Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! Amen. Do you like riddles? You know, those little questions, often in the form of a rhyme, meant to stump other people who try to guess the meaning. Throughout history, many societies have recorded their fascination with riddles in literature. In the DC Comics universe, one of Batman’s nemeses is the supervillain known as the Riddler (AKA Edward Nigma), who tests Batman’s intelligence with deadly puzzles and games of riddles.
In the fifth century B.C., the Greek poet Sophocles wrote a play called Oedipus Rex. In one of the most famous scenes, Oedipus is confronted by the great Egyptian Sphinx, an enormous mythological creature with the head of a woman and the body of a lion. Oedipus seeks to free the city of Thebes from the plague of the Sphinx, but in order to do so, he must first answer a riddle that no one else has been able to tell: “What has four legs in the morning, two at noon, and three in the evening?” [Pause for consideration and repeat if necessary.]
The answer? Man! Oedipus answered rightly: “Man, who crawls on all fours as a baby, then walks on two legs, and finally needs a cane in old age.”
Riddles feature in the tragic tale of Samson in the Biblical Book of Judges. Samson wagered thirty changes of clothes with the Philistines before putting this riddle to them: “Out of
the eater came something to eat. Out of the strong came something sweet” (Jdg. 14:13, ESV).1 Samson gave the Philistines a week to figure out the rule, but they couldn’t do it, so they had to hand over a brand new wardrobe to the mischievous Israelite. What was the answer: a lion carcass with a beehive inside of it. The lion was the eater, and the honey was the sweet honeycomb Samson found inside.
Yet of all the famous riddles in film and literature, my favorite will always be a scene in J.R.R. Tolkien’s novel, The Hobbit. In a chapter titled “Riddles in the Dark,” the hobbit Bilbo finds himself lost in a cave inside a network of tunnels beneath the Misty Mountains. He doesn’t know the way out and fears that he will perish either from starvation or by falling prey to some vile monster. Then he encounters the creature Gollum, a wretched beast who survives in the caves by eating raw fish—and the occasional goblin. Gollum wonders if Bilbo might be a scrumptious morsel and a welcome change in his diet. So to buy time, Bilbo proposes a game of riddles. If Bilbo wins, Gollum will show him the way out of the tunnels. But if Gollum wins, he gets to eat Bilbo. Those are quite the odds—a literal matter of life and death.
They opening salvos in this game of riddles are simple enough to solve. But then Gollum poses one that Bilbo just can’t figure out:
This thing all things devours:
Birds, beasts, trees, flowers;
Gnaws iron, bites steel;
Grinds hard stones to meal;
Slays kings, ruins town,
And beats high mountains down.
As Bilbo tries to puzzle it out, Gollum draws near, getting greedier and greedier about his coming meal. But just when he is about to spring, Bilbo desperately cries out, “Time! Give me
more time!” Gollum is famished. Time, of course, was the answer. Time devours all other things.
Gollum demands one more riddle to try to best Bilbo. “Ask us a question,” he demands.
So Bilbo does. Fingering the magical ring in his coat pocket, he asks, “What do I have in my pocket?” For Bilbo, of course, it wasn’t really a riddle. He was just musing to himself, but Gollum takes it as a riddle and can never answer the question, “What has it got in its pocketses?” Gollum is defeated and forced to show Bilbo the way out.
*****
You may wonder, “Why does Pastor waste so much time discussing riddles?” Dear friends in Christ, we’re not wasting any time. I’m talking about riddles in order to put you in the right frame of mind to hear the riddle that Jesus poses to the religious leaders in our Gospel lesson today: “The baptism of John, from where did it come? From heaven or from man?” (Matt. 21:25).
The day just prior, Jesus had cleansed the temple by driving out the animals and turning over the tables of the moneychangers. The chief priests were furious at Jesus’ spectacular sign, so when returned the next morning, they demanded to know “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” (v. 23). In other words, “Just who do you think you are, Jesus?! And what gives you the right to take charge in our jurisdiction?”
But Jesus doesn’t give them a straight answer. Quite often, in fact, Jesus refuses to give a straight answer to those who question him. Instead, he seizes upon the situation as a teaching moment. Consider the lawyer who asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus didn’t tell him. Instead, he told the Parable of the Good Samaritan and ended by turning the question back on the lawyer: “Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor?” (Luke 10:36). When the
Pharisees grumbled, “Who can forgive sins but God alone?”, Jesus asked them, “Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise, take up your bed and walk’?” (Mark 2:9).
