2nd Sunday of Advent 2025

Sermon: 2nd Sunday of Advent 2025

Texts: Matthew 3:1-12, Romans 15:4-13, Isaiah 11:1-10

Grace, Peace, and Mercy from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Advent is a time of imagining the world differently. Our Christian tradition is full of dreamers, visionaries, and prophets that saw the complex challenges of the world, they saw it’s suffering and waywardness, and they dared to believe and trust God to fulfill His goodness upon the land, to imagine the world as God would have it. In their faith that such a reality was breaking forth, they pleaded with the people in their communities to repent, to turn away from the path of sin, and to turn to God. That’s the story of many of the prophets that we find in our Bible. And that is also the story of the one we hear about today: John the Baptist. He strikes to be an odd figure: he looks like a wild-man, but the signs are all there to signify that John is akin to those prophets of old that declared God’s judgment to be breaking through, and thus he prepares the people for the advent of God’s Kingdom. One could say that these prophets did not preach in fine clothing and according to polite society because their authority was not rooted in the externals of clothing or money or worldly power. Their authority, the power of their preaching was rooted in their words, the power of their God-given vision of the world, the radicalness of God’s promises for humanity. The message of the prophets is not one of seduction or pretty words, it is one of reckoning and revelation. Reckoning because they confront humanity with the truth of it’s inhumanity, the way they have lived so callously and thus worthy of judgement and in need of repentance. And then there is revelation, because the prophets like John do not leave us with doom and destruction, but they lift the curtain a little bit so we can see the light come in, the light of the transformed landscape that God has

made for us. The message of the prophets is what is accomplished in Advent: the reality of God’s nearness and it’s effects. But it is a given that the nearness of God cannot leave us the same: it will confront and transform.

So that is why we hear John the Baptist shake us with urgency: “the ax is lying at the root of the trees!”. There is a judgement that will shake the core of humanity itself. John says, do not hide behind the illusions perpetrated by the powerful of this world, that seek to numb you to injustice, to be double-minded about the vision of God. The religious authorities of John’s time, the Pharisees and Sadducees get the toughest reprimand: “You brood of vipers!…bear fruits worthy of repentance….do not presume to say to yourselves: ‘we have Abraham as our ancestor’”. These are the numbing agents, the self-justifications that forsake all action and love towards those God desires to uplift. The prophet calls it as it is: hypocrisy is poison. We see it in today’s world often enough, for those that preach freedom, and yet enact slavery, those that say they love, and yet they hate, those that call peace, yet they pursue violence. In every society, the discrepancy between words and actions is the surest sign of corruption. And thus John and the Lord’s prophets declare to every age, God will not stand for that, the fruitless tree shall be cut down.

But is this all we are left with? A massive culling of fruitless trees? No, John offers that despite the hypocrisy, despite the shortcomings, the One that is coming is offering a more powerful baptism, a true change, one of Holy Spirit and fire. There is in this same passage, the fire that burns and destroys, but then there is this Holy Spirit fire that purifies. Fire is also life, it is the symbol of passion and energy. The advent of the Lord comes to purify, to set us free of hypocrisy and thus to render us authentically

whole, to be of one mind in word and deed with God. The advent of the Lord brings its fire, a momentous energy that leads people into the Kingdom life. The prophet speaks passionately, because there is a fire burning up in their bones. In the French novel Diary of a Country Priest by Georges Bernanos, one of the priests says about preaching: “The Word of God is a red-hot iron. And you who preach it best go picking it up with a pair of tongs, for fear of burning yourself, you daren’t get hold of it with both hands.” I imagine John the Baptist and the prophets to be in this state. That the Word that is being preached is fire, it is meant to kindle a flame within us. It is a flame of hope, love, and truth. Hope for the new world to come. Love, for it is the substance of this new world. Truth, because it shines it’s light in the darkness and reveals how we stray away into the dark of falsehood, while we are called back into our true life in God. Advent is kindling within us this passionate expectation for the salvation of the world from it’s sins.

And what is the Promise that God has made, what is behind the curtain of the prophet’s revelation? The prophet Isaiah gives us a striking image as to how this Kingdom will change the basic structure of everything towards an ever deepening love. “with righteousness he shall judge for the poor and decide with equity for the oppressed of the earth” the reign of the One that is coming will enact justice upon the earth and thus radicalize the world with His love. This love that abounds towards justice transforms the world’s violence and breaks its dominion. This One will advocate for those suffering ones that have no voice. The striking images continue as the whole of Creation participates in this justice: “The wolf shall live with the lamb; the leopard shall lie down with the kid; the calf and the lion will feed together, and a

little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den. They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.” These creatures that once stained themselves with the blood of their pray now have ceased their violent instincts. It’s as if the DNA of the whole world has been recalibrated into love and communion. The fear is gone. There is peace. The violent have been pacified. And they have not been set apart. They have been brought in with the innocent and the docile. No longer will there be a hunter and a hunted. There is fellowship, there is communion. There is a family.

Beloved, our faith, prophesized by those like John the Baptist, our faith in this Jesus that will be born in the vulnerability of the manger, is this sign that will forever point to this vision of the world. The Christ child that will be born is creating all things new! We are being made new! From the fire of the Gospel, we are arising into our true selves. What a great vision was John and the prophets gifted with, the gift of a new world in which the cornerstone is the love of God in Christ Jesus. Let us trust and stake our lives upon this gift. We are daily being called to the life of this peaceable kingdom. The world wants to give you strength from unfeeling toughness. The Lord wants to give you strength through the vulnerability of love for others.

I’d like to end with the following poetic excerpt from the Nicaraguan poet Ernesto Cardenal, which I think exemplifies beautifully the nature of what we await in Advent. By God’s judgement and consolation, a new world opens up where the vision of Isaiah

is brought to life: Those that were enemies, those that were in opposition, are brought together in dialogue, they are made into one by a conversation of love which begins with the One we are waiting for. He is the first reconciling and passionate Word.

We are word

in a world born of the word

and which exists only as something spoken.

The firmament announces it as with neon letters.

Each night swapping secrets with another night.

People are words.

And thus one is not if one is not dialogue.

And so then each one is two

or is not.

Each person is for another person.

I am not I rather you are I!

One is the I of a you

or one is nothing.

I am nothing more than you otherwise if not I am not!

I am yes. I am Yes to a you, to a you for me,

to a you for me.

People are dialogue, I say,

if not their words would touch nothing

like waves in the cosmos picked up by no radio,

like messages to uninhabited planets,

or a bellowing in the lunar void

or a telephone call to an empty house.

(A person alone does not exist.)

I tell you again, my love:

I am you and you are me.

I am: love.

Let us pray: