Homily, December 14, 2025, Rev. Holly Cardone

Are You the One?

Advent 3

2025

Today is the third Sunday of Advent, Gaudete Sunday. Gaudete is Latin for rejoice. It comes from Philippians 4:4 “Rejoice in the Lord always.” The last two Sundays I’ve talked about Advent as the season for waiting, preparation and repentance, symbolized in blue. Today, the candle color is pink, and the tone of this Advent Sunday is lighter, hope-filled, because today is the Sunday of joy. It doesn’t mean that we are avoiding the hard stuff, the pain and suffering in the world, it does mean, however, that we can still experience joy. Joy is not dependent on our circumstances; it is dependent on the openness of our hearts.

It’s strange that the theme of this Sunday is joy while Israel is still under occupation, John the Baptist is in prison, and the world is still broken. By introducing joy so close to Christmas, the church is reminding us that joy, hope and faith do not require certainty, freedom and answers. In the waiting, preparation and repentance we can experience joy, faith and hope. That’s how close God is.

So, John the Baptist is in prison. Soon, he will have sacrificed his life for preparing the way of Jesus; baptizing in the wilderness, eating honey and locusts, wearing clothing of camel’s hair. John was so sure of himself in thr gospel reading last Sunday:

“I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

Perhaps the isolation of being behind bars has muddled his thinking, diminished his conviction, because he sends word to Jesus with a question that sounds unthinkable coming from him.

“Are you the one who is to come, or should we wait for another?”

John has confronted power, done what God called him to do, and now he sits in prison wondering if what he has done was done for the right person. Was Jesus the one they have been waiting for? A question that John the Baptist dares to ask. A moment of honesty, truth and vulnerability right in the middle of Advent.

And Jesus’s response? Certainly not what you would expect from the Messiah. He doesn’t say, “Of course I’m the one. I’m the greatest one in the history of the world. I’m the best one this place has ever had. Tell John, to hang in there.” He doesn’t say the things that were expected from the Messiah, the Savior of the World.  What he does say to John’s disciples is, “Go and tell John what you hear and see. The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.”

The answer Jesus sends back to John is hope, not certainty. Jesus doesn’t explain who he is or what he is doing. He says, “Go back and tell John what you have seen.” Miracles of healing. People made whole, worthiness, community, and connection restored. This is who Jesus is. God with the people, breaking into their lives as experiences of joy, faith and hope.

Then there is this last line Jesus says, almost like and aside: “Blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.” Essentially, Jesus is saying, I am not the Messiah you expected. John expected judgment, fire and the kingdom to come crashing in. Jesus brought mercy, healing and a kingdom that arrives slowly, quietly, through acts of restoration. And if we’re honest, this is where many of us get stuck. We are fine with God if God behaves the way we expect. We’re fine with Jesus until grace messes with our categories, our timelines, our sense of fairness.

There is a whole faction of Christianity that has taken offense at the kind of Messiah Jesus is for humanity. The Jesus of this group justifies the pursuit of political power, strength and dominance in society. The antitheses of the Jesus of New Testament. Jesus counseling John’s disciples to not be offended by the kind of Messiah he is: the kind that promotes love, mercy, healing and compassion.

And yet, Jesus doesn’t shame his cousin for asking the question. He honors him with the next few sentences of the gospel reading this morning. Jesus asks the crowds, “What did you go out into the wilderness to look at? A reed shaken by the wind? Someone dressed in soft robes?” No. John is not flexible, fashionable, or comfortable. John is steady. John is courageous. John tells the truth, even when it costs him everything. Jesus then says, “Among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist.”

This is not a tidy story. There is no miracle jailbreak. There is no happy ending. John does not get rescued. John is still in prison. But he is seen. He is named. He is honored.

That’s what many of us need. To know we are heard, seen and honored by God. It’s the hardest to experience that when we are praying faithfully and still waiting. We are doing the right thing and still suffering. We have questions we thought we’d never have to ask.

Gaudete Sunday—Rejoice Sunday. We light the rose-colored candle as a sign of joy. But this is not glittery joy. This is not denial. This is not pretending everything is fine.

This is defiant joy. Joy that lights a candle in a prison cell, asks the hard question anyway and watches for signs of life even when the rescue hasn’t come. It is the joy that says God is still coming, still at work and hasn’t forgotten us. Advent joy doesn’t erase the darkness. It does insist that the darkness does not get the final word.

Amen.