Third Sunday of Advent
December 14, 2025

A Remedy for Feeble Knees and Fearful Hearts

Camille Cook Howe
Pastor

Luke 1:46b–55
Isaiah 35:1–10

Hope is the thing with feathers —

That perches in the soul —

And sings the tune without the words —

And never stops — at all —

These are famous lines by Emily Dickinson. You can say such things if you are a poet. You can talk about hope having feathers and two roads diverging and wild geese flying and lonely clouds wandering. The poet’s job is to paint an image, or lift a feeling, or express a condition, or tell a story. Robert Frost said, “A poem begins with a lump in the throat; a homesickness or a love sickness. … A complete poem is one where an emotion has found its thought, and the thought has found words.”

A poem begins with a lump in the throat. The prophet Isaiah, who, like most prophets, was generally called to speak about specific events in the world, rests his prophetic voice momentarily in order to write a poem. This famous poem, from Isaiah chapter 35, creates images of peace, restoration, wholeness, plenty, and joy. He used the image of a desert rejoicing. The lump in Isaiah’s throat probably arose when he looked at the landscape in front of him and saw no rejoicing. Instead he saw barrenness and despair. That is what he saw, but his poem was what he envisioned. He saw a parched, weary reality, but he imagined, oh he could envision, a time and a place when the crocus would bloom and the streams of water would flow and the pools of water would cover the hot sand. 

My parents live in the deserts of Arizona, and when you visit, your body immediately reacts to the new surroundings. Your skin dries out, your lips chap, your throat is always thirsty. This is the physical reminder that you are in a place where water is sparse. The metaphor of the dry desert is a perfect description for the places in which we can find ourselves. We know Isaiah was not just talking about the geography but talking about the lives of the people. They were in a place where their souls felt dry and their faith felt brittle and their hope did not feel like “feathers perched in the soul” but like tumbleweed unable to take root. There are times in life when everything seems parched — minds, hearts, and souls. In the deserts of life, in those dry patches we cross from time to time, we need less of a prophetic proclamation and more of a poetic vision, a divine vision.

Isaiah’s poem creates that vision for us. It is a poem of reversal, a poem of redemption, a poem of hope for the future. Isaiah believes when God appears these things will be possible; Isaiah believes when God appears these things will happen. He believes the eyes of the blind will be opened, the ears of the deaf unstopped, the lame will leap like deer, the people will obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing will flee away. 

Isaiah has taken the lump in his throat from the suffering and the sorrow he witnessed, and he transformed it into a poem of hope. His poem is more than beautiful words on a page. It is the blessing of a renewed vision — that the world could be different, that their lives could be different. Isaiah’s poem is probably read as regularly in Advent as is the poem “’Twas the Night Before Christmas” is read on Christmas Eve. We return each year to this familiar poem to recapture the vision of Isaiah. But in order to understand the poem, you have to understand the context, and the context was bleak, making the words all the more startling, all the more beautiful. 

And so, what if Isaiah visited us today and saw our landscape and the context of our lives. I wonder what vision he would cast, what poem would he write?

The overworked would find rest.

  The anxious would find relief. 

   The unemployed would find jobs.

     The debt-ridden would be forgiven.

      The doubters would find truth.

        The lonely would find friendship. 

      The marginalized would be given power.

     The immigrants would feel secure. 

   The hospitalized would get released.

  The politicians would find solutions.

The Bears would win the Super Bowl? 

The thing about visions is that you have to believe they can come true, otherwise they are futile fairy tales with no power and no relevance. Isaiah was not offering a feel-good poem for a moment; he was offering a bold vision for the future. Without vision, it is much easier to lose hope. 

On Christmas Eve 1968, the Apollo 8 spacecraft entered orbit around the moon. Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and William Anders because the first humans to orbit a celestial body other than our Earth. The astronauts sent a Christmas Eve broadcast home to Earth. Borman later recalled, “We were told that on Christmas Eve we would have the largest audience that had ever listened to a human voice, and the only instructions we got from NASA was to do something appropriate.” All three astronauts took turns reading from the book of Genesis. They read, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.”

God’s vision for the world was to take what was formless and dark and create goodness and light. God’s vision for creation was to be a place where streams of fresh water would flow and flowers would bloom and creation would flourish. Over time, part of this vision was tarnished and destroyed, and the world longed once more for peace, for restoration, for hope.

At Christmas we celebrate that God heard our longings and answered our cries with the gift of Jesus. Jesus came to make the poem come to life, to fulfill the prophecies, to answer the prayers. Jesus came, and in small acts he did what the poet had longed for — he actually healed those who were sick, he sat and comforted people who were grieving, he welcomed people to the table who had always been excluded, he noticed people who were working too hard and needed to rest, he sought out people who were caught in lives of sin and shame and he forgave them. The poet imagined a time when weak hands would be made strong, and feeble knees would be steadied and fearful hearts would be comforted, and God sent Jesus to make the vision a reality. 

The very first person to hear the good news about Jesus coming into the world was Mary when she was visited by the angel Gabriel. Mary’s response to the news was shock, disbelief, and then rejoicing. She broke into song, the song that is recorded in Luke’s Gospel and is known to us today as the Magnificat. It is the song of an expectant mother filled with joy. It is the song of one who was powerless who had been given a calling. It is the song of one who was lowly who had been raised up. It is the song of a disciple who has been given a vision for how she could participate in God’s work on earth. Mary’s song and Isaiah’s poem paint powerful images of the vision of God’s kingdom on earth. 

Every year at this time the church reads these familiar poems and songs and passages, and they remind us of God’s vision for the world and how Jesus was the answer. As for the rest of the year, after the carols have stopped and the decorations have been put away, the church works to keep the person of Jesus Christ in front of us. The church calls us throughout the year to see the barren and arid places in our lives and our city and our world where the work is not done and God’s vision is not fully realized. 

When we look upon the world today, sometimes it does cause a lump in the throat — maybe for the beauty of it all, or maybe for the potential it holds, or maybe for the places of deep need and injustice and heartache that surround us. As followers of Jesus, we are called to take those emotions and help them find a meaningful expression. Not all of us can write poetry or sing songs, but some of us can write policies or articles or lesson plans or thank-you notes or sympathy cards. Some of us can tend to the sick, cook for the hungry, care for the elderly, tutor the young, encourage the struggling. Some of us can use our time to bless others. Some of us can use our words to bless others. Some of us can use our money to bless others. All of us can find ways to express the joy and the hope and the love we have inside of us and turn those emotions into tangible expressions of our faith. 

Jesus was a tangible expression of God’s love for the world. And the life of Jesus was repeated acts that expressed love and mercy and compassion. Jesus taught us how to take a vision and do something about it. Jesus taught us that the work of the disciples was important. Jesus taught us that God was still at work in the world. 

In Advent, we hold fast to the vision of the poet, and we hold fast to the person of Jesus — and the two of those things together is just what we need to live out our lives of faith, with courage and compassion, one day at a time. 

Thanks be to God. 

Amen.

Sermon © Fourth Presbyterian Church