Sunday December 7th, 2025 Worship

When I was a kid, my parents thought it would be a good idea to sign me up for the local swim team. I always loved being in the water, plus it would be a good way for me to build up stamina again after recovering from a few surgeries. I certainly wasn’t the best swimmer on my team, and I was terrible at swimming long distances, preferring the sprint races to the longer ones, but I did enjoy being a part of the team! I think part of the reason I preferred the shorter races had to do with the fact that flip turns were required every time we needed to change directions; I always approached the wall with a little too much hesitation. Let’s just say, I did not look anything like Katie Ledecky, but rather more like a floundering fish!
If you’ve never done a flip turn while swimming, know that it is a skill that takes some practice to get down. Flip too early and you are left scrambling, as your feet don’t make contact with the wall you are expecting to be there. Flip too late, and you run this risk of smacking your head on the pool wall. There is a lot of timing that is involved in executing these turns that competitive swimmers make look so flawless! And, perhaps my least favorite part of all was getting the timing of my breathing down so that I didn’t end up inhaling a mouthful of pool water or having it painfully go up nose. Despite all the challenges to getting these turns down, the intentionality required in them, after a while, they become second nature and could even sometimes be fun…at least, that is what I was told! My brief competitive swimming career was over before I could verify that.
When I was learning how to do these turns, it was a bit disorienting, as everything turned so quickly, in a way that I wasn’t used to on land. There was a recognition that turning around, changing direction, even when it was the right thing to do to avoid crashing headfirst into a wall, wasn’t exactly something that came naturally, but would have to be practiced over and over again. I think this is a helpful example when we look at this idea of turning around, of repentance, that we are given in our Scripture readings today. I think we often expect it to be easy, but in reality, the way that God is turning the world around and the ways that we are asked to change also require some patience and some practice. There is some discomfort involved, because what is best for the well-being of creation isn’t always what we would prefer to do; in fact, it usually isn’t. As evidenced by the Gospel reading today, we can’t just expect God to do all the work so that we can live our lives unchanged. Rather, we are changed by what God has done and is doing, and this will take some adjustment on our part.
Everything at the heart of our Scripture readings this week is centered on this idea of making a full 180-degree turn from the way that things had always been done. Whether it is John the Baptist pointing the way to the coming Christ, baptizing and calling for repentance (Matthew 3: 1-3), an action that quite literally means to turn around, as the people embarked on a new way of life from that point forward, or it is the Isaiah reading which lifts up the way predator and prey will live together in harmony (Isaiah 11: 6-9). Even the human understanding of God is set to turn, as Paul writes about how the Jewish people and the Gentiles are both included in God’s love, as God’s blessed children (Romans 15: 4-13); a reality that many didn’t want to accept. The way that people relate to one another and to the rest of creation is set to change in what God is bringing about in the world.
All of this will be done through the power of the shoot that will come from the stump of Jesse. This isn’t just a promise of ancestry, but even this image in itself shows how God is bringing new life, this shoot, from something that we presume to be dead, the stump. This very imagery is foreshadowing all that is to come through the life and death of Jesus, this one who is turning the world around. This lineage with Jesse is a fulfillment of the Davidic covenant, in which God promised David that the Messiah would come from his lineage, since David is Jesse’s son. Isaiah could have cut out this language, instead just talking about David, but I think it is made even more powerful by the fact that he doesn’t. It is a fulfillment of the promise, but it goes beyond that, to show the interconnectedness even more. What is coming will require a change in perspective and it will ultimately change the direction of our lives. It is the promise of new life, even where it is least expected.
I think it is especially beautiful to get this imagery in Advent because usually this language of repentance, this turning around, comes during the Lenten season, but this isn’t just about us recognizing all the ways that we have failed as humans. In this season of Advent, it isn’t a shaming, but an invitation into this new way of being that will completely change the way we see the world. It may be scary and disorienting. We may want to only dip our toes in, afraid of what is going to happen if we don’t get it right. Realistically, this isn’t something that we are going to get perfect. But, luckily for us, our life of faith isn’t about perfection! We simply have to take the risk to trust God and see the world from this new point of view, as we know that grace is a part of this learning and reshaping too.
This is the hope that we are embodying during the season of Advent. When we are able to return to the beginning, when we have lost the plot of the story in the midst of everything else that is going on around us. It is the hope and promise that God is turning the world around, that the very nature of relationships and how we exist alongside the rest of creation will change as a result. To continue with this swimming analogy, there are so many anchor points that help us be aware of where we are in the water, from the lane lines that keep us from collisions with other swimmers to the flags above that give us a visual cue for how close we are to the wall when we are swimming backstroke and cannot see the markings on the bottom of the pool.
The promises embedded in today’s Scripture are anchor points for us in our lives of faith. That God is active, bringing new life and a new way of being from death and despair, reshaping the world around us in ways that are unexpected and previously unseen; like the shoot growing from the stump. While all of this turning around and reshaping can feel chaotic and disorienting, especially when we want to resist it instead of seeing it as the beautiful nature of God in the world, may the love of God and the grace we are given to turn around be the anchors that give us to courage to take the risk and make the turn. It may take some practice, but that is why we gather weekly, as we support one another along the way. The invitation is there for us, to see the world in this new and beautiful way, to care more for one another and all of creation, to make a full 180 and begin a new path forward, as we live into our identities as the beloved of God; each and every one of us.