Does anyone here read the U.C.C. Daily Devotionals that come via email (1) ? Well, then, you might have seen the one this past week where Molly Baskette tells of a family tradition gone awry. Every year, she and her daughter cut down a Christmas tree together, stuff it in the car, and then toast their lumberjack skills with homemade cocoa on the tailgate. But “one year,” as Molly tells it:

we went on a hike beforehand and came back to a smashed car window, a stolen electric saw, and a spectacular amount of broken glass all over the car seats. (Nevertheless,) We drove to the tree farm and met my sister and her 4-year-old. We wrestled the 6-inches-too-long tree into the car amidst the sparkling glass, and toasted our mixed morning.  

Then the 4-year-old splattered a tsunami of cocoa all over himself, the tree, the glass, and the ground. He looked down. He looked up. He looked at us… and said loudly: “It’s all right. It’s just a mess (2).”

“It’s alright. It’s just a mess.”

O man, that hit me hard, because I can’t think of a better way to describe the season of Advent or this moment we are living in; these days when our hands our shaking so hard with grief and outrage that it’s as hard somedays to strike a match as it is to keep lighting candles for peace, hope, joy, and love to reign.

One of my colleagues, accidentally wrote "Come On, Come On, Emmanuel," instead of “O Come, O Come…” as she was working on her worship bulletin for Sunday and then said, “Well, if that isn't THE PRAYER of 2025, I don't know what is (3)!”

She is not wrong! With everything going on in our country and the world it’s not easy to stay hopeful these days, let alone get in the “good ol’ holiday spirit.” Actually, it can feel a bit delusional to even try.

In truth, there is not enough wrapping for even Martha Stewart to paper over all the problems we’re facing. But if we’re honest, that’s nothing new. For behind all the tinsel and lights, the cookies and carols, the Black Friday sales and the Christmas specials, is a world that is still hurting. We all know this. And the beauty of Advent is that it creates space for us to acknowledge this, to grieve what is wrong with the world so we can yearn and pray and work with God to make it right.

As Christians we grapple with this tension in the days leading up to Christmas because we know that we’re not just waiting to celebrate Jesus’ birthday with family, enjoy some parties, open our presents, and ring in a new year. As Christians we know that what we’re really waiting for…even now, even still… is a messiah, a savior.

We are still longing for the One… the One who can usher in God’s peaceable kingdom, the One who can heal all that has been broken, the One who can make all things new.

I think that’s why we have this strange, sad story assigned for today.  I admit that even though I’ve been preaching for years, I forgot this reading would appear. It seems rather incongruous to read about John languishing in prison just 2 weeks before Christmas. I was mentally prepared to preach on Joseph and angels and awkward conversations about pregnant fiancés. I had not signed up to preach about John the Baptist, of all people, losing his faith in Jesus.

But that is the story before us this morning. Instead of angelic dreams we have Jesus’ cousin John imprisoned for speaking truth to power and suffering the consequences.

I’m sure you all remember that John was in prison for calling out King Herod for divorcing his wife Phaesalis while simultaneously orchestrating the divorce of his niece Herodias who was married to her other uncle, Herod’s half-brother Philip, so Herod could marry her instead in a wedding as glorious as it was notorious.

That’s right, for those of you keeping score at home, in order for Herod to marry Herodias, she had to divorce her husband Philip who was also her uncle before she could marry her uncle Herod who was also her brother-in-law.

Makes me think that “Real Housewives of Judea” was probably “Must See TV” back in the day - you know? - before streaming.

Well, anyway, both the book of Leviticus (4) and John the Baptist had plenty of things to say about this unholy and incestuous arrangement - none of them good - and the scandal generated such an outcry that Herod had John imprisoned way back in Matthew chapter 4 to shut him up and quell any unrest. But that was awhile ago. We’re now in chapter 11, and things are not looking good for our hero.

John has been waiting…

and waiting….

and waiting…

Waiting for Jesus to come and rescue him.

But Jesus has yet to come. Which brings us to this morning’s reading.

Bowed down and well nigh broken, his hopes dashed, his future looking grim, John finally sends one of his disciples to ask Jesus: “Are you the one who was to come, or are we to wait for another?” 

“Are you the one?”

This is so painful to read, for two reasons.

One, because if anyone should have reason to believe in Jesus, it is John:

John who leapt for joy in utero when Mary came to visit Elizabeth.

John who left a cushy temple position to preach repentance and baptize people in the wilderness.

John who has done all in his power to prepare the way for his cousin to come and claim his birthright as the messiah.

And yet here is John languishing in prison, so disillusioned that he’s questioning everything he thought he knew about them both. I can just imagine him muttering away in his cell:

This is not the way things were supposed to go, Jesus. This is not in keeping with the prophets of old. Indeed this is not in keeping with the prophecies that came from my very own mouth or even that of our mothers.

Where is your winnowing fork, cousin?  Where is your fire? When will you rise up and cast the mighty from their thrones?  When will you fill the needy with good things? When will you come and save us? When will you come and save me?

“Are you the one?”

…or not?

It is such an incredibly sad question, and Jesus’ answer, for all the good news it contains, is equally sad. Matthew tells us that he replied:

 “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor.”

It is a beautiful answer, full of signs and wonders, only there is something missing.

Jesus quotes from six separate places in the book of Isaiah, but leaves out two very important promises that we are used to hearing in conjunction with these signs of hope and healing; omissions that John would have noticed right away (5).

