Sermon for the Second Sunday after Pentecost – December 7, 2025

by Jeffrey Spencer | Dec 9, 2025 | Sermons

Sermon for the Second Sunday of Advent – December 7, 2025

Matthew 3:1-12

Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.

Throughout the centuries, when John the Baptist has been depicted in Christian art, he usually has his finger out, pointing. Artists have felt free to take liberties with his clothing, interpreting for themselves just how rough or refined that camel’s hair tunic might have been. They have given him a variety of hairstyles, often with a wild, frizzy mane, making him look like he’s the lead singer of an 80’s rock band, other times giving him a goofy medieval bob and bangs cut like we see in the picture on our screen today. But in nearly every depiction of John the Baptist, across centuries and styles, there is that finger, pointing.

What we see on the screen this morning[1] is a close-up of a section of the Isenheim Altarpiece by the Reformation-era artist Mattias Grunewald. Just look at that finger, pointing. Notice how it is unnaturally elongated. Grunewald wants you to notice it. He wants you to notice it because it is John’s job to point.

Pointing is considered rude most of the time, and some of the pointing we see John doing in our gospel reading for today does feel a little offensive. John is pointing to people’s sin. He is pointing to their need for repentance.

“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” This was John’s message. Citing the prophet Isaiah, he called people to prepare the way of the Lord by making his paths straight, by removing every obstacle that gets in the way of receiving him. People were coming out to the wilderness from all over the region of Judea to repent. They came to confess their sin and to be washed with John’s baptism of repentance and forgiveness.

Apparently, John didn’t care much about being perceived as rude, because when both the Pharisees and the Sadducees came out to him, he pointed that finger of his right in their faces and called them a brood of vipers! He called them the offspring of snakes! In using this language, he was calling them pawns of the devil. Talk about rude!

What is interesting about the Pharisees and Sadducees is that they were theological opposites. These two groups did not get along. They were not carpooling out to the wilderness together, that’s for sure! The Sadducees were the theological liberals. They were squishy on doctrine. They were loose with their interpretation of the scriptures, not holding it as all that authoritative. They made all kinds of cultural accommodations in an attempt to curry favor with the powers that be and maintain their popularity among the elites. The Pharisees, on the other hand, were theological legalists. They were strict enforcers of religious law, adding their own extreme layers of interpretation to God’s law and then showing no mercy towards those who didn’t keep it. They were self-righteous and sanctimonious, always looking down on others who supposedly weren’t as holy as they were.

To John the Baptist the Pharisees and the Sadducees were two sides of the same coin, and so he gives them all the finger. The pointing finger, that is. They were all full of deceit and hypocrisy and wickedness, each in their own way. Though each group thought of themselves as godly, the truth was that their hearts were far from God. And as they inflicted their different versions of faithlessness on others, they had become sons of the evil one, pawns of the devil himself.

John went on to point out how both groups were relying on their relationship to Abraham as the basis for their relationship with God. He points out how they thought that their status as descendants of Abraham automatically gave them a special status with God.  But that’s not how it works, John tells them. “God is able from these stones to raise up children of Abraham,” John says. “Even now the ax is lying at the root of the tree.” Your family tree is irrelevant here, John is saying. This isn’t a matter of genealogy, it is a matter of faith and its fruits, so bear fruits worthy of repentance!

I don’t mean to be rude, and I’m not going to point, but I have to ask: What is John the Baptist’s finger pointing at in your life? What does repentance look like for you? What sins need to be confessed and turned away from? What obstacles need to be cleared away in your life in preparation for the Lord’s coming? Are you a libertine? Or a legalist? Are you placing your trust in God or in something else? Perhaps in an ideology or in a family association or in a heritage or in the fact that your name is on a membership list in the church office?

John the Baptist and his finger always show up this time of year. Sometimes I get irritated at the lectionary for this. Do we really need two doses of John the Baptist every single Advent? (We get him again next week.) But I think there is wisdom in it. I think there is wisdom in being pushed to listen to John during this season because this is a time of year when the obstacles getting in the way of our Lord’s coming to us are bigger than ever. There are more distractions than ever. We are more overscheduled than ever. There are more temptations than ever to look for joy in stuff and in self-indulgence. There are temptations to eat too much and drink too much and spend too much. And all this overindulgence is given a vaguely religious gloss as just being part of the seasonal festivities. What of faith and its fruits? Where are they? How are they being cultivated?

