Isaiah 11:1-10; Matthew 3:1-12

As if we needed it, Advent is the annual reminder that the world is not as it should be. But it is also our reminder that God is not finished with this world yet. It’s a reminder that God has plans for this world, and you and I are a part of those plans.

Advent is a holy tension. We wait and watch, but we wait and watch with hope. We light candles, because we believe the light still rises, and peace on earth is still possible, even during a time of deep violence.

Today, our nation remembers another Sunday morning when the world was plunged into deeper violence, when fear and grief reshaped lives overnight.

We remember Pearl Harbor today, not to glorify war, but to deepen our longing to be a people shaped by the peace that God promises. On a day we remember a time when peace collapsed, when meetings for diplomacy didn’t happen, when steps to find equitable solutions were not taken, we gather to proclaim a new day, a new time when swords are beaten into plowshares, and peace is not a distant dream, but a way of life.

And through our scripture lessons this morning, two prophets speak about this time: Isaiah and John the Baptist. Two voices, centuries apart, but carrying one message: God is breaking into this world with a peace that transforms everything!

Isaiah speaks with poetry. John speaks with fire.

Isaiah shows us the world God intends.

John tells us how we must prepare for it.

Isaiah invites us to imagine and dream.

John insists we repent and change.

Together, they give us the full message of Advent: the hope and the urgency; God’s promise and our responsibility.

I love that Isaiah begins Advent with a stump, and Matthew begins with a wilderness. Isaiah says: “A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse.” Matthew tells us: “In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness.”

A stump is what remains after something has been cut down. Here, it belongs to Jesse, the father of King David, symbolizing the seemingly dead royal lineage of David.

A wilderness is a place where familiar paths have disappeared. It’s a place of withdrawal, isolation, and loneliness.

 And yet, both are places where God begins again. Both are places where grace breaks in. Both are places where hope refuses to die, and love finds a way!

Some of us have walked into Advent this year with stumps in our lives. There have been losses, endings, dreams cut down, seasons cut short.

Some are walking toward Christmas this year surrounded by wilderness. There is much uncertainty, weariness, loneliness, and feelings of lostness.

But both Isaiah and John remind us of the good news: that God does some of God’s best work in the places that seem barren. God is in the business of making a way when it seems like there’s no way.

Isaiah gives us a breathtaking vision of God’s business in this world. It’s of a world ruled not by fear, corruption, hate, and violence, but by justice, tenderness, compassion, and reconciliation.

Wolves lie down with lambs. Children play safely at the entrance of a cobra’s den. Predators and prey live at peace.

This isn’t some fantasy. It’s the reordering of the entire world. Isaiah saw what scripture calls “shalom:” a peace that heals, restores, and reshapes not only society, but the entire creation.

Isaiah says this peace will be led by a Spirit-filled one who will: “judge the poor with righteousness…and decide for the meek with equity.”

In other words, peace and justice are inseparable. We cannot have one without the other. Peace without justice is fragile. Peace without equity is deceptive. Peace that ignores any harm to others, or to the creation, is not peace at all.

On this December 7th, as we remember our parents and grandparents waking up to the violence of Pearl Harbor, we must not pretend that violence belongs only to the past. For every day we wake up to stories of good people being yanked from their cars, or off the streets, on their way to work, on their way to school or to a thanksgiving dinner with their family, detained by masked men and deported because of the color of their skin. We wake up to stories of fishermen blown up in boats without due process or any chance to speak their truth.

 We see a world where fear is weaponized, food for the hungry is politicized, meanness is rationalized, human dignity is discounted, and inequity is engineered rather than accidental.

On this Pearl Harbor Sunday, we confess the many ways violence still shapes our world, and we cry out for the peace Isaiah dares to imagine and for which Christ commands us to prepare.

And then a wild, fiery preacher named John bursts into our story. He’s wearing some strange clothes. He’s got this crazy diet, and a voice that sounds like a siren screaming in the desert.

And his first word is not, “Peace.” No, it is, “Repent.”

Now, at first his preaching sounds like one of those hell, fire, and brimstone preachers we’ve heard before. We think, “no wonder they call him a Baptist!” At first, his message sounds like the opposite of Isaiah’s message, but the more we listen to it, we discover that John is not contradicting Isaiah. No, he’s showing us the way to Isaiah’s vision of peace.

