Sunday, December 7, 2025, Second Sunday in Advent
“The Loving Truth”
Scripture Readings: Psalm 72:1-7; Isaiah 11:1-10; Romans 15:4-13; Matthew 3:1-12
Service Order: Divine Service III with Holy Communion, p. 184
Hymns: “On Jordan’s Bank” #344; “Savior of the Nations, Come” #332; “The People That in Darkness Sat” #412
Dear Friends in Christ,
Grace, mercy, and peace to you, from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
What picture do people have in their heads about John the Baptist? He has a reputation for being full of “fire and brimstone,” and for being harsh and judgmental in his preaching. “The ax is at the foot of the trees” and “You will be baptized with fire” and “Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?” But it just isn’t true that John was harsh or judgmental or unloving. What John was, was honest. Honest to a fault, in fact, so honest that his honesty got him killed. John told the honest truth, and the reason he did so, was because he genuinely loved the people who came out to hear him, and he wanted them to be saved. He told the loving truth, even if the truth made people mad. And aren’t we Christians today called to gather our courage and do the same?
Our Gospel begins, “In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the Desert of Judea.” In those days - in the days when God had sent His Son into the world, and Jesus had grown into a man, and was about to begin His ministry and His walk to the cross, as He’d been sent here to do - in those days, John the Baptist began to preach out in the wilderness. To preach what? Not to preach hate, judgment, or condemn-nation; that just couldn’t be, because John was sent to preach by a loving God. He was raised up by God, and sent by God, and filled with God’s Holy Spirit, even from birth. He was a good man, a holy man, one of God’s holy prophets, a preacher of love and truth. There was no hatefulness in him.
And what was his message? “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.” What does it mean to repent? Is calling people to repent harsh, judgmental, or unkind? No, it isn’t. The word “repent” in Hebrew is “teshuva,” a word that means “to return” or specifically, “to return to God.” And “repent” in the Greek is “metanoia”, which means, “to turn around.” That’s not unkind; it’s only pointing out the loving truth. If you love someone, calling them to repent is only trying to get them to see their sin, and that they’re going the wrong way. Because if they don’t turn back to God while they still have time, we know the result is going to be disaster – death and then hell. No one wants someone they love to go to hell; so the call to repent is a call of love and a call of mercy.
“This is He who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah,” our Gospel says: ‘A voice of one calling in the desert, 'Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for Him.'" The prophet Isaiah wrote that the forerunner of the Messiah, the “second Elijah” (which is who John the Baptist was) would be sent to call out from the wilderness- to call out into this sinful wilderness of a world - that the Christ at last had come, “not to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.” John’s loving message was, “Prepare your heart to meet Him.” Confess your sins, turn around, come home, and make room in your heart for Him.
God made His servant John the Baptist to resemble prophet Elijah; the rough clothes, the leather belt, the simple diet of locusts and honey - so the people would remember Isaiah’s prophecy, and get the obvious connection, and understand who John was. All so they’d know that their Savior was near, and that they’d know Him when He came to them.
And the people came out to the desert from everywhere to hear John preach. Why do you think that was? They’d heard enough about God’s Law from their scribes and teachers and religious leaders. They’d been hearing all their lives about rules they had to keep and sacrifices they had to make, and everything they had to do to try to please God - that never seemed to satisfy Him or give their souls any peace. John offered them a new way, a different way; he offered them hope, and he offered them grace, in the person of the Lamb of God, who’d come to take away their sin. This was new, and it was different, and it was wonderful to hear. Good News for a change!
John called the people to confess their sins, which is the first and necessary step in finally being rid of them. Again, it’s not judgmental or cruel to call people to confess their sin; it’s an act of love to lead them to the place where the sin and the guilt that goes along with it can be forgiven and washed away and be forever gone.
And they were baptized by him, there in the waters of the Jordan River. John’s baptism wasn’t the same as the Holy Baptism Jesus would later give. (More on that at the end of this passage.) John’s baptism was an outward symbol of an inner change, a sign of repentance. It wasn’t receiving Christ, but a preparation to receive Him. John freely admitted as much, when he pointed the people to Jesus as “the One coming after me, who was before me.” John didn’t have the power to convert anyone, only the mission and calling to put the Good News in people’s ears and point them in the right direction. The same is true of me or any other Christian preacher on earth, or of any Christian who has Good News to tell.
Ah, but here’s the rub: Not everyone is going to be thrilled about being called to admit that they’re sinners who need to confess and come home to God. Some are always going to see the call to repentance as judgmental, harsh, or unloving. People don’t always appreciate being told that they need to change, even if all we’re doing is trying to save them.
In our Gospel, the Pharisees and Sadducees came out to where John was baptizing, to see what the fuss was all about. Truthfully, they were jealous that John was attracting a crowd. So they listened to him preach, and they heard his call to come and be baptized - but they wouldn’t get in the water. They wouldn’t acknowledge, confess, or admit to any sins of their own. They considered themselves righteous just as they were. “There ain’t no flies on us.” We don’t need what you’re offering, John; we have nothing to be forgiven for. What do you do with people like that? We could curse them or ignore them or write them off and leave them to the punishment their sins deserve. But what if it’s someone you love? How can you just let them go?
