issues. What does it matter if we run out of fossil fuels in a hundred years if I won’t be around then?

On the other hand we can find comfort in this. A Jewish scholar who lived a generation after Jesus once stated: “It is not your duty to finish the work, but neither are you at liberty to neglect it.” As disciples we are called to do what we can and there is a lot we can do. When we gather to protect refugees and immigrants we respond to Jesus’ call to care for those most in need. When we gather to protect the environment and stop climate change we recognize the command to care for the earth that God created and found good in Genesis.

If we are not the last link in the chain that moves toward the Kingdom that Christ proclaimed, we not only a link but a necessary one. Two hundred years ago much of the abolition to slavery came out of the Quaker church and their recognition that slavery was not part of God’s plan. Now we take it for granted. In 2013 the newly elected Pope Francis was asked about about gay priests and he responded that “if they accept the Lord and have goodwill, who am I to judge them?”

Slavery and homophobia were seen as things we took for granted for much of our history but they aren’t anymore and our belief in Jesus tells us that some day injustices we rail against will be seen as obviously unacceptable. The road ahead isn’t clear or easy but discipleship has never aimed low. When we look around and see violence toward refugees or human trafficking we can easily grow weary. But our call is to do what we can and hand it off to the next generation. So when our hands become feeble or our knees grow weak we can rest assured that we are not the end of the story and God will not fault us for not completing the job.

And so on this third Sunday of Advent let us look on our feeble hands, weak knees and frightened hearts as badges of the work we have done and let us have faith to know that work will go on.