Brief synopsis of the readings: Our Advent journey continues with the Old Testament prophet Isaiah. He uses the imagery of wilderness and dry lands to talk about how they will be transformed to a place that will bloom with flowers. Weary hands and knees will be strengthened. The blind will see, the deaf will hear and the lame will leap like a deer. The mute will speak for joy; sorrow and lament will be ended. In Matthew’s Gospel, John the Baptist now finds himself in prison. Hearing about Jesus’ ministry, John asks if Jesus is truly the one whose coming he proclaimed. Jesus responds by saying this: the “blind see again, and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised to life and the Good News is proclaimed to the poor.”

We are now officially more than halfway through Advent. You can tell there is something different because the priest’s vestments are rose instead of purple. OK, most of us will not notice, and this Sunday doesn’t feel much different from most Sundays. And honestly, most of us are still obsessed with the burdens of shopping for the right gift, properly decorating the inside and outside of our homes, and getting our Christmas cards out (full disclosure: we’ve already gotten three Christmas cards in the mail while we’re praying most of our recipients get our cards before December 25th).

Much like Lent, the journey of Advent speaks to the dichotomy between light and darkness. We commemorate Advent during a time when the days grow shorter and the nights grow longer and while we all know that soon the days will grow longer, we also recognize the power of darkness.

Isaiah recognizes this in ways that speak clearly to us. He prophesized during a time when everyone recognized their powerlessness over their climate. Rain may come, maybe too much, maybe too little, or maybe not at all. And he knew that their lives depended on the rain. Today, while we’ve mitigated some of this powerlessness by constructing dams and learning how to irrigate, we still find ourselves subject to his next dichotomy: strength and weakness. Isaiah also wrote during a time of great weakness when the Israelites were slaves to the Babylonians. It was a time of great darkness and they well could have surrendered to that darkness but they didn’t.

The prophet Isaiah instead spoke to a time in the future when all will be well. He wrote about a time when the blind will see, the deaf will hear, and the lame will leap. Listeners to the 1996 song by Wynonna Judd and Kenny Rodgers will recognize the song Mary Do You Know. Isaiah recognized, through the eyes of faith, that their worst fears would be replaced by their wildest dreams. And he was right: not long after this reading the Israelites returned to their Promised Land when the Babylonians themselves were conquered.

And the theme of strength out of weakness, hope out of despair, continues in the Gospel. Last week we saw John in his strength: he called the Pharisees and Sadducess as “broods of vipers.” Today we see him in prison, in his weakness.

And in his weakness we find him doubting all he did. Last week he proclaimed Jesus as the Messiah but here he doubted his choice. He wondered if he made the right choice and “backed the right horse.” We can read in his words that despair is creeping into his hope.

In fairness, we all do this. We all look back on the decisions we’ve made with some fear. Did we choose the right college? Did we choose the right major? Did we choose the right career? Did we choose the right spouse (and truthfully, did God choose the right child for us?). We all love hope and hate despair, but nevertheless despair continues to occupy space in our heads.

And props to Jesus, he didn’t feed into the despair but instead reacted to this news well. Jesus didn’t feel betrayed or get angry. He didn’t criticize his cousin. Instead he hearkened back to Isaiah. He instructed a messenger to tell John this: “the blind regain their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have the good news proclaimed to them. And blessed is the one who takes no offense at me.”

Instead of feeling offended, Jesus blessed those who feared he wasn’t the Messiah. Jesus finished this Gospel by praising his cousin John the Baptist.

Discipleship calls us to overturn our view of everything: our understanding, our world, our relationships, our feelings, and even our beliefs. We live in a world that worships power and flocks to those who claim it. We live in a world that tells us to guard our resources and hate those we fear will attempt to steal them. But we need to understand that strength comes not from power but from weakness. We need to understand that when Jesus tells us that the last will be first, he meant it. We need to understand that Jesus proclaims a Kingdom where we need not fear others or see them as threats but instead love them as partners in Redemption.

Our salvation comes not from the lush farms but from the dry lands. Our glory comes not from wealth but from poverty. And our loyalty should not look to those who promise to make our lives better but to those who promise to improve the lives of those poor who will never meet us. Only those prophet leaders will truly welcome us into the paradise we all seek.

We live two thousand years from Matthew and we can find It easy to ignore his message. Jesus and John the Baptist can easily become statues that we revere but do not hear. Their messages can fade into the background where our ignorance becomes convenient and fashionable. But I implore everyone to choose another path. Jesus came to us for a single purpose: to redeem us from our sins and welcome us into salvation. We all wish to be saved but our desire for salvation passes through the command to feed the poor and listen when we ask the questions John asked.

Let us read these readings and look forward the birth of our Receemer with an awareness of Advent in our lives,