Sunday Service: Second Sunday in Advent 7 December 2025
SECOND SUNDAY IN ADVENT
A worship service was held at 10.30am in the church building on Sunday 7 December. The service was simultaneously broadcast on the Church Facebook page. You can catch up here, or by following the link below.
The Bible passage is Matthew 3:1-12 and Duncan led and preached. You can listen to his sermon on the video – it starts at 38:58 in!
The Christian Church is moving once again through Advent, reflecting on the coming of Jesus at the first Christmas. This Sunday, we think about the fiery prophet John the Baptist who prepared the way for Jesus ministry, calling people in no uncertain terms to ‘Repent’.
John writes: Advent is a time for self-examination – in the course of his sermon Duncan mentioned the people going out into ‘the wilderness’ to encounter John and his message. It’s a picture, he said, of people today in the ‘wilderness’ of modern Scotland, seeking meaning, seeking God. Perhaps it’s a picture of us, in the ‘wilderness’ of our circumstances seeking purpose and direction. Perhaps it’s a call to us to be ‘voices in the wilderness’ – though because we have glimpsed Jesus and his forgiving love our voices will be gentler, less strident than was John’s.
As John the Baptist was preparing the way for Jesus in his preaching, so we as Christians are called this Advent to ‘prepare a way’ for Jesus in our own hearts, and to stand with those who in a million ways are preparing the way for Jesus in our community.
As John the Baptist called people to bear fruit as a sign of their true faith, so we are called, Duncan reminded us, to be fruitful. Exactly what that looks like we will discover, he said, as we continue exploring Mathew’s gospel in the months ahead. But a good place to start is with Galatians 5:22-23: ‘But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.’
I loved the passage from novelist Frederick Beuchner which Duncan quoted, contrasting the ministries of John and Jesus:
Where John preached grim justice and pictured God as a steely-eyed thresher of grain, Jesus preached forgiving love and pictured God as the host at a marvellous party or a father who can’t bring himself to throw his children out even when they spit in his eye.
Where John said people had better save their skins before it was too late, Jesus said it was God who saved their skins, and even if you blew your whole bankroll on liquor and sex like the Prodigal Son, it still wasn’t too late.
Where John ate locusts and honey in the wilderness with the church crowd, Jesus ate what he felt like in Jerusalem with as sleazy a bunch as you could expect to find.
Where John crossed to the other side of the street if he saw any sinners heading his way, Jesus seems to have preferred their company to the [religious people]. Where John baptized, Jesus healed.
Self-examination is important, whether or not we are already Jesus followers – the self-examination which is honest, open to understand ourselves better, open to change. Important too is the integrity which realises that there are limits to what we can do to tidy up our lives in our own strength, and seeks the forgiving grace of Jesus.
But for some of us, some of the time, self-examination may be unhelpful. We may think negatively of ourselves, always perceiving our own faults, always ready to put ourselves down, conscious of our own unloving, intrusive thoughts. We need, not the message of John, but the message of Jesus who reminds us that we are forgiven, and healed, beloved children of Father God.