Jesus says nothing about a day of vengeance, nor does he remind John of Isaiah’s promise that in the year of the Lord’s favor ….the captives will go free.

The winnowing fork? It’s still on the hook. 

The fire? There is no fire.

In spite of all he has done and said and risked, Jesus is letting John know that he is not coming to save him, at least not in the way that John had expected. 

And John, as you know, will soon pay the ultimate price.

But at the same time, it’s not like Jesus is doing nothing, and he wants John to know that too.

Good things are still happening out in the world where he is preaching and healing.

They are just not enough.

Not enough for John then and not enough for us now…

at least not yet.

Which brings me back to the words of Molly’s 4 year old nephew:

“It’s alright. It’s just a mess.”

I fully understand why John and everyone who is suffering right now would take issues with that statement. For so many of us the world is not alright - not alright at all - because things are such a mess. But Molly has a different take on it.

My nephew’s prophetic pronouncement has become my mantra,” she says. “With every fresh setback in my life, I hear his little voice. Every time I am tempted to give in to despair or fury, I hear his little voice.  

“It’s alright. It’s just a mess.”

She insists that: ‘It’s just a mess’ isn’t meant to dismiss the complexity and horror of what is happening in our wounded world. It’s not an encouragement to hide our heads in the sand and ignore the suffering…”

What it is, for her and for me - the reason I am so struck by those words - is a call to take a breath and stay engaged in the midst of the mess. It is an invitation to keep calm and carry on, as the Brits like to say, a reminder to stay grounded and not give up because God has not given up on us. God still believes there is something here worth saving, that we are worth saving. God has not given up because God still loves us and as long as God has not given up…there is still hope.

“It’s alright. It’s just a mess.”

It’s not either/or.

It’s both/and.

And it’s only by holding that tension, the way we do in Advent, that we can move forward and do anything about it.

Because the truth is, the mess is real. It took us a long time to get into it and it’s going to take us a long time to get out of it, and yet it’s still worth trying. Not only that, the thinking that got us into this mess is definitely not the thinking that is going to get us out of it, which is where Jesus comes in. And it’s precisely because Jesus comes in that I think things still have a shot at working out alright in the end.

Because, you see, I firmly believe that Jesus came to help us think in a new way. I think it’s why he didn’t just show up at the prison ax a-swinging or in Herod’s throne room fork a-blazing. That may be the most obvious and efficient way to bring the mighty down from their thrones, but Jesus’ plan to save us has to be different than what John wants or any of us expect or we’ll never figure out how to do things differently.

Think about it. If Jesus were to rile up the mob or call down fire from heaven to defeat his enemies and free his cousin, he wouldn’t be doing or making anything new, but simply rolling right along and perpetuating the cycle of violence and retribution we still live with today.

Instead, Jesus came among us to show us a new way. That is the power of this story and the reason we read it right before Christmas. Rather than amass power, Jesus invites John and us to see how he pours it out on those who need it most.

Jesus is not enforcing the peace but creating peace through reconciliation as he forgives and welcomes the lost back into the fold. He is not fighting fire with fire, but baptizing people with it, blessing them in the midst of their suffering and sacrifice, as he shows us not how to wield it, but how to walk through it.

Jesus is roaming the highways and the by-ways, healing those on the margins and bringing good news to the poor. He is spilling out the grace of God freely upon the world, letting his light shine for all to see. And to all those who receive it he is giving nothing less than the power to become children of God.

Children who can live and love in a new and greater way…even greater than John.  Children with the courage to call people in rather than out. Children with the courage to reach their hands into the adder’s den, lambs brave enough to walk amongst the wolves... in the hope that even the adders can be taught, even the wolves can be redeemed…such that one day all of us will lie down together in peace on God’s holy mountain.

Unfortunately for John and for us, that day is not yet here and the road we must take to reach it is long. It is not a path that leads out of the wilderness, but through it. It is not a way that opens cell doors. Indeed, it is one that may very well leave them clanging at our backs. 

But in Jesus we see that there is the possibility of life, even in the desert.

In Jesus we see that there is a freedom that knows no chains. 

In Jesus we see that there is a way of living in and loving this world in all its beauty and brokenness come what may. That somehow it really is alright. It’s just a mess.

A mess that is real and dangerous and painful, and needs us to love it anyway. A mess that we need to stay engaged with because God’s dream for the world is too precious to give up on.

A mess that may ask everything of us, as it asked everything of John and Jesus, and yet a mess we must persist in loving, because love is the opposite of whatever got us into this mess and love is the only thing that can get us out.

And so we press on this advent, my friends. We mourn what is even as we pray for what might be. We sweep up the glass, we dust ourselves off, and we share whatever’s left of the cocoa. We look down. We look up.

And then we light our candles and we wait, allowing our eyes to adjust to the dark until we can just see the hope that is dawning, this Christ who is coming, coming for us and through us, still coming that all the world might be saved. Amen.

1. https://www.ucc.org/daily-devotional/

2. https://www.ucc.org/daily-devotional/christ-in-the-chaos/?inf_contact_key=0ca7716bb2abf809bd3532d3c483250d7e470d92b8b75168d98a0b8cac0e9c09 

3. Jenny McDevitt, a presbyterian pastor out in Michigan

4. “If a man takes his brother’s wife, it is impurity. He has uncovered his brother’s nakedness. They shall be childless.” Leviticus 20:21

5. Isaiah: 29:18; 35:5-6; 42:8, 17; 26:19; and 61:1