“Blessed is the one who takes no offense at me” names the tension many feel at Christmas, when hope arrives not as resolution, but as a child born into unanswered questions.
A few days ago, I caught myself thinking about Christmas, as we often do during this time of the year. The lights are already up, the songs are already playing, and a delightful expectation is already forming. Christmas is supposed to feel joyful.
And yet, almost immediately, another thought followed: Why does Christmas so often arrive carrying pain along with joy?
Last week, I gave an interview to Catholic News Agency. We spoke about Nigeria and the current persecutions, grief, and fear due to killings in the country by terrorists, and yet also about faith that refuses to die. Even as churches are attacked, people keep praying. Even as families are broken, hope keeps growing. I remember pausing afterward and thinking, “This is the Gospel pattern.” Light and darkness arrive together, and the tension seems hopeless.
That same pattern unfolds in the life of John the Baptist. When we first meet John in the Gospels, he is fearless. He preaches in the open. The heroic forerunner of the Blessed Lord calls people to repentance and points to Jesus without hesitation. “He is the one,” he says without diplomatic equivocation. John is confident and unshaken. He is passionate about everyone hearing the good news he has come to proclaim—Jesus is the Son of God and the Messiah.
But then the story shifts.
The Questioning
John is arrested. The crowds disappear. His innocence doesn’t protect him from the lions of politics and culture. The voice that once thundered by the Jordan is now locked behind stone walls. Days turn into weeks. Weeks of silence. And somewhere in that prison, doubt begins to creep in and might have become persistent.
John begins to wonder.
The Messiah he announced is walking free. Healing others and eating with sinners. The crowds seem to praise him. And John, the faithful, obedient John, is still in chains.
So he does something deeply human. He sends his disciples to Jesus with a question that sounds almost painful to ask: “Are you the one… or should we wait for another?”
I imagine John asking that question, exhausted. I would ask that in anger and frustration. Won’t you? He might have been frustrated, too. His question (and the tone) sound like they come from the painful heart of disappointment. It sounds like the kind of question the faithful ask when faith hurts as it always does.
Or don’t you think John’s question sounds familiar?
We Question Too
It is the question that creeps in when Christmas doesn’t heal what we hoped it would.
When, instead of peace around the table, tension shows up. A child comes home and quietly announces a decision we never imagined. The faith we tried to pass on seems suddenly rejected.
Old struggles return on one of the two holiest days of the year.
It is the question we ask when we thought this season would finally bring closure, only to discover that our wounds are still open. Temptation feels stronger while the Child Jesus gazes at us. Loneliness deepens. Grief refuses to take a holiday.
Are you the one… or should we expect someone else? Our hearts desire to know, and our minds question.
Whose Expectations?
Jesus does not scold John, and he does not scold us either. Surprisingly, he does not defend himself with a straight answer as we would. He tells John’s disciples to look closely, to notice what is happening, even if it is not happening the way John expected.
And then Jesus adds a quiet, unsettling line: “Blessed is the one who takes no offense at me.” As if to say: “Blessed is the one who can love me even when I do not meet their expectations.” Because this is how God enters the world.
God does not penetrate existence with explanations. Not with instant solutions nor the usual process-outcome mode of measurement. But as a small, vulnerable, and silent child.
Ironical Resolution
The child Jesus does not rush to fix everything. He settles in even in the smelly conditions and feels okay being there in ways that shock us as he molds the conditions from within. The Lord makes room for himself in the deeper parts of our lives, the places we do not decorate, where we evade, and where we barely understand ourselves.
He lies there, quietly, while we struggle. The Lord stays while we wait or run around for him elsewhere in our external practices. He remains even when we question, What’s the point? Where is he? Is he the one?
And somehow, gradually, what feels like failure becomes faith. What feels like waiting endlessly becomes witness. The feeling of loss becomes a kind of daily martyrdom, a dying that gives way to life birthed from within by the Infant Jesus.
John’s story does not end in prison. It ends in glory. Ours will end in glory, too, if we allow the Baby Jesus. The point, dear child of God, is that Christmas does not remove the paradox. It enters it. And blessed are those who are not offended by a God who saves this way.
