Sermon for Advent II, Year A
This past summer, we grew a garden. Having grown up in the city, gardening never came naturally to me. It always seemed like something other people did—people with spacious backyards somewhere out in the country. Still, we wanted our children to experience it: to feel the dirt between their fingers, to watch the slow magic of plants sprouting, flowering, and finally bearing fruit. There is something miraculous about it all. To eat food grown with one’s own hands is one of the most deeply satisfying things in the world.
So we carved out a small garden bed, filled it with good soil, and planted our crops. Slowly but surely the plants began to grow. Tomatoes by the dozen and zucchini the size of baseball bats emerged from our tiny plot, filling our kitchen and, ultimately, our dinner plates. The cucumbers, however, did not fare so well. They grew for a time, then quickly withered. Because we had left them sprawling on the ground, rot set in. Presumably, we had killed the cucumbers. The kids—devoted cucumber fans—were crushed, and I was ready to pull the whole plant. You win some, you lose some.
But Lorrin, who grew up with a large garden in rural Ohio, knew better. She ordered a lattice. We gently lifted the plant onto it and fastened the vine with little plastic clips. And slowly, over the next few weeks, the seemingly dead plant revived. New blossoms appeared, and soon it was producing gorgeous cucumbers. Out of death came life.
“A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse,
and a branch shall grow out of his roots.
The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him:
the spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the spirit of counsel and might,
the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.”
These words from Isaiah greet us today. In their original context, the prophet is speaking to the people of Judah as they face almost certain defeat by the menacing armies of Assyria. Within a few years Jerusalem and her temple will lie in ruins, and the people will be carried into exile. Isaiah is speaking to a people on the brink of despair. The golden years of King David—the son of Jesse—were long gone. That world of hope, expectation, and national destiny must have seemed dead, like an old stump or, to borrow from our rectory garden, a withered cucumber vine—hopeless and ready to be abandoned. But God had something else in mind.
Out of the stump of Jesse, out of the darkness of despair, God promised that new life would come. Against all reason, God vowed to raise up a new king, descended from Jesse and his son David, and to usher in a new age. That age would be marked by wisdom, justice, and hope. “The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid,” Isaiah says. In other words, peace will reign where violence and discord now prevail. Out of despair comes hope. Out of darkness comes light. Out of death comes life. A Messiah—an anointed king and deliverer—will set the world right. This was the hope of the prophets, and for us, the hope fulfilled in Jesus Christ.
In this morning’s Gospel, John the Baptist speaks:
“The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight.’”
John stands in the same great prophetic line as Isaiah. His task, too, is to speak hope into hopelessness and prepare the way for the coming Messiah. In Advent, we remember those long centuries of waiting—and we also remember that what was longed for has already come. The shoot has already sprung from the stump. The old world has already begun to be remade, if only we have eyes to see it.
Jesus Christ, born in Bethlehem, is that shoot—God’s promised king, whose kingdom, rooted in the self-giving love of God, will endure forever. In him is peace; in him is rest. His promise challenges the way the world is, and while many other kings will try to lay claim to us, his kingdom is the only one that ultimately matters.
Today we inhabit a world torn by strife. To borrow from Yeats, things have “fallen apart,” and the “center cannot hold.” I, for one, feel weary. I no longer know how to respond to the constant crises of life in 2025. And I imagine most of you feel the same. As a society, we seem to have lost our direction. We are wandering, and grievously so.
But Christ is Lord, and his promised kingdom has arrived. If we welcome that kingdom into our hearts—as we symbolically do in Advent and at Christmas—the world can indeed change. In the darkness of this age, there is light. That was, of course, the point of my children’s message last week, despite the technical difficulties with my prop. Our lives can be transformed by faith if we allow it. In us, the light of Christ’s kingdom shines against the darkness of lesser kingdoms. So let us turn our hearts to the hope fulfilled in Jesus Christ.
I close with the words of W. H. Auden’s For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio. He wrote—and prayed:
He is the Way.
Follow Him through the Land of Unlikeness;
You will see rare beasts, and have unique adventures.
He is the Truth.
Seek Him in the Kingdom of Anxiety;
You will come to a great city that has expected your return for years.
He is the Life.
Love Him in the World of the Flesh;
And at your marriage all its occasions shall dance for joy.
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