I’ve been reading a book called “Mission at Nuremberg,” about a Missouri Synod pastor named Henry Gerecke. Pastor Gerecke served as a US Army Chaplain during World War Two. And after the war, because he was a Lutheran, and spoke German, and had done prison ministry in the past, he was asked to be the spiritual counselor to the worst of the Nazi war criminals in the dock at Nuremberg, Germany, on trial for their lives for crimes against humanity. In his little flock, among others, were Herman Goering, Wilhelm Keitel, Rudolf Hess, Albert Speer, Karl Donitz, and Joachim von Ribbentrop - men responsible for the murder of millions and millions of people.
Pastor Gerecke decided the only way to approach them was as a friend, out of concern for their souls, with the hope of bringing them all back to Christ and to the Church before they had to pay for what they’d done. With time, patience, and grace, he was able to hear the good confessions of most of those men, and to give them Holy Communion and restore them to the church. You and I will share heaven with those men, if their confessions were sincere (and that only God really knows). Herman Goering, and a few others in the end, said no to Christ and still denied Him; but you can’t say Pastor didn’t try.
John didn’t ignore the Pharisees and Sadducees, as they stood there at the edge of the crowd and grumbled. He didn’t pretend they weren’t there or ask them to leave. He had some hard words for them - hard words because they were true - but they were words spoken in love, nevertheless. Like any good preacher sent from God, John loved the sinners, too, even the worst of them – just like Jesus did.
“Produce fruit worthy of repentance,” John told them. In other words, repentance needs to be more than just words. It is a turning, a returning, a change in the heart, yes, and first of all; but that change on the inside also means a change on the outside has to follow. “Go and sin no more,” Jesus said. What you believe in your heart is known in what you confess with your mouth, and then shown in what you do with your hands and your feet. It’s not just a change of mind and heart that’s called for, but a change in how you live.
Those Pharisees and Sadducees were proud of saying, “We have Abraham as our father.” In other words, “We’re know we’re good with God because of who we are.”
We’re God’s chosen ones, they said; we’re Abraham’s special children. We’re the keepers of the Law and the Commandments and the temple worship. We have no need to humble ourselves, and we have no need of grace; and we sure don’t need to be washed in the water by a raggedy prophet in a camel’s hair coat.
What do you do with people like that? John loved them; and he knew that as long as they felt the way they did, and as long as they turned away from the God who loved them – a God who only wanted to bless them with forgiveness and grace - there would be no hope for them, and they’d be lost. What John says to them isn’t condemnation or judgment; it’s a desperate plea from a broken heart.
“The ax is already at the root of the trees,” John tells them, “and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire” – so please don’t let that happen to you! The good fruit is repentance, and receiving the gift of forgiveness and mercy, and then living a life of forgiveness and mercy and love toward the people around you. And “the ax is at the root of the trees” means that time is short, and a day is surely coming when it will be too late.
And here we came again to the difference between John’s Baptism and the Baptism of Jesus. “I baptize you with water for repentance,” says John. “But after me will come One who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not fit to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.” John’s baptism was an outer symbol of an inner change, a sign of repentance; not receiving Christ, but a preparation to receive Him. John’s baptism was a sign of humility, a way of saying, “God , be merciful to me, a sinner; I’m not worthy to carry my Savior’s sandals or untie His shoes.”
But in Jesus’ Baptism there is real and genuine mercy for sinners like us. In Holy Baptism, there comes the gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit. In Jesus’ Baptism, there is genuine forgiveness and life and salvation - into the water to die to your sins, and up from the water to live a new life in Christ. John’s baptism served only to put sinners down on their knees; Jesus’ Baptism lifts us up and gives us back our lives. And once we’ve been Baptized into Christ, then we’re blessed with the power to walk through the fire with Jesus. And make no mistake, a “walk through the fire” is what life in this world is. I don’t know how people make it through life in this world and what it does to us without Jesus; I wouldn’t want to try. And my heart truly does break for anyone who doesn’t know Him yet.
“His winnowing fork is in His hand,” says John, “and He will clear his threshing floor, gathering His wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire."
The winnowing fork is an instrument used to separate the good, nutritious, bread-making grain, from the useless leavings and husks and chaff that the wind blows away. The Gospel truth – the loving and sobering truth – is that there is a separation coming, when Jesus comes to us again: Those who have repented of their sins and turned back to God on one side, and those who’ve refused God’s love all their lives on the other; one to be welcomed into heaven’s joyful granary, the other into that too-awful-to-think-about fire.
Church, we need to speak the truth in love like John the Baptist did. We have Good News and the blessed Sacrament to offer to those who’ve come to Christ, to keep us all encouraged and faithful and strong; welcome to the Lord’s Table! And we also have loving truth to tell to those who are in trouble and need to come home.
“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”
Prayer: Father in Heaven, help us to overflow! We receive Your gifts of grace and forgiveness with joy on this day. Your loving truth has reached us and changed us. We humbly bow before Your throne, and we come now in faith to receive the Body and Blood of Your Son. We ask You, O Lord, to open our eyes and open our hearts to the hurting people in the world around us, and to open our lips to declare Your praise and pour out Your love to them all. May the loving truth we have to tell reach the ears and touch the hearts of everyone we love, until everyone we love has come home to You. We pray in Jesus’ name; Amen.
Rev. Larry Sheppard, M.Div.
Trinity Lutheran Church, Packwaukee, WI
St. John’s Lutheran Church, Oxford, WI
pastorshepp@gmail.com