We need John’s finger pointing at our need for repentance, especially this time of year, when there are so many distractions and so many temptations. We need John’s finger to help us avoid the hypocrisy and the faithlessness and the casual assumptions of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.

But John’s finger doesn’t just point at our sin. It also points to our savior. John calls us to repent because the kingdom of heaven has come near. John is preparing the way for the coming of Christ, who will bring heaven itself to all who put their faith in him. You see, the kingdom of heaven is not just the assurance of a comfy spot inside the pearly gates after we die. It is that, but the kingdom of heaven is also a relationship we enjoy with God now as he comes to rule our hearts through the grace and mercy of his Son.

John’s finger points us to Jesus and the new baptism he brings. John tells the crowds that one who is more powerful than him is coming. “He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire,” John says. John is using symbolic language to describe how the baptism Jesus brings will be different from his. John’s baptism was a touch-up job, while Jesus’ baptism will bring a whole new life. Christian baptism is a baptism into the very presence of God, who purifies us from sin once and for all by joining us to Jesus and his eternal forgiveness.

John goes on to use the imagery of a farmer separating wheat from chaff. If you’ve ever been to a threshing bee you’ve seen how that beautiful, valuable, precious grain is liberated from the chaff, from the obstacles which had been separating it from the farmer. That precious grain is gathered in, while the obstacles are burned in an unquenchable fire, never to return again. This is what Jesus is coming to do, John is saying. There is a threshing bee coming, and he’s coming to gather what is precious to him. He is coming to gather you.

Notice the lamb at John’s feet in Grunewald’s painting on the screen. This lamb is clinging to a cross and shedding its blood into a chalice. That lamb is Jesus. John called Jesus the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. This is who is coming. This is who will usher in the kingdom of heaven. This is who John is ultimately pointing us towards.

Jesus said that John the Baptist was the greatest of all the prophets. Martin Luther once explained that John was the greatest of prophets, “not because of his austere life, not because of his phenomenal birth, but because of his blessed finger, because of his message and his office…” “No other man,” Luther writes, “had such fingers as John’s, with which he points to the Lamb of God and declares that He is the true Savior who would redeem the world from sin…For he is the ultimate of all prophets and preachers; no more comforting word and finger will ever appear than John’s word and pointer.”

Today John the Baptist certainly points us to our sin. But even more than that, he points us to our savior. Repentance includes both a turning away from sin and a turning towards our savior in faith. And so John points us to the Lamb of God, who even now is pouring himself out for us. He poured himself out for you in your baptism, and so you are not the offspring of the serpent. You are children of God! Jesus, the Lamb of God, pours himself out for you in his Holy Supper, where you take in his grace and mercy anew from that very chalice. Jesus pours himself out for us through his Word, renewing us in faith so that we would bear its fruits.

Don’t fear John’s finger. It only does it’s rude pointing so that it can then point you to the kingdom of heaven, which has come near to us even now as God clears the way, removes every obstacle, forgives every sin, and sends Jesus into our hearts by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer

Oak Harbor Lutheran Church

[1] https://www.wikiart.org/en/matthias-grunewald/st-john-the-baptist-detail-from-the-annunciation-from-the-isenheim-altarpiece-1516

Sermon for the First Sunday of Advent – November 30, 2025

by Jeffrey Spencer | Dec 2, 2025 | Sermons

CLICK HERE for a worship video for November 30

Sermon for the First Sunday of Advent – November 30, 2025

Romans 13:11-14, Matthew 24:36-44

Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.

Advent begins with an alarm clock. Alarm clocks are meant to startle. They emit loud noises that are meant to wake you up. In many cases, the sound of an alarm clock is unwelcome – especially when we are comfortable, especially when we open our eyes and it is still dark out, especially when we want to go back to sleep.

