December 7, 2025 – The Second Sunday of Advent

During this time of Advent, this season of waiting for the one who was and is and is to come, we often think of the four themes that being Hope, Peace, Joy and Love, and those are great! They’re warm and welcoming! Everyone enjoys Hope, Peace, Joy and Love, but traditionally, Advent was about the Last Things; Death, Judgement, Heaven and Hell, in preparation or expectation of His coming, “the one who shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots” (Isa. 11:1). Advent echoes Lent, but instead of penitence, we sit in expectation. This week as we look at Peace, we also look at Judgement, because there is no peace without judgement. Judgement comes swiftly from a just and merciful God and justice is served and delivered to those who seek it. That is the peace in the prophet Isaiah, “He shall not judge by what his eyes see or decide by what his ears hear, but with righteousness he shall judge for the poor and decide with equity for the oppressed of the earth” (Isa. 11:3b-4). Judgement has come, and is here, and is on its way. The judgement for the Sin of the first Adam is the punishment of Sin, that being Death and they were cast out of the Garden and Sin and Death has become like a parasite, invading in God’s creation. But the Second Adam came and took the Sin of the world on His shoulders and bore the pain and suffering and bore Death, our death, upon the cross. He cried, “my God my God, why have you forsaken me.” As He dies, this Slaughtered Lamb descends to the dead, but on that faithful third day, the Spirit raises the Son from the dead, reconciling all things to Father. Forty days later, He ascends into Heaven and sits on the right hand of the Father, to judge the living and the dead. Judgement has come, Judgement is here, Judgement is on its way.

If Isaiah gives us the promise of Peace, where “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.” (Isa. 11:6), then what is our posture, what must we do in order to see this beautifully peaceful Kingdom of God? Well, the voice in the wilderness is calling for our posture, Repentance. Our Gospel this morning says, “In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near” (Matt. 3:1-2). Repentance is radical! It’s slow moving, an everyday thing, not a one time ordeal. “Remember your baptismal covenant”, our former Bishop might say, it causes us to turn and look backward. The Spirit, who is ever working in our repentance, churns our hearts and makes us see the Cross, where we might say, “my God my God…why have I forsaken you.” “See the Kingdom of God, it is here now” we hear the Spirit whisper in our tender hearts. Here, we open ourselves to the expectation of the one who comes, as John says, “I baptize you with water for repentance, but the one who is coming after me is more powerful than I, and I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire” (Matt. 3:11).

Repentance causes us to lament and pray, not because of guilt or shame, but because we are creatures seeking our creator. In our turning toward the cross, we hear the words of Athanasius, a 4th century Church Father, “Even on the cross, he did not hide himself from sight; rather He made all creation witness to the presence of its maker.” We lament for the suffering of the world because we have seen the beauty of God’s face on the cross and we seek for that Kingdom of Peace. We pray, because prayer lifts us toward God and we cry for justice and God responds, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering” (Exod. 3:7) In our lament, we become the psalmist singing to God, “May he defend the afflicted among the people and save the children of the needy; may he crush the oppressor” (Psa. 72:4). We lament because God laments, God looks at His creation and sees the bickering, the fighting, the mistreatment, the violence, the genocide and weeps for us. He hears our cries and is moved by our suffering. We hear the cries and are concerned for our suffering, but God has responded, which is his merciful actions on the Cross and being in the tabernacle with the ancient Israelites. God is responding, the Spirit coming down and dwelling and leading the Church. God will respond, this is the response that we are anticipating.

This anticipation is our death and resurrection because of Christ’s death and resurrection. To repent is to, as John Donne says, “this exitus a morte, is but introitus in mortem” or an exit from death to an entrance into death.

To leave death is a resurrection and to repent is to be born again, or resurrected into new life. Donne continues with,

“wee have a winding sheets in our Mothers wombe, which growes us from our conception, and wee come into the world, wound up in that winding sheet, for wee come to seek a grave…so when the wombe hath discharg’d us, yet we are bound to it by cordes of flesh, by such a string, as that wee cannot goe thence, nor stay there. We celebrate our owne funerals with cryes, even at our birth… We begge one Baptism with another, a sacrament of tears; And we come into a world that lasts many ages, but wee last not.”

To be a follower of Christ is to be one that knows death comes for us all but resurrection comes next. That is what we are anticipating, the resurrection of our bodies, for as we say it in the creeds, “We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.” There is no resurrection without death as there is no peace without judgement. Just as Christ says to Nicodemus, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again” (Jn. 3:3). Our repentance leads us to our new birth, that being of water and Spirit (Jn. 3:5).

To look toward peace is to hear judgement and turn our eyes upon our God and seek repentance and join Christ in death and resurrection, for Christ has already paved the way. As we close, let us be comforted by John Donne’s words, “there wee leave you in that blessed dependency, to hang upon him that hangs upon the crosse, there bath in his tears, there suck at his woundes, and lye downe in peace in his grave, till he vouchsafe you a resurrection, and an ascension into that Kingdome, which hee hath purchas’d for you, with the inestimable price of his incorruptible blood. Amen.”