Did you ever have second thoughts in life about your life? Things like, deciding to go to a particular college and after the first test questioning if you belonged there. Maybe, in dating a particular girl you discovered that she was way too sophisticated for you. Perhaps in dating a guy you realized that his middle name and way of life are “couch potato.”

I recall one event in my life that really gave me second thoughts. I spent 12 years in the U.S. Army reserves as a chaplain. Early on, one day brought me second thoughts – my first helicopter adventure. I was excited about going up in a chopper seeing what the world was like from “on high.” I was very excited until I discovered that they were not going to close the doors of the helicopter, that they flew with them open especially in the warm summer. Then, I had third thoughts as the helicopter began to bank, and I found myself at what seemed to be a position parallel with the earth. I felt very close to God, in a way that I had not anticipated. Apparently, some law of physics kept us from falling out. So, I know all about second thoughts.

Today, we have John the Baptist who seems to have second thoughts about Jesus. From prison, John sends his friends to ask Jesus whether Jesus is the promised one. Effectively, John is probably wondering “What am I doing in prison if this Jesus isn’t the Messiah, the one who was supposed to free us?”

Jesus tells them to look at the evidence: the blind see, the lame walk, and the “good news” is being preached. In other words, Jesus’ answer is that he is truly the promised one.

John is a very interesting character. He did all the right stuff in life, and he ended up in prison. We do many wrong things, and it seems that we have total freedom. We can do almost anything, we have so much freedom, but we, too, are in prison....the prison of being a human being, plagued by the effects of what we call original sin, plagued with a tendency to do wrong things. John was trapped by iron bars. We are trapped by our human weakness.

Each one of us must live with our own conscience, but each one of us is likewise obligated to form and inform our conscience. In other words, we have human freedom, but we must learn how to use that freedom, how to live our lives. If we live according to what we feel like doing, rather than what we should be doing, we become slaves to our sin-prone selves, rather than faithful servants to Jesus who offers eternal life.

In the gospel Jesus, declares that John the Baptist is the greatest person born of a woman. But, then, listen to what he adds: “The least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than John the Baptist.” The meaning is clear, being a citizen of heaven means that we are far superior to even John the Baptist in his human life.

So, what does it take to be a citizen of heaven. It’s simple: be a follower of Jesus Christ. Simply stating that we follow Jesus is much easier than doing the works of Jesus. Let me explain.

Before digital coupons, the Sunday newspapers used to be filled with paper coupons. I loved going to a store and using coupons to save money. One trip to Price Chopper added up to $34. With coupons, that total became $18. So, what does that have to do with the saving work of Jesus? Well, Jesus is a bit like the coupons we save. Those coupons do nothing for us unless we use them. We can stack them up. Unless we use them, we get no advantage at all from them. So, too, with Jesus, if we just leave him on the shelf, we get no value from his work, and we remain in the prison of the human condition.

Jesus calls us to greatness and gives us the means. We have to cash in what he has given us. Our Advent season is a great opportunity to get closer to what Jesus has done.

Perhaps these words will help us understand better the mission of Jesus: Jesus, we believe that you reached out to us so that we might reach out to others. We believe that you understand us even when we don’t understand ourselves. Jesus, we believe that you are always with us even though we are not always with you.

So, the choice is ours: remain captive to sin and human weakness or rejoice in the freedom given to us by the life of Jesus. Prepare to celebrate the birth of Jesus by being his follower right now. Above all, never have second thoughts about following Jesus.