Second Sunday of Advent
December 7, 2025

Sermon

Camille Cook Howe
Pastor

Isaiah 11:1–10
Matthew 3:1–12 

A few days before my first Sunday of preaching at Fourth Church, I saw a member of the search committee that brought me to Chicago. He told me that I picked a very bad day for my first Sunday, because the Bears were playing at home. He admitted I had put him in a tough position. I asked what time the game was happening, and he said, “3:30.” I asked if he could just come to the early service and he said, “Mmmm … tailgating.” Some things about life in Chicago feel quite different than life in DC! But Advent with its usual rhythms and traditions in the lead-up to Christmas feels very similar: on the Second Sunday of Advent, no matter what team you are cheering for or what city you are worshiping in, John the Baptist pays a visit. 

We find John on the outskirts of the city, living in his alternative way, preaching to the people about repenting, because the Lord is coming. John the Baptist makes people feel uncomfortable. He does not hold back. When the powerful Pharisees and Sadducees go out to see what he is all about, he calls them a bunch of snakes. John basically refuses to administer the Sacrament of Baptism to them because he says their lives do not bear fruit worthy of repentance. It would be quite something to trek out to the wilderness seeking a baptism only to be turned away because you were told you were an unworthy snake. But that was the preaching style of John the Baptist: he was severe, he was dogmatic, he was fiery. He believed the One who was coming after him would demand strict devotion for discipleship and only those who were truly serious should sign up. John was not going to be just handing out baptisms to those he felt were merely curious and certainly not to those whom he deemed to be unworthy. 

When I worked at a church in New York City, we served Communion every Sunday. The church sanctuary had a wraparound balcony for overflow seating, but it was almost never used. One day, I saw a man sitting up there during the service. When it was time for Communion, instead of coming forward, he snuck out the back door. The same thing happened the next week and the week after. He arrived a little late and would head upstairs to be alone. When Communion came, he would leave. I asked the senior pastor about it, and he told me who the man was. He was a well-known public figure who had a very public fall from grace; it was all over the New York Times. We were not the church where he was a member; he came to us so he might not be recognized. 

The pastor met with this man to talk about what he was going through and suggest that if it was too much for him to walk down in front of the church for Communion, then someone could bring the elements up to him. He said he did not deserve to receive the sacrament. John the Baptist would have probably agreed with that assessment and sent him on his way. 

I wonder how often it happens that we feel unworthy of receiving what God offers us. I especially wonder about this in the time of year, as we approach Christmas, when the preachers tell us to “get ready” and “keep awake” and “prepare our hearts.” Do those directives encourage us or make us feel deflated? 

We are here; we showed up or we tuned in, but maybe that is about all we have to show for ourselves thus far this season. A young adult once confessed to me that Advent always felt very lonely to them, not because they were far from home but because they felt a distance from what the church was telling them they should be doing and feeling. They assumed they were alone in those feelings of spiritual inadequacy — like everyone else was catching the Christmas spirit and they were just struggling to keep up. The scripture passages during the first two weeks in Advent do not really help anyone who is feeling inadequate. The apocalyptic language in the passage last week makes it seem like if we are not perfectly prepared then we will be judged or, even worse, passed over. This week John the Baptist comes and shouts and tells us that we are doomed if we haven’t done all of the right things and properly repented and cleansed our hearts before Jesus arrives. Both passages are quite heavy and further the sense of being ill-equipped, unprepared, and unworthy of all of it. 

But that is kind of the point of Jesus in the first place. God’s gift to humanity was something no one was worthy of receiving. God comes into a world that is not at all ready to meet him. God comes to us in Jesus because we could not get ourselves ready enough or prepared enough or clean enough. John the Baptist tried to get them to repent and prepare, but they were never going to be ready to meet the type of Savior who was coming into the world. They were not ready, not one of them, yet God still sent Jesus for all of them. 

The run-up to Christmas is not the easiest time of year for a variety of reasons, but the message from God to you at Christmas is profound. The message is “I’ll come to you.” God says, “I’ll come to you.” There is no trekking out in the wilderness to prove our worth and give an account of our fruitfulness in order to receive a blessing. Instead, God comes directly to us with a message of acceptance and love. 

When the old Princeton Seminary library was being built, there were different symbolic stone carvings that hung over the entrance doors. One was a set of hands. The builders put the carvings into an upwards position, assuming that the hands symbolized the scholars in the library reaching up to God, only to be asked by the architect to remove the tablet and remount it, because the hands were going in the wrong direction. They were not supposed to represent us reaching up to God but God reaching out to us. “I’ll come to you!” 

The message of Christmas can feel difficult to hear because we are so accustomed to have to do things, prove things, earn things, get things for ourselves. But in Jesus, God comes to us — even to those who feel broken by the year they have had, even to those who feel hardened by the choices they have made, even to those who have doubt about their faith or struggle to find faith at all. The message of Christmas was love. Love from God to you in the person of Jesus. 

Advent does not need to feel like a spiritually intimidating season. It is simply our chance to remember and appreciate the profound gifts of grace offered to us from our Creator. 

In this case, maybe the best way for us to start Advent is by partaking in the sacrament, because at the Lord’s Table none of us prepared properly, none of us brought something from home to share, not one of us can act like the host or the hostess: all of this belongs to Jesus. Jesus is the host; it is his table. In Advent, let us remember that the hands of God point in our direction, that God came to us, not because we are worthy, but because of God’s profound love for the world. 

John the Baptist was probably surprised by the One who came after him. I am not sure he could have imagined Jesus who would baptize and feed with a spirit of generosity, who would forgive and welcome with a spirit of compassion, who would comfort and soothe with a spirit of humility, who would befriend and commission with a spirit of great inclusion. As we gather at the table today, we are grateful that this sacrament has been prepared for us, the bread and cup as powerful symbols of God’s grace, reminders that God said to us in Jesus, “I’ll come to you.” 

Thanks be to God. Amen. 

Sermon © Fourth Presbyterian Church