Advent begins with an alarm clock. Our readings are meant to startle. They are meant to wake us up. They are meant to rouse us out of our comfortable slumber and to draw us out of the darkness and into the light of day.

St. Paul sounds the first alarm. He says to us, “Now is the moment for you to wake from sleep!” Paul barks at our bedside like this because, he says, “Salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the night is far gone, the day is near.” Paul then tells us to get dressed! He tells us to “lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.” He calls us to strip off the things people wear in the dark – revelry and drunkenness and debauchery and licentiousness and quarreling and jealousy – and instead to put on the Lord Jesus Christ. “Let us live honorably, as in the day,” Paul says. The new day is dawning, so act like it! Wake up! Get dressed!

I wonder how many of you, upon hearing these words of St. Paul in our epistle reading, do what I do many mornings, which is to reach over and hit the snooze button. I wonder how many of you heard it, were mildly roused, and then mentally went back to sleep.

Well, not so fast, because the alarm when off again just moments later when we got to our gospel reading, and this time it comes from Jesus himself.

Jesus is talking about the final coming of his kingdom. He clearly says that about that day and hour no one knows. Then he goes on to emphasize the importance of being awake. He says that before the final coming of his kingdom it will be like the days of Noah. People were eating and drinking and marrying and giving in marriage. In other words, they were carrying on with their daily lives. They were carrying on with their comfortable routines. There’s nothing inherently wrong with eating or drinking or marrying, of course. The problem, if you remember the story, was that the people in Noah’s day were doing all of this while being completely asleep to the reality of God. There was no one who had faith in God except one man, Noah. Everyone else was sleepwalking through life. They were in the dark, completely oblivious to God.

This is what it will be like at the coming of the Son of Man, Jesus says. People will be busy with the day-to-day activities of their lives, but they will fall asleep to the presence of God. Jesus warns that some will be caught sleeping and miss the coming kingdom altogether. “Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming!”

Advent begins with an alarm clock, because this is a perennial problem. It begins with an alarm clock because human beings have spiritual narcolepsy – we are always nodding off. It begins with an alarm clock because we get so comfortable in our slumber, especially when it is still dark out.

Paul’s concerns are perennial. We can’t dismiss them. We shouldn’t hit the snooze button on them. They are not just Paul’s words, but, by the power of the Holy Spirit, they are God’s Word to us. And God sees how we prefer to stay in the dark. God sees how many people dedicate their lives to revelry, living solely for the pursuit of selfish pleasures, and only end up in the shadows of despair. God sees how many people cope with the dark by numbing themselves with alcohol and other substances. God sees how many people cast aside God’s good law, given for the sake of human flourishing, and instead make up their own rules and chase whatever feels good in the moment. God sees how many people are caught up in the quarrels and jealousies of the day, living as though the entire point of life is to dunk on your opponents. Wake up! God says. There are more important things for you to focus on. Now is the time for you to rise from this darkness. Now is the time for you to rise from sleep. The day of salvation is nearer than it has ever been, so act like it. Wake up and get dressed!

Jesus’ concerns are perennial too. Does it not seem like we are living in the days of Noah? Do we not see wickedness and violence and people doing what is right in their own eyes, ignoring God? Do we not see people sleepwalking through their lives, going about their routines while utterly in the dark about what God is up to? And we aren’t just talking about people outside the church. We aren’t just talking about those who don’t believe. Many Christians are sleepwalking through life too, living as functional atheists, going about their days without regard for what God is up to, getting so caught up in their daily activities that they fall asleep to the reality of God.

A good example of this is seen in the way worship attendance has dropped off in the last several years – a phenomenon which has been seen across the church, in nearly all denominations. It was thought that after the pandemic, everyone would flock back to church. But instead, it seems, a lot of people fell asleep, and a lot of them haven’t woken back up yet. Studies have shown that even those who were eager to come back are far less frequent worshippers than they once were. This doesn’t make me mad so much as it makes me sad. And it makes me sad not only for us, who miss their voices and their presence in the pews here in-person, it makes me even more sad for them, for what they are missing.

