Sunday Sermon - 8 December

Last week, with the lighting of the first candle, we began Advent with hope — praying in the hope that God is not finished with us, a hope that in the places of our lives that feel broken and tired, like stumps and ruins, God can bring forth new life.

Today, on this Second Sunday of Advent, we turn to the theme of peace. But our readings do something surprising, maybe even jarring. Instead of giving us gentle, comforting, ‘peace-full’ words, we hear the voice of our patron saint, John the Baptist, standing in the wilderness with his axe at the root of the trees and talking of judgment with fire and winnowing forks. 

And yet, despite the not so peaceful imagery, the message is deeply important - not just for today but for our whole life of faith. The peace God calls out to us, the peace “that passes understanding”, the peace of this Advent season, is not passive acceptance. It is active transformation - a transformation, Scripture teaches, that comes through God’s holy fire.

Isaiah begins today by inviting us to stand in a forest that has been cut down. The proud cedars of past empires, the failed kings of Judah, the hopes of a nation—all reduced to stumps. And it is exactly there, in the place that appears dead, that Isaiah tells us hope will appear:

“A shoot shall come forth from the stump of Jesse.”

Hope, in Scripture, is always rooted in God’s capacity to bring life out of what seems lifeless — from the widow of Zarephath’s son to Lazarus to our Lord himself. Where we can no longer imagine life, God shows that resurrection is real.  Our hope is not naïve; it is grounded in the God who brings life from death.  It looks at the world’s burnt-out landscapes and insists, “God is not done.”

There was no better example of this than on Thursday night. Hope was alive in our community — palpable — when, in the place of the burned-down historic buildings of our village, over a hundred people gathered to light the trees that now stand on the vacant, lifeless lot that was once our village’s cornerstone. Those trees symbolize a hope rooted in love for this place and for one another — a hopeful love so powerful no fire could extinguish it.  It was a beautiful, powerful night reminding us that in the midst of tragedy we will not be defeated, we are a people of hope.

Paul speaks of this same conviction in his letter to the Romans: that the Scriptures are given “so that we might have hope” — not sentiment, not wishfulness, but the deep certainty that God is steadfast and will keep His promises.

Isaiah’s hope opens into a vision of peace so overwhelming it even stretches our capacity to imagine: wolves lying down with lambs, leopards with goats, a child safely near the adder’s den. It is not merely the absence of conflict, of violence and death; it is the healing of creation itself. The world reconciled, whole, and restored.

Paul echoes this when he prays that God would fill the church “with all joy and peace in believing,” so that we may abound in a unified and love-filled hope. Peace is not something we manufacture. It is the consequential overflow of the Holy Spirit’s work in a community being healed and reconciled.

And yet the Gospel reminds us that such peace does not come without cost. For here we have John the Baptist - not with gentle or kind words or a warm drink by the crackling comfort of a fire in the wilderness where he lives - but with a winnowing fork, a sharp voice, and a fierce love that refuses to pretend things are fine when they are not. He condemns, even threatens the Pharisees and the Sadducees - all of the false prophets.

John proclaims that when the Messiah comes, there will be fire that burns the chaff and a fire that baptizes; a fire of judgment and a fire of the Holy Spirit. These are not two different fires—they are two expressions of God’s same holy and sanctifying love. The fire that clears away what is false, destructive, or self-serving is the same fire that empowers, renews, and creates a new heart within us. God’s judgment and God’s grace are not opposites. They are two aspects of God’s same healing work - two sides, one coin.

Believe it or not, in researching this sermon, I came across a reference to the Disney film Encanto as a way of understanding this dual nature of fire in Scripture. Since Encanto is one of my favourite Disney movies, I had to sit down and watch it again as research — and, as grace would have it, our whole family was home, so we watched it together. That alone was a precious gift.

Encanto tells the story of a Colombian family forced to flee their village due to the rampaging violence of bandits. As they flee, the father gives his life protecting his wife and three children from the bandits, and as he dies his lantern becomes a miracle - an enchanted candle that creates a magical home and gifts future generations, each with their own enchanted abilities. Over time a beautiful village grows around the enchanted family’s home. Everyone in the family receives a gift—except one grandchild, Mirabel, the only child who remains painfully ordinary.

As the story unfolds, the magical house begins to crack, tremble, and collapse, and the family loses their powers and the village becomes fearful as their leaders are failing.  It feels like judgment - a collapse of everything that made them special, chosen, important. But the cracks in the house symbolize something deeper: the cracks in their family life, the impossible pressure to appear perfect, to keep the village believing they were always strong, always in control.

When the house finally falls, it looks like the end. But it is not the end. It is the clearing of the ground for new life. Only in the ashes does a new miracle appear. It is Mirabel—the ordinary one, the “ungifted” one, who leads them into this new beginning. A single glowing flame appears, small but alive. A new peace. A new hope. The house is rebuilt. The family reconciled. Their gifts restored and they learn that peace does not come from holding everything together or maintaining the perception of perfection, but from allowing false stories to fall and letting something truer arise.

It is a parable for Advent:

A fire that reveals what is broken.
A fire that rekindles new life.
A hope and a peace born out of a holy collapse.

Advent always brings us back to this truth: Christ’s peace requires Christ’s fire.

We cannot cling to false hopes or old habits and expect new creation to come. Sometimes the old must fall away for the new to grow. Sometimes God must remove the chaff in us—our fears, our resentments, our self-protections—not to harm us, but to free us. To make space for peace. To kindle a purer, genuine, hope. The fire that clears is also the fire that fills. We know from our Christian story that there is a fire coming - the fire of Pentecost that follows Good Friday, a salvific renewal that follows a painful repentance, a peace that follows our yearning in hope.

So today we let John the Baptist have the last word:

“Prepare the way of the Lord.
Make His paths straight.”

Prepare - not with frantic activity that anticipates Christmas, but with honest repentance that opens our hearts to our Lord’s return.
Make straight - not through perfection or performance, but by yielding to God’s restorative love.

Here, in the parish of St. John the Baptist, this matters in a particular way. John’s entire ministry was shaped by the conviction that God is raising up a people - not perfect, not powerful, but prepared, open, and ready for new life. You see, there is indeed a surprising and fitting connection between today’s Gospel message and Disney’s Encanto. After everything collapses, Alma Madrigal, the matriarch grandmother, turns to that one poor child who never received a magical gift, the one who feels painfully ordinary, and she speaks a truth that cuts to the heart of Advent hope: “The miracle is you. Not some gift—just you.”

The same truth that applies this morning, here, to you, today. You, the people of St. John the Baptist parish - the miracle, God’s miracle, is you. You who gather, pray, forgive, serve others, keep faith, carry hope, and seek peace. Not because of what you achieve, not because of what you build or manage, but because Christ is at work in you - refining, renewing, and making you whole. You are the people the Baptist calls to prepare the way. You are the ones the Spirit sets ablaze with hope. You are the community through whom the peace of Christ can be made known to the lonely and dispossessed.

So let us respond to the Baptist’s cry. Not to “Be afraid” of the fire that is to come, but to “Be ready.” Ready to be the miracles God made us to be.

Amen.