12/14/2025
This is my sermon as promised for the 3rd Sunday of Advent based on the gospel reading Matthew 11: 2-11
I will miss seeing all of you.
Stay safe, stay warm, and be blessed!
Padre Greg
“Not what we were looking for.” Matthew 11: 2-11
Today is the Third Sunday of Advent, traditionally called Gaudete – or Rejoice – Sunday.
We lit the third candle, the rose color, which symbolizes joy.
A time to be joyful about the coming birth of Christ.
Guadete Sunday reminds me of Laetere Sunday in Lent.
Guadete Sunday we are busily preparing our hearts and minds for the coming of Christ.
Laetere Sunday we are repentant and preparing for the resurrection of Christ.
A second coming if you will. Both Sundays come during the seasons of the church when purple is the liturgical color but each season has a distinct feel to them. Its like these two Sundays are cousins but very different from each other.
Our gospel this morning is about two cousins. They knew about each other but didn't meet until they were adults. They first met in the wilderness at the river Jordan.
John appeared a little on the wild side both in appearance and boisterous preaching style.
And Jesus, who came and was baptized by John, preached quietly, quietly teaching and healing through out his life.
Fast forward a couple of years. Our friend John is in prison for political reasons and as far as personal situations go, it’s hard to get much worse than the situation of John. John’s got plenty of time to ponder his life both past, present, and future in the darkness of his prison cell. With all his pondering maybe John is wondering if all that baptizing, wearing odd clothing, eating weird food, and preaching in the wilderness meant anything at all. It certainly hasn’t made his own life any better off.
So what’s the point?
Has the whole direction of his adult life been for nothing?
Has his strong faith brought him nothing? Has his work for the kingdom of God, the boisterous preaching yielded nothing in the long run? Is his cousin Jesus the one, or is it someone else.
He sends some of his followers to Jesus to ask,
“Hey, Jesus, remember me?"
Maybe you don’t, but I’m your cousin who baptized you, and now I’m in prison. Maybe I thought you were somebody you’re not. If I ever get out of this cell, maybe I should see if there’s something or someone else out there who’ll bring God closer and make this a better world. Because so far, I’m not feeling it.”
I’d like to think Jesus speaks softly when he talks to John’s followers.
“Go back and tell my cousin that things are moving slowly, but there are signs of hope.
Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.
Tell him while he’s in prison, the effects of his labors continue. Even if he feels hopeless, there is hope among the people he touched.”
This gospel is rather appropriate for this time of year. There's a lot of doubt in us at this time of year.
Many people struggle this time of year because of circumstances, illnesses, personal loss, economic difficulty, or depression. Sometimes its a sense of failure or an inability to live up to the expectations of others or their own expectations of themselves. Seems to get worse this time of year. Maybe its just me but the commercials we are hammered with this time of year are responsible. They constantly bombard us, showing us what successful people look like.
Have you noticed the people, how their dressed, the houses they live in. All the troubles they have to go to of trying to figure out how to gift wrap that new car?
Don t get me started on the cologne and perfume commercials!
Sometimes when we aren’t seeing the results we’d hoped for, sometimes when our lives aren’t the way we want them to be we put ourselves in our own self imposed prisons. Now is when we need to listen closely to what Jesus told his cousin John. We need to look a little differently for the kingdom signs because they are all around us.
In Advent John prepares the way, putting our lives into a new perspective. A perspective that we may have lost sight of throughout the year. A perspective that our lives can one that is God-driven, if we just stop and listen.
This is a necessary first step. But it is only a first step.
Next comes the long slog. Living the kingdom-of-heaven lives, where “the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them” is the real important thing.The work we each are called into, to bring the kingdom of God near, is not usually very splashy or even noteworthy. It is easily overlooked and under valued, even by us. So we fed a few hungry people, visited a few people who are isolated from others,
or sat with somebody who was sick. Gave a smile, gave a hug, held and squeezed a hand.
So what?
But this is the important stuff, this everyday stuff.
This is where real change happens. This is where the signs of the kingdom are. The signs are in the joy of a hug, the squeeze of a hand, a smile, laughter. The signs of the kingdom are in those who we touch and give hope to whether we know it or not.
Can we hear the joy and hope in Christ answer now?
“the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them”
Jesus is the one who has come, and is coming, and will never stop coming.
We have not hoped in vain.
Christ will forever turn our despair into joy.
"Are you the one who is coming?" John asks on our behalf.
Jesus answers in love, “You decide.”
Amen
