Sermon for Sunday, December 14, 2025

December 14, 2025

By Kristin Berkey-Abbott




Matthew 11:2-11



You may be wondering when we’re getting to the Advent readings you were expecting: where is the angel Gabriel? When does Mary go to see her cousin Elizabeth? Those stories are in the Gospel of Luke, which is not the Gospel that provides our lectionary readings this year. Welcome to Matthew. This year, we stay with John the Baptist for one more week, John the Baptist who provides an interesting twist to our themes of watching and waiting.


Those of you who were here last week may be wondering what has happened to John the Baptist. Last week we saw John the Baptist in full prophet mode, proclaiming that the Kingdom of God was near and issuing dire warnings about what would happen if the people didn’t repent. We see him make bold claims about the Messiah who is drawing near. In a few weeks, we’ll return to this story, when John baptizes Jesus, but not before saying, “You should be baptizing me.” In other words, John is one of the first to recognize the grown up Jesus as the Messiah.


This week, just 8 chapters later in the Gospel of Matthew, John the Baptist sends his disciples to Jesus to ask him if John’s confidence is warranted—is Jesus the Messiah? Or should they keep waiting? How can John the Baptist be unsure? What has happened since last week’s text? Some of you may be remembering John the Baptist as the cousin of Jesus and be wondering if there’s a larger family drama—but again, that’s the Gospel of Luke. In the Gospel of Matthew, there’s no family connection. But all of the Gospels include John the Baptist as one of the primary voices proclaiming that the Kingdom of God, in the person of Jesus, is here.


So today’s Gospel reading is disconcerting. What has happened to John the Baptist since we first saw him in Matthew 3? Has Jesus disappointed him? Is Jesus not the Messiah that John expected? Not fierce enough or warrior enough for John the Baptist?


Well, we know that one thing has changed--John the Baptist is in prison, put there by Herod. Was John the Baptist expecting the Messiah to overthrow the empire? Is he wondering why Jesus as Messiah isn’t doing more to free him? Is John the Baptist surprised to find himself a casualty of this fight?


Today’s Gospel continues the theme of last week’s Gospel, and it offers us a chance to continue thinking about expectations: John the Baptist’s expectations, those of the people who waited through the centuries for God to fulfill the ancient covenant with a Messiah, and our own expectations. What do we think a Messiah will do?


Jesus answers this question by pointing to what he has done. As John may be becoming less certain that Jesus is the Messiah, Jesus looks at what he has accomplished and is becoming more clear about his mission and his ministry.


In the Gospel of Matthew, the arrival of the Messiah is seen as the fulfillment of the covenant that God made with Abraham, way back in Genesis. Jesus uses actions that first century listeners would understand as a fulfillment of the promises of God: “the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, those with a skin disease are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.”


For 21st century listeners with access to good medical care, we may not realize how miraculous these deeds would be to ancient people. Perhaps even as 21st century listeners, we may not always appreciate how miraculous these deeds still are. For people versed in the language of the prophets of old, like Isaiah in our first reading or the Psalmist who wrote what we read today, these deeds of Jesus reveal God’s presence.


Jesus goes on to ask the people what they want from John, this wilderness prophet of their own time. Why did they go to the desert to hear what John the Baptist proclaimed? What did they expect to find? You don’t go to the wilderness to see someone whose belief is as slender and shakable as a reed. You don’t expect to find the ruling class denying themselves out there in the desert. No, you go to the wilderness to find the truth. Jesus asks the people why they are doubting John the Baptist—and by extension, Jesus.


Here and throughout his ministry, Jesus tells us that God reaches out to humanity in ways that we don’t always recognize. Even if we have alternative explanations, they may cloud our understanding of what we see. God appears in places where we wouldn't expect to find the Divine. Jesus reminds the people that there's always hope in a broken world. God might perform the kind of miracles that don't interest us at first. The Palestinian Jews wanted a warrior Messiah to liberate them from Rome. Instead they got someone who healed the sick and told them to be mindful of their spiritual lives so that they didn't lose their souls. Jesus showed the people of the first century how to resist the oppression of Rome-- not by outright rebellion but by creating community that couldn’t be broken by empire and by bringing shame to Roman rulers and Jewish leaders and all the others collaborating with all the forces that oppress.


John the Baptist and Jesus ask similar questions that are still relevant for us: what are we looking for? Why is it so hard to believe that we’ve found it? Believing is hard because the world is still so hard. Because we still suffer. Because there are still false imprisonments. Because there are still casualties to those professing Jesus as Messiah. Because love is still countercultural, even during the holidays.


Many of us experience something similar to the crisis of faith that John the Baptist might seem to be having. We want something different than what God offers. We ask for signs and miracles, and when we get them, we sigh and say, "That's not what I meant. I wanted them in a different form." We might say of our miracles, “Well that’s just medicine.” Or science. We discount . . . We turn away. We find ourselves in prisons perhaps of our own making. If we’re lucky, though, we realize that God has such a vaster vision of what our lives could be, and if we’re really fortunate, we have this revelation in time to reach out to God for help and guidance.


Advent is a time of watching and waiting for a savior, and we often forget how much of that time has been spent watching and waiting in wilderness conditions: in times of crisis, in prisons, in times of societal chaos, in hospitals and specialist’s offices, in times of extreme doubt. If John the Baptist, who seems so very sure of himself before Herod imprisons him, if John the Baptist can have doubt and not be cast away, then let us take some comfort from that. We too can ask for reassurance, can ask questions of our Messiah, We can have a strength of faith that ebbs and flows. But we can still wait and watch for God in our lives. We can wait and watch for opportunities to repent, as John calls us to do. And we can rest assured that help is on the way, and we will find our opportunity to be redeemed wherever we encounter the Messiah.