When Betty Friedan published The Feminine Mystique in 1963, it launched so-called second wave feminism. Friedan asks a critical question in the famed opening:
The problem lay buried, unspoken, for many years in the minds of American women. It was a strange stirring, a sense of dissatisfaction, a yearning that women suffered in the middle of the twentieth century in the United States. Each suburban wife struggled with it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffeured Cub Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her husband at night — she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question — Is this all?
“Is this all?” Others said long before me that the man who works in a factory all day might have the same question, along with the man stuck behind a computer screen processing spreadsheets. “Is this all?” is not a feminist question, it’s a human question. I think our metropolitan area is particularly susceptible to it. People come here seeking to change the world; they will fight for freedom and justice, along the way climbing ladders and collecting buckets of cash.
It’s a religious question, too. You come to the church hoping to get your life changed, but you find squabbles over documents and budgets, pugnacious personalities, and meetings lasting so long you start to believe in Purgatory. “Is this all?”
Enter stage right John the Baptist. Things had gone surprisingly well. People thronged to hear him preach; the river was full of converts seeking baptism.
But it turns out the Sixth Commandment was as unpopular then with Galilean kings as it is today with New York governors. But hey, you’re no different. Everybody likes calls to repentance until they come your way.
John’s in prison for saying “You shall not commit adultery” to Herod Antipas, who has taken up with his sister-in-law who’s also his niece.
Gone are the crowds. Gone the success. A few loyal disciples cry out to John in his dungeon, “Is this all?”
Have you been there? Have you asked about your self, your life, your identity as a disciple of Jesus, “Is this all? Are we not to expect anything else?”
This is a trial, just as when you struggle with illness, or temptation, or challenges your children face. These all cause doubts to rise up in us. “Where is this all going?”
In the dungeon, doubtless miserable, John the Baptist does the only thing there ever is to do: he turns to Jesus. He sends his disciples to Jesus with the question, “What are we waiting for? Who are we waiting for? I thought it was You.”
Jesus answers by showing them the nature of His work: The blind see, the lame walk, the dead are raised, and then the capstone, “The poor have the gospel preached to them.” That seems less exciting, doesn’t it? Give me tangible results, not religious words, amirite?
But that little word—gospel, good news—is the heart of all the rest. This was John’s mission from the beginning. You remember his father, Zacharias, sang at John’s birth, “And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Highest; for you will go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways, to give knowledge of salvation to His people by the remission of their sins” [Lk 1.76f].
Sin brought corruption into the world. Don’t be surprised that everything has gone to hell. That’s original sin, man. Genesis 3: work is hard, then you die. Or to put it in a more refined way, “The wages of sin is death.” We’re all in the dungeon, we all fell in the pit.
But whatever bad news you’re facing, John the Baptist is telling us the same thing he told his disciples: “Go take it up with Jesus. He’s your answer. In Jesus you have knowledge of salvation by the remission of sins.”
I don’t know what you’ve been up to the last three months, but I bet there’s been some sinning going on. True confession: sometimes a Lutheran pastor gets bored talking about the forgiveness of sins. It’s the devil’s temptation to the preacher. “Is this all?” The simple answer is, “Yes, it’s everything!” Because with sins forgiven, all the rest follows: Forgiveness with your brothers and sisters, reconciliation, and the patient anticipation that Jesus will do what He promised: raise the dead and renew the world.
Is this all? Yeah, that’s all! And it’s enough. So rejoice in the Lord always. +INJ+