Sermon for December 7, 2025, Second Sunday in Advent

Matthew 3:1-12 (Second Sunday in Advent—Series A)

“A Day of Infamy?”

Lutheran Church of Our Redeemer, Enfield, CT

December 7, 2025

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Our text is the Gospel Reading recorded in Matthew 3:

¹And in those days John the Baptist appeared, preaching in the desert of Judea, ²saying, “Repent, for the reign of heaven stands near.” ³For this is what was spoken of through Isaiah the prophet, saying, “A voice of one crying out in the desert, ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; make straight His paths.’ ⁴Now John himself had his clothing from camel’s hair and a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. ⁵Then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the neighboring region of the Jordan began to go out to him, ⁶and they were being baptized in the Jordan River by him as they were confessing their sins. ⁷But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for his baptism, he said to them, “Brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Therefore, bear fruit worthy of repentance ⁹and do not think to say among yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as father.’ For I say to you that God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. ¹⁰And already the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Therefore, every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. ¹¹I myself am baptizing you with water for repentance, but the One who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He Himself will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. ¹²His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will cleanse His threshing floor and will gather His wheat into the barn, but the chaff He will burn with unquenchable fire.

          December 7, 1941, a day that will live in infamy. The United States was attacked at Pear Harbor, HI, by the Empire of Japan, bringing our nation into World War II. We know Roosevelt’s famous words about that day. But what is “infamy”? It is something that is well known for some bad quality or deed. Certainly, that fits December 7, 1941, and September 11, 2001, and many other moments in world history or even in our personal histories.

          I wonder if some thought of John the Baptist’s appearance in the desert of Judea a time of infamy. He proclaimed a message of repentance, a needed change in heart and mind for the people. In other words, things were not as they should be for God’s people, and they needed a change, to be turned from their sins to faith and trust that the Lord’s reign and rule had drawn near and was now here on earth! They were in need, as all people are, of forgiveness, of cleansed hearts, in order that they might receive by faith the Lord whose way John was preparing, just as Isaiah had said, “Prepare the way of the Lord; make straight His paths.”

          Many of the people of Jerusalem and Judea came out to see John and they were baptized by him in the Jordan River, confessing their sins. John’s coming as the forerunner of the Messiah would not be a time of infamy for them, something bad, but a blessing because of the forgiveness which God gave them through John’s baptism. But what about the religious leaders—the Pharisees and Sadducees? Were they coming to John’s baptism for repentance and the forgiveness of sins, or for some other reason?

          It seems like the latter because John condemns them, threatening them with the fiery judgment of the Last Day. “Brood of vipers,” he calls them, “who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Do not think to say among yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as father.’ For I say to you that God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham.” The Pharisees and Sadducees assumed that because they were born into the covenant people of Israel and had not committed blatant sin or lapsed into glaring heresy, that they would be saved from the wrath to come. Therefore, they had no need for repentance, to acknowledge their real need for forgiveness.

          John called for them to produce fruits worthy of true repentance and a change of heart and mind. The very fact that these fruits were not forthcoming from them showed that they had not begun to repent. Thier lives were not different. They had allowed no change to be made in them by the Lord. John’s preaching of repentance consisted of acknowledging that one deserves the wrath of God through the coming of the Mightier One. And this repentance always shows itself in good works, the fruits produced by it.

          Those who refuse to repent, who, like the Pharisees and Sadducees, would try to stand before God the King with anything other than complete dependance on His grace. They would not receive His grace, but His punishment. “The axe is laid to the root of the trees. Therefore, every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. . . . the chaff He will burn with unquenchable fire.” The day of God’s judgment against sin, His condemning wrath, would certainly be a day of infamy for those who refuse His means to be saved.

          And the Means to save fallen, sinful humanity from death and condemnation came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary and was made man. The One mightier than John, God the Son, was bringing the reign of heaven into the world so that He might save the world from sin and everlasting condemnation.

          God the Son would become flesh, “a shoot from the stump of Jesse,” a descendent of King David according to the flesh (Is. 11:1). Jesus would become part of His earth, to gather the wheat into His barn, into His reign. This Jesus, true God and true Man, would grow from baby, to child, to adult. He would proclaim the reign of heaven drawn near in His person and work to save people from the effects of sin—healing the blind, the deaf, the lame, the leprous, and the mute. He would cast out demons, saving people from the realm of the devil. Jesus raised the dead, saving children and adults from that enemy too.

          But this Jesus, this God-Man, would Himself be cut down. The “Tree” that bore only good fruit, the sinless Son of God, the Messiah, was cut down by the very axe of death on the cross. Just as Isaiah said would happen to the Lord’s Suffering Servant, “For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground. . . . Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. . . . By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people?” (Is. 53:2-8 ESV).

          Jesus, God’s Son made Flesh, died on a cross to save you, to rescue you, from God’s wrath against your sins and failings to follow His Law and Commandments. He was cut off out of the land of the living to suffer your death and punishment so that you would have the forgiveness of sins and life forever in His Name. The One mightier than John came to suffer, die, and rise again in victory over sin, death, and the grave so that He might baptize you with the Holy Spirit.

          It is the Holy Spirit who has brought you to saving faith and trust in Jesus as your only Lord and Savior. In Baptism, you received Jesus’ gift of the Spirit who has created a new person within you, a person that hears the Gospel Word and receives the very gifts first given you in Baptism, namely, the forgiveness of sins, rescue from death and the devil, and eternal salvation. This Gospel faith empowers your repentance, a turning away from sin to faith in Jesus and His forgiveness. And this faith produces good fruit by the power of the Holy Spirit as He works through the Gospel of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection for the forgiveness of sins.

          The good fruits that we produce through the working of the Holy Spirit are “prayer, thanksgiving, the confession of the Gospel, teaching the Gospel, obeying parents and rulers, and being faithful to one’s calling. We should not kill, not hold on to hatred, but we should be forgiving and give to the needy, as far as we can according to our means. We should not commit sexual sins or adultery, but should hold in check, bridle, and chastise the flesh, not for a repayment of eternal punishment, but so as not to obey the devil or offend the Holy Spirit. Likewise, we should speak the truth. These fruits have God’s command and should be produced for the sake of God’s glory and command” (Ap. AC XII.77).

This life of repentance and producing the fruits of repentance through faith in Christ by the power of the Spirit is what enables us also to be ready for our Lord Jesus Christ to come. Through lives of repentance and faith which God creates in each one of us through the Gospel, the way of the Lord Jesus is prepared in our hearts.

The day of Jesus’ coming again will not be a day of infamy, something bad, for His Church. For those of us who believe in His Name, it will be a day of glory and honor, a day of the final consummation of our salvation as we are brought in glorified body and soul into His new creation. So, we look forward to our Lord’s Coming at the Last Day because we have been saved from our sins to stand before the Lord in righteousness and holiness all our days. Along with St. Peter, “According to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells” (2 Pet. 3:13 ESV). Then the Lord will gather us into His “barn,” into a new creation with all the people of God in Christ where we will celebrate together the marriage feast of the Lamb of God in His Kingdom. Amen.