Sermon for Third Sunday of Advent (Yr 3)

Year A | Advent 3

December 14, 2025

Isaiah 35:1-10 | Psalm 146:4-9 | James 5:7-10 | Matthew 11:2-11

Deacon Rebekah Hays Estera

Advent is a time of preparation, waiting and anticipation. It is technically a penitential

season. It's connected to Lent by the liturgical purple. Advent is a time to prepare our

hearts for the coming of the Messiah, who has come and will come again. That is

interrupted this week by Rose, because, even as we wait and we ponder and we repent

and we prepare the way of the Lord, all of that cannot diminish our joy in the Lord, or

maybe even the Lord’s Joy in us. So we pause this week for joy.

Mary knew this something about joy. Mary could not contain her Joy: my heart

magnifies the Lord. And John leaped in Elizabeth’s womb.

In my sacred imagination, John grew up hearing that story.

Then we have the story this week of John the Baptist in prison. Perhaps he is preparing

not for the coming of the Lord, but for his own death. And in here, we are supposed to

reflect on joy?!

John’s joy seems to be replaced by doubt. He has sent his disciples to Jesus and he's

wondering.

He's saying, “Cousin, do you remember that joy?”

“Do you remember when we first met in utero and I leaped for joy?”

“Do you remember, cousin, when you sought me out in the desert and you asked me to

baptize you?”

“Do you remember that moment of joy when the Holy Spirit descended upon you?”

“And now I am in prison and I am struggling to remember that joy. Remind me, reassure

me that that joy that I once knew is true.”

Elsewhere in the Gospels, we see that Jesus has little time for trick questions and

legalities. However, when someone approaches him with true longing to better

understand, Jesus does not reproach that doubt. I often think of this story as a bit of a

parallel to Thomas. Jesus does not condemn them, but meets them where they are at. I

think there is a bit of relief, and dare I even say joy, in knowing that God doesn’t expect

us to have it all figured out all the time.

Jesus reminds John “the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are

cleansed, the deaf hear.”

Can you imagine the joy of any one of these things? All of these would have not only

been a physical disability making life that much more difficult to navigate. They would

have also been a social stigmatization, perhaps making life in community impossible.

What a joy to be returned to wellness and to community.

And it is the least of these, the marginalized, the oppressed, the pushed aside, and

forgotten, which experience this joy.

It is these people who dare to seek out joy.

In 2020, I longed for Advent, for when the aggressive green and the church bulletin

would stop insisting it is Ordinary Time when it was anything but ordinary. When the

anticipation of my heart would finally align with the liturgical season.

That year, I created a small Advent series asking how we might engage with the words

we focus on each week?

• For what are you hopeful?

• How are you being a peacemaker?

• What brings you joy this season?

• How do you show love?

I found that people could easily answer. Maybe it was the isolation and this series was a

chance to engage. Maybe it was because we had more space for the small details of

our lives. Maybe it was the realization of what mattered in its absence.

This year, I’ve shared this series again and I have found people, myself among them,

don’t know how to answer amidst all that is happening in the world.

How do you find hope, peace, joy, and love when the news cycle is filled with despair,

war, sorrow, and hatred? And still, God is with us.

Maybe my heart still yearns for Advent because the world is so messy. Maybe, we need

to engage these words now especially because the world is so scary for so many. And

still, God is with us.

Celtic Spirituality author John Philip Newell says that God is preparing us for a great

stretching. Advent is a season of preparation. In this season we can learn to make

space for joy alongside all the other emotions.

In the face of oppression, joy is holy. Joy in the face of oppression is holy rebellion.

When our queer and trans, BIPOC and immigrant siblings are joyful, even as their rights

are being rolled back, it is a holy thing. It is saying that I am the image of God and you

cannot take that away from me. Mary, a marginalized woman in empire, a Nazarene

and a Jew being forced from her home to Bethlehem because during the great Pax

Romana, the government decided it had nothing better to do than count people, knew

this about joy. Mary an unmarried and pregnant woman, and perhaps hiding away at

her cousin's home, knew this about joy. Mary could not contain her Joy: my heart

magnifies the Lord. And John leaped in Elizabeth’s womb.

Rest today in the rose. And remember as you go out into the world this week that joy

can be a part of the complicated matrix because God is with us.

Amen.