Ask Jesus a question, and you are bound to get another question in return. That’s precisely what happens to the chief priests and scribes in our Gospel lesson. They ask, in essence, “Just who do you think you are, Jesus?” And he replies, “Answer my question first: who do you think John the Baptist was?” Did John’s Baptism come from God or man?
Jesus’ question is a trap—a trick question. Jesus poses a riddle to them. He knows that the Jewish religious leaders were confounded by John the Baptist. Before John was beheaded, they had asked him, “Who are you?” (John 1:19). They demanded to know if he was the Messiah, Elijah, or one of the prophets, all of which he denied. “Who are you?” they demanded. “We need to give an answer to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?” (John 1:22).
And in reply, John only quoted Scripture: “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord…’” (John 1:23).
John the Baptist was Jesus’ forerunner. He came to prepare the way of the Lord, to get things ready for Jesus’ ministry. Jesus’s ministry and John’s are forever linked, as Jeff Gibbs points out in his commentary on Matthew: “Theologically and in terms of salvation history, John and Jesus cannot be separated.”2 John passed the torch to Jesus. “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). When John’s disciples tell him that Jesus is baptizing and gaining more disciples than John, the Baptist offers not a hint of jealousy. Instead, with great humility, he says simply, “He [Jesus] must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30).
John and Jesus go together. That’s why Jesus asks his question: “The baptism of John, where did it come from? From heaven or from man” (Matt. 21:25). Is John’s ministry from God or man? Who sent him? Amazingly, the answer to Jesus’ question is actually the answer to the priest’s question because John prepared the way for Jesus. If the religious leaders admit that John the Baptist came from God, then they must admit that so did Jesus—something they will never bring themselves to say because they hate Jesus so vehemently. But if they deny the divine call John received from God, then they fear for their lives, because the popular opinion of the crowds is that John is a prophet. They’re caught between a rock and a hard place: damned if they do and damned if they don’t. So in front of the crowds, they play it safe by playing themselves for fools. “We don’t know,” they answer begrudgingly.
Jesus has humiliated them in front of the entire crowd—all the people gathered in the temple for worship during the week of Passover. He has proven that the priests do not know where John came from. Nor do they know where Jesus comes from. And because they answer Jesus’ riddle with a non-answer. So he refuses to answer them. “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things” (Matt. 21:27).
But we know where Jesus gets his authority: from God. God sent Jesus, just as God sent John before him. But Jesus is greater than John the Baptist. John was God’s servant, but Jesus is God’s Son. Jesus came with the full authority of the heavenly Father because he is himself divine. It was by Jesus’ Word that heaven and earth were spoken into being. It was by God’s authority that Jesus healed the sick, drove out demons, and gave sight to the blind. It was by God’s authority that Jesus preached and taught the Word of God. And it was by God’s authority that Jesus died and rose again for our sins. As Jesus said earlier, “That you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins…” (Matt. 9:6).
Christ’s death on the cross and his rising from the tomb on the third day deliver to you the forgiveness of sins because Jesus has the authority to forgive sins. Do not be like the Jewish priests, the scribes, and the Pharisees, who refused to see and believe Jesus for who he is: “the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matt. 16:18). If you refuse to repent of your sins and believe the Word of life spoken by Jesus, then you will see the tax collectors and prostitutes enter the kingdom of God ahead of you, while you yourself remain outside (Matt. 21:21). But if you believe and receive Jesus as the only Son of God sent to be your Lord and Savior, you will enjoy the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation for eternity.
The question posed by the Jewish priests is a question we must still answer today: By what authority does Jesus do the things he does? Who gave him this authority?
Jesus says that no one can come to the Father except through him (John 14:6). In John 5, Jesus speaks of the authority granted to him:
“The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life” (John 5:22-24).
This is the greatest question in all of history, the riddle on which your life depends: Who is Jesus? Who do you believe Jesus to be? Who is Jesus in your life? It isn’t a question that I can answer for you. Neither can your parents or your spouse or anyone else. You can only answer it in your own heart. And I hope that you will before it is too late. In the name of the Father and of T the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen