A sermon preached by the Reverend Sarah Grondin, at St. Jude’s Anglican Church, Oakville on the Third Sunday of Advent, December 14, 2025.
I speak to you in the name of our loving, liberating, and life-giving God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
I’d like you to imagine with me for a moment, John’s situation in our gospel reading today. He’s trapped in a dark and dank prison cell, with no bathroom, no clean clothes, and very little access to food or water. Perhaps he’s pacing back and forth, tied up with chains, but weighed down even further with his misgivings.
When one of his followers arrives to visit, John sends him to carry a message — a single question, really — that will settle his doubts once and for all. All that was left now was to wait, to wait and see whether he had spent his life in vain.
Given this rather gloomy setting, with John on the edge of hopelessness, in many ways our Gospel passage today seems like an odd choice. The Third Sunday of Advent is often called Gaudete Sunday—which means Rejoice!—and we mark it by lighting the rose candle on our Advent wreath, symbolizing that joy is breaking through the waiting.
But our Gospel reading for today doesn’t sound terribly joyful, instead it begins with a question asked from a prison cell. John the Baptist, the fiery prophet of the wilderness, now sits in confinement. The one who proclaimed with such certainty, “Prepare the way of the Lord,” now sends word to Jesus: “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”
This question matters because it comes from John. If anyone should be sure, it’s him. As a babe he leaped in his mother’s womb when Mary came to visit his mother Elizabeth. He baptized Jesus. He heard the voice from heaven. And yet, in the darkness and silence of prison, John wonders.
John’s question isn’t simply about doubt; it’s about expectation. John had preached a Messiah who would bring judgment, who would clear the threshing floor, who would burn the chaff with unquenchable fire.
But Jesus’ ministry looks rather different. Instead of overthrowing rulers, he heals the sick. Instead of punishing sinners, he eats with them. Instead of bringing swift justice, he brings mercy.
To be fair, John’s questioning shouldn’t really surprise us. He is, after all, in prison and, so far, the things he predicted and longed for haven’t happened. When John announced the coming of God’s kingdom and proclaimed Jesus as God’s anointed, he expected the world to change; and yet, months later (maybe even years?), everything seems dreadfully the same.
John saw Jesus as the summation of God’s promises to Israel; and now, sitting alone in a prison cell, he’s still waiting for that promise to be kept.
So although the John we hear from this week sounds rather different than the John we heard from last week, I think we can extend some sympathy… after all, aren’t we too still waiting for the consummation of the Christmas promise: the promise of peace on earth, and goodwill among all people? It only takes a quick peek at the headlines, and sometimes even our own homes, to make it clear that peace and goodwill are scarce commodities.
When John’s disciples return with an answer from Jesus, they speak of hope and the truth of the good news, but not in a way that will immediately alleviate John’s personal suffering and difficulties. Jesus harkens back to the promises of the Old Testament as tells John’s disciples what to recount: Jesus has been giving sight to the blind, making the lame walk, healing diseases, making the deaf hear, and even raising the dead.
But one important thing has been omitted from Jesus’s list, which John was surely hoping to hear. Jesus makes no mention of the captives being set free. John, like many others of his time, was looking for a strong Messiah, a Messiah who helped those who helped themselves, a Messiah who knew how to stand up for himself, a Messiah to be proud of.
What he gets instead is Jesus. And measured against John’s hopes and expectations, Jesus would seem to fall disappointingly short of the mark. The people Jesus seems preoccupied with — the lame, the deaf, the poor, the ill, and the dead-- aren’t exactly the movers and shakers of the world—especially the dead.
These people weren’t going to change anything. They were the social outcasts and economic losers of John’s day, the kind of people who could barely fend for themselves let alone help anyone else.
Why then does Jesus make such a fuss about them in his answer, when John asks for some indication that Jesus is the One that he’s been waiting for?
My guess is that its because these folks all share one thing in common with John, whether John wants to admit it or not, and that’s their need.
Now I know talking about our needs can be frightening. We live in a world that preys on the weak. From an early age we’re taught to trust no one, to take nothing for granted, and to cover all our bases.
And when push comes to shove, we try to hide our insecurities, our failings and our fears behind our houses and careers, our successes and achievements. Until, that is, we hear the word “terminal” or “downsized” or “divorce,” and we suddenly know ourselves to be just as fragile and vulnerable as anyone else.
I think sometimes we feel stuck between God’s promises made, and God’s promises kept…between Christ’s first coming in humility and his second coming in glory.
And in those times when we feel disappointed in ourselves, the world, and even God, we may find ourselves whispering a prayer as desperate as it is ancient: Come, Lord Jesus, come.
And so God does come to us, eager to join us in our weakness, to hold onto us in our insecurity, and to comfort us in our fear. Jesus didn’t come for the strong and the proud, he came for the weak and vulnerable. In other words, Jesus came for us.
Gaudete Sunday reminds us that joy doesn’t require everything to be resolved, because our joy isn’t rooted in circumstances, but in God’s faithfulness. Joy isn’t found by escaping waiting, but by learning to see what God is already doing within it.
Advent honesty begins here. Waiting is rarely comfortable. Waiting exposes our fears. Waiting strips away our illusions of control. And yet it’s precisely there, in the waiting, that joy must somehow be found.
So what does it look like practically, to rejoice while we wait?
First, it means learning to notice grace. Joy grows when we train our attention toward signs of God’s work—small healings, quiet reconciliations, moments of unexpected kindness. These don’t erase the darkness, but they’re steady lights within it.
Second, it means grounding ourselves in hope rather than outcomes. Christian joy isn’t optimism; it’s confidence in God’s faithfulness. We rejoice not because we know how the story will unfold, but because we know the One who writes the story.
Third, it means living the joy we await. As we wait for Christ to come again to heal our wounded world, we’re called to participate in that healing now—through mercy, generosity, patience, and love. Joy deepens when it’s shared.
This third Sunday of Advent reminds us that waiting and rejoicing aren’t opposites in the Christian life. They belong together. We wait because the kingdom isn’t yet complete. We rejoice because it’s already begun.
So as we continue our Advent journey, may we not despise the waiting, nor try to rush past it. Instead, may we learn with John to ask honest questions—and with Jesus, to see signs of hope.
And may the joy of Christ, which doesn’t depend on circumstances, take root in us as we wait for the One who has come, who comes still, and who will come again. Amen.
