Sermon: Second Sunday of Advent, Matthew 3:1-12

December 7, 2025 
Faith-La Fe Lutheran Church
Pastor Jonathan Linman

In today’s first reading, the prophet Isaiah addresses God’s people who had been exiled in Babylon. God’s chosen ones had lost everything. They lost their temple and their holy city of Jerusalem. They lost their vineyards, livestock, and other means of making a living. They lost their homes. In short, they were forcibly deported from their ancestral homeland. Everything for them was destruction and devastation. 

For most of us, our circumstances are not so desperate. But many do have a sense of feeling exiled these days. People on the left of the political spectrum look around them and they see the threat of devastation, a nation in the process of being ruined. People on the right look around them and they see the threat of devastation and ruin as well. The irony is that one thing people on both extremes of the spectrum agree on is that our nation seems to be going to hell in a handbasket. And there are in fact some people who want to tear it all down in revolutionary ways to remake the world as we have known it in their own power-hungry and greedy images. 

In ancient Israel, God’s people were indeed devasted by the greed and power of other nations. In their exile they saw that only the stump remained of what had been the grand tree of a nation ruled by kings in the line of David. This was the stump of Jesse (who was David’s father) that Isaiah refers to in today’s first reading. 

And many today fear that all we’ll end up with is the stump of what had been the tree of a once flourishing nation. Again, many feel exiled. And for too many of the most vulnerable among us, there really is destruction, ruin and exile. People whose jobs are taken by automation. People denied healthcare and food assistance. Small towns in the heartland that once thrived with agricultural and other industries have seen their prosperity dry up. Some of those communities are now like ghost towns. And for those being deported, their families torn apart, they literally are exiled. 

Amidst such realities of devastation, we hear words of promise and hope in today’s readings, words which echo in our ears over the distance of the centuries. 

Comforting the exiles, Isaiah prophesies the coming of a future leader for God’s people who will bring a tomorrow of grace-filled promise: “A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots,” Isaiah declares and continues: “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.” And “with righteousness he shall judge for the poor and decide with equity for the oppressed of the earth.” (Isaiah 11:1-2; 4)

Then Isaiah offers the wonderful vision of predators and prey living together in peace: the wolf living with the lamb, the leopard napping with the kid, calf and lion feeding together… How beautiful. We, too, long for fulfillment of such peaceable visions. 

We, of course, confess that Jesus Christ of the lineage of king David is in fact the shoot that emerges from the stump of Jesse, the branch that grows from those ancient roots. “And a little child shall lead them,” Isaiah proclaims – the little child as the baby Jesus; the little child as the young boy Jesus teaching the elders in the temple at age 12; and the young man, Jesus, who ministered for three years, feeding people, healing them, exorcising their demons; and ultimately the young man who at age 33 went to the cross on our behalf extending his embrace to all peoples: “On that day the root of Jesse shall stand as a signal to the peoples; the nations shall inquire of him….” 

It was about the promise of a coming leader in the line of David that John the Baptist’s ministry was all about. In his work, John offered a baptism for repentance, judging those who needed to be judged, comforting those who needed comfort. John was the fulfillment of another prophesy of Isaiah: “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight.’”

“I baptize you with water for repentance,” John said, “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.” Then John offers these foreboding prophetic words: “Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees…” 

Think about it. Reflect with me for a moment. It took an ax to cut down the tree that became the cross of Christ. In the devastation of that chopped down tree hung the weight of the world’s sin carried on the shoulders of Jesus with his arms outstretched on that cross. All the horrific human history of exile, of death and destruction, was shouldered by Jesus on that cross-shaped tree. 

And yet from the stump which was the tree of the cross sprang up a shoot, a new, living branch emerging from its roots. This new shoot, this new branch, of course, is the resurrected Christ. And in this new life, the stump of destruction becomes the source of the tree of life with healing in its leaves for the well-being and salvation and homecoming from exile of all peoples and nations. Indeed, from this tree of life, God raises up new children to Abraham among the scattered stones of people and cultures lying strewn about our desert wildernesses of exile. 

The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ ushered in the baptism of the Holy Spirit and fire about which John prophesied. When we are baptized into Christ’s death and resurrection, we are purged of our old sinful ways that lead to exile, ruin, and destruction. When we are baptized into Christ’s death and resurrection, we feel the winnowing fork of Christ, separating and burning away the chaff from our wheat for our salvation, our return home from exile to welcoming embrace of the kingdom of Christ.

In Christ, therefore, we, too, become new shoots from the stump of the old, sinful Adam. We, too, become new branches emerging from the roots of our having been created in the very image of God, that divine image restored by Christ. We emerge from the stump of our sinful ways a new people of a living faith. 

And as branches connected to the vine who is Christ, we now become capable of bearing good fruit. At our best, we bear the good fruit of “living in harmony with one another, in accordance with Christ Jesus,” as Paul instructs. In fits and starts, we bear the good fruit of “welcoming one another… just as Christ has welcomed us.” And we offer this good fruit to all people, all the nations. (cf. Romans 15:5-12)

And when we bear such good fruit, we begin to see evidence of the fulfillment of Isaiah’s vision. We catch glimpses of cows and bears, predators and prey, grazing together, their young lying down together, the lion eating straw like the ox. When we bear good fruit of God’s reconciling love in Christ, we catch the sight of the nursing child freely playing over the hole of the poisonous snakes. 

And ultimately, we catch a vision of the kingdom of Christ in the line of David, emerging from the stump of Jesse, where we “will not hurt or destroy on all God’s holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” 

May this vision which encouraged God’s ancient people in exile encourage you also in our time of our own versions of exile, that we may persevere in the power of the Spirit to continue to work for Christ’s reign of peace, of life, of thriving for all people, doing justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly with our God. 

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus. Bring us to your peaceable kingdom. Come, Lord Jesus, come. Amen.