You see, John knows that peace never arrives in this world easily. Peace is not passive. It’s not something we just sit back and wait for. Peace requires transformation. If peace is gonna come, then people gotta change!

If Isaiah shows us what peace looks like, John shows us what peace requires.

John calls us to turn from every way that does harm: our habits; our politics; our systems; our silence; our consumption; even our religion, especially our religion; to embrace a life of nonviolence. And he makes it clear that peace on earth is not some naïve dream from some woke, left-wing lunatic; it is a moral imperative from God. John is the prophet who prepares us for the world Isaiah describes.

John’s challenges his hearers to “bear fruit worthy of repentance.” In other words: Don’t just want peace and sing about peace. Live peace. Practice peace. Embody peace in your decisions, your priorities, your words, your vote, your compassion, your courage, your lifestyle.

Repentance is not self-hatred. It’s not guilt. And it’s not shame. True repentance is liberation. It’s simply returning to God’s way of peace that was intended for the creation.

On a day when the nation recalls the devastation of war, repentance becomes not just a personal religious ritual, but a moral commitment. It’s a commitment to dismantle hatred. It’s a commitment to stand with the vulnerable. It’s a commitment to uproot the seeds of harm before they ever take root in our lives or in our world.

That is the fruit worthy of repentance, as John says. That is the path toward the world Isaiah imagined.

And let’s not miss this. John’s harshest words are not aimed at the people the religious leaders dismissed as outsiders, unbelievers, or unclean. John’s sharpest critique is directed at the religious establishment itself, the ones who believed they were closest to God because of their heritage, their appearance, their privilege, their assumed moral superiority. He turns to them and says, “Do not presume… the axe is already lying at the root.”

John doesn’t say this because God delights in their tjdestruction. He’s not warning them because God wants to punish or shame them. John speaks this harsh word because God seeks to prune. God seeks to cut away anything, no matter how pious, polished, or patriotic, that destroys real peace in the world. And that includes any movement that weds faith to nationalism and proclaims that God’s blessing is the property of one nation, one party, one people. It includes any faith that blesses fear, excuses cruelty, or elevates domination as destiny.

We cannot cling to anything that kills equity.
We cannot preserve the things that preserve injustice.

We cannot call violence “protection,” or prejudice “tradition” or “heritage.”

We cannot keep watering the roots of fear, greed, Christian nationalism, or complacency, and then pretend we are bearing the fruit of peace.

Advent is the holy season of pruning, not for punishment, but for preparation. Advent will not allow us to believe that for peace, repentance is optional.

Isaiah teaches us what God’s peace looks like.

John teaches us how to make room for it.

Isaiah lifts our eyes.

John steadies our feet.

Isaiah speaks hope.

John calls for courage.

And together they prepare us for the Christ who comes not with military might, not with political coercion; but with justice, mercy, grace, humility, and fierce love: the Christ who judges with righteousness; the Christ who defends the meek, heals the sick, forgives the sinner, feeds the hungry, and includes the outcast.

This Advent, perhaps peace begins with us by letting something go:
a resentment we’ve carried too long; a fear that narrows our compassion; a selfishness that feeds our apathy and fuels our greed; a prejudice we inherited; a silence we use to avoid conflict.

Perhaps peace begins with healing something inside us.
Or perhaps peace begins with speaking a truth we’ve been afraid to name.
Or standing with someone who has been pushed to the margins.
Or choosing generosity in a season obsessed with consumption.
Or refusing despair in a world that seems addicted to it.

Or perhaps, on this December 7th, peace begins with remembering that violence is not inevitable, war is not destiny, and equitable solutions are real, and love, not hate, is what truly makes a nation great.

Advent is the season when we stare at the world’s stumps and declare, “A shoot’s gonna spout, and I can see it!”

We look at the wilderness and say, “A voice is calling, and I can hear it!”

We remember the wounds of history and pray with renewed commitment: “Never again!”

And we see the darkness all around us and still light our candles, because we trust the promise that the light still rises.

It rose from the stump of Jesse.
It rose in the waters of John’s baptism.
It rose in Bethlehem.
It rises in every act of justice.
It rises in every step toward peace.
It rises, even now, in us.

Thanks be to God. Amen.