2nd Sunday of Advent · United Church of Christ

Comfort That Cuts a Highway

Isaiah addresses a people whose exile has ended and whose guilt is forgiven. The prophet's comfort is not a lullaby but a summons: prepare a road in the wilderness. Preach how God's tenderness and God's demand intertwine. The valleys lifted and mountains lowered are not just landscape but the reshaping of human pride and despair. Advent comfort, then, makes a straight path for the Shepherd who gathers lambs. The angle invites hearers to ask what terrain in their lives must be regraded for Christ to come.

When Righteousness and Peace Embrace

Psalm 85 envisions salvation as a meeting of virtues: steadfast love and faithfulness come together; righteousness and peace kiss. In a polarized time, this image is radical. Preach the psalm as a promise that God's shalom is not the absence of justice or truth but their harmonious embrace. The earth's fruitfulness responds to heaven's righteousness. Advent waiting becomes trust that God will give what is good, so the land—and the community—may yield increase. Explore what it means for the congregation to embody that kiss.

The Patience That Is Salvation

Second Peter reframes the delay of Christ's return: what seems slow is divine patience, because God does not want any to perish. Preach this as a call to repentance without panic. The coming day will dissolve what is false and bring a new creation where righteousness dwells. Therefore, waiting is not passive; it is striving to be found at peace, without spot or blemish. The angle connects Advent longing with ethical urgency: how do we live now in light of the promised new heavens and new earth?

Lordship of Christ

“Men become used to it until they imagine that there is something more admirable in a great man of their own day, a statesman or a conqueror, than in Him the latchet of whose shoes statesmen and conquerors are not worthy to unloose.”

— Unknown, The World's Great Sermons, Vol. 4 (ed. Kleiser)

Christ our shepherd

“Here is tender nearness: so near are they, that they could not possibly be nearer.”

— C. H. Spurgeon, Evening by Evening

Vanity of the world

“All flesh is grass, and all the glory of it as the flower of grass. The grass withered, and the flower hath fallen away; but the word of the Lord abideth for ever.”

— Cyprian, Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 5