The Second Sunday in Advent – December 7, 2025
Isaiah’s radical “peaceable kingdom” that we proclaim today has been so romanticized in our religious art and imagination that its eschatological meaning gets lost. John the Baptist warned the Pharisees and Sadducees about thinking that repentance meant business as usual as long as you did the right outward actions. If we, too, immediately count ourselves among the innocent, safe from siding with vipers, we might mistake today’s prophetic vision of God’s reign as just a nice message for nice Christians instead of the world-upending self-examination it’s meant to be.
John the Baptist doesn’t fit into a gospel that simply promotes an absence of conflict, calling one to just “be kind.” In stark appearance and striking language, he announces that something entirely new is coming, a different kind of community with a different way of being in right relationship.
In God’s kingdom, enmity is erased between mortal enemies by seating them one next to the other, eating from the same table, and navigating how to work, rest, and play with all their differences.
The new thing about this community under Jesus is that it’s open for everyone. But if our response to the Gospel’s invitation is self-righteousness, then judgment, too, awaits. For in God’s kingdom, enmity is erased between mortal enemies by seating them one next to the other, eating from the same table, and navigating how to work, rest, and play with all their differences.
The fruit of this kingdom is not a superficial ceasefire that quickly rots but the good fruit of justice that takes courage, faith, and humility to cultivate.
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