Sermon for December 14, 2025
Advent 3 A
Matthew 11:2-11; Psalm 146:5-10
Rev. Karl-John N. Stone
Sometimes we find big gaps between expectations and reality. When my son Liam was 13 I took him on his first big backpacking trip, where we drove up to Porcupine Mountains State Park in upper Michigan. It was a sunny summer’s day. We hiked along the top of a long, open ridge, seeing the mountains stretch out before us, watching the hawks glide on the thermal air currents almost at eye level. Then we hiked down into the valley, surrounded by tall trees as we walked on pine needles, until we reached a creek that flowed all the way to the Lake Superior shoreline, where we camped for the night. So far so good. The next day we looked at the map to see where our next campsite was reserved and had two choices: follow the winding creek back inland for a total of 9 miles – or, hike through a wooded area on a much more direct 5-mile route. Seems like a no-brainer, right? Let’s take the shortcut!
What we saved in miles, however, we made up for in misery. It was 5 miles of swamp, which meant there was no cruising along the trail while relaxing to admire the wilderness around us. Instead, every single step had to be planned strategically in advance because there was no dry ground. Step on this log, to that rock, onto this branch, and go around that puddle—for 5 miles. One wrong move and you’d be up to your ankles in mud, which made for one of the longest, most difficult days of hiking I’ve ever endured. Thankfully we actually made it to the other side with our ankles mud-free, which was a minor miracle in itself, but the hike we expected to have was a long way from the reality we experienced.
John the Baptist felt an even bigger gap between his own expectations and the reality he came to experience. If you remember last Sunday, we heard about the beginning of John’s ministry, as he was “preparing the way” for the Messiah, and sharing a message that the best way to get ready was to “repent”. People from the towns and countryside started streaming out to find him in the desert, where he would baptize them in the Jordan River. They were excited because John’s ministry represented the hopes and dreams foretold by the prophets of old: the new age that God had promised was about to begin! It must have been a rush for John, to feel the energy from the crowds and the satisfaction of doing an important job on God’s behalf. In today’s gospel, we skip ahead eight chapters to learn that the great John the Baptist ended up in prison. He suffered the fate of many prophets: when an important message (no matter how true or how urgent) conflicts with powerful people, it is the prophet who usually pays the price—and John had been telling King Herod truths he didn’t want to hear. Off to prison!
From John’s perspective, this is not how things were supposed to turn out. Jesus was his cousin, even! Shouldn’t he get some benefit from that? Shouldn’t Jesus wave his hand, and make everything better? And if Jesus couldn’t do that…well, John had recruited his own set of disciples by this point, and they had their own expectations for what God’s Messiah should be like. It was enough to make John express his doubts about Jesus: “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” Are you the one? Because it sure doesn’t seem like it!
This is our question, too! Jesus, are you the one? Or should we be looking for something else? All of us have times in life when our expectations don’t fit with reality. And we wonder, like John, why won’t God fix this for me?
Our questions come when our world turns upside down and we can’t imagine how things will ever be made right. Maybe it’s a cancer diagnosis or a medical issue that you haven’t found a way to treat. Maybe it’s the death of a family member or close friend. Maybe you’ve felt betrayed or been treated unfairly. Maybe you’re having difficulty with an important relationship, or you’ve lost your job. Maybe you were in a car accident, or you’re struggling with financial burdens. Maybe you find yourself unable to enjoy the things you’ve always liked to do, or you feel distant from your faith and connection with God.
Whatever it may be, we all go through seasons like this in our life. Like the seasons, we don’t control these times—they happen whether we’re ready for them or not. Like the seasons, sometimes they stretch on unseasonably longer than you’d ever expect. Like John the Baptist during his season in prison, we can have times of doubt, disappointment, or disillusionment when we struggle to feel the presence of God, or to believe in the promises of God. Jesus, are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?
In the midst of John the Baptist’s doubts, Jesus is trying to lead him to the point where John can embrace a new attitude where he can say “the greatest thing I can do is not to fulfill all of my own expectations, but to live according to God’s plan for my life. God’s purpose for me may be different from what I had in mind—but knowing that Christ is with me every step of the way? That’s enough.” So, Jesus does answer John’s questions, but not with a simple yes or no. Instead, his answer is “hear and see”. What do you hear and what do you see, Jesus asks? And then he tells them what to listen and look for: “The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those with skin disease are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news brought to them.” Even when our expectations don’t fit with reality, Jesus is ministering to the needs of reality, making a divine alternative-way-of-life come into view. His reality is based on God’s priorities of mercy, grace, healing, and love.
Rather than a simple “yes or no”, Jesus answers our doubts, disillusionments, and disappointments with a simple invitation. Hear and see. Tune your heart and mind so that you start becoming aware of the little acts of mercy, grace, healing, and love that are taking place in the world around you, because that’s where Jesus is. That’s what his ministry as Messiah is about. He is fulfilling what the prophets of old spoke about; and when God’s mercy, grace, healing, and love come into view, they help us look forward in hope towards the new creation Christ has promised through his resurrection from the dead.
When you accept Christ’s invitation to hear and see his mercy, grace, healing, and love taking shape, it always means that you begin looking beyond yourself, beyond your present situation, beyond whatever swamp you’ve found yourself up to your ankles in. You start hearing and seeing how God’s presence in Christ is always hiding in plain sight. Psalm 146 summarizes it well: God is giving food to the hungry; freeing those held captive; healing the sick; encouraging people who feel down; speaking up for people being treated cruelly or unfairly, caring for people who find themselves far from home; being a companion for those who are lonely or without family.
All of this stuff is not fancy. It looks and sounds very humble. Humble like a Messiah who was born in a stable and slept in a manger, who dined with sinners and walked among the poor, who willingly gave himself to the cross for our salvation. And that’s how the gap between expectations and reality is bridged—when we hand over to God all of our efforts at trying to bend the world to our own will and expectations, and humbly embrace each moment (whether good or bad) as a new opportunity to listen with trust, to see with faith, that Christ has a plan and a purpose for each of us—and his presence along the way is more than enough. Amen.