It makes me think of the time a few years ago when the Washington Post conducted a little experiment. They had the world-renowned violinist Joshua Bell play his violin in a subway station in New York. He was playing one of the finest instruments in the world, a Stradivarius violin worth 3.5 million dollars. He played some of the most exquisite music ever written for 45 minutes. Hundreds and hundreds of people were coming and going, and almost no one stopped. He had a hat out for tips and received 30 dollars over those 45 minutes. Just days before he sold out two shows in Boston with tickets averaging 100 dollars a seat, but there in that New York subway, people were just too busy to notice. Most just walked right past him.

The experiment was conducted to study the role of perception and context in the appreciation of art, but I think it is a powerful illustration of this spiritual slumber we are being warned about today. It is so easy for people to get so busy with their daily lives that they miss the beautiful things God is doing right under their noses in the church. The church is our ark. In fact, many sanctuaries are built to look like the ribs of a large boat for just this reason. The church is the ark where God saves his people. The ark is where the beautiful music of the gospel is played. Too many people, though, can’t be bothered to stop and come in and hear it.

In his preface to the Small Catechism Martin Luther wrote that if people really believed that Jesus Christ was truly present in the Lord’s Supper, they would come running to receive him every Sunday. If they really believed he was there in, with, and under the bread and wine forgiving their sins and giving them a foretaste of the heavenly banquet, you wouldn’t be able to keep them away! The problem is, they don’t. Or they do, but they forget. They start sleepwalking through their lives, asleep to the reality of what God is up to.

Do you see why Advent begins with an alarm clock? Our faith needs to be roused, lest we fall asleep. For those who are awake, who are here to hear the beautiful music of the gospel, we need to be encouraged to keep awake. Don’t you fall asleep too! And not only that, but perhaps we need to take a cue from St. Paul and think about rousing our brothers and sisters in Christ who might be sleepwalking a bit. We don’t need to be a buzzer in their ears, but we can perhaps rouse them awake with a phone call and an invitation: “Hey, we miss you. Come and hear the beautiful music of the gospel. It’s worth waking up for. It’s worth stopping to listen to.”

Not all alarm clocks have a grating, alarming sound. Sometimes we need that, but that isn’t the only way to wake up. My wife works in the high school library and needs to be over there bright and early every school day. A few years ago, she got an alarm clock that is actually a light. It wakes her up by slowly getting brighter and brighter, mimicking the sunrise. It is just as effective as one that rings or buzzes, but it rouses her by light, by telling her that a new day is dawning.

This is what Advent is about too. The color for Advent used to be purple – it still is in some churches. The purple comes from the understanding that Advent is a sort of a mini-Lent. It is still technically a penitential season in preparation for the celebration of the festival of Christmas, but in recent decades the color has more and more been changed to deep blue. This blue is intended to lift up themes of hope, themes of anticipation. It has been said that this deep blue is meant to represent the color of the sky just before dawn.

Sometimes we need a buzz in our ears to wake us up. But God sends his light to do it too.

The light of his promise shines through Paul’s words as he tells us that salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers. This is what we’re waking up to, to salvation! We’re waking up to the healing and wholeness Jesus has won for us, which we begin to receive even now. We are waking up to hope, to peace, to faith in God’s promises. We wake up to put on the Lord Jesus Christ, leaving behind the darkness and living a new life through faith in him.

The light of his promise shines through Jesus’ words as he speaks of his coming again. This is why we want to keep awake, because it is our gracious Lord and savior who is coming.

Even now we can hear the beautiful music of his saving grace. This beautiful music of his redeeming love has called us into the ark, which will deliver us into the new day he has in store for us.

So keep awake.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer

Oak Harbor Lutheran Church

Sermon for Christ the King Sunday – November 23, 2025

by Jeffrey Spencer | Dec 2, 2025 | Sermons

CLICK HERE for a worship video for November 23

Sermon for Christ the King Sunday – November 23, 2025

Luke 23:33-43

Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.

A sign hung over Jesus as he was being crucified. It said, “This is the King of the Jews.” It was put there ironically, as a joke. Some king he was, pinned there between two criminals, naked and bleeding, soon to be dead! Most of the people below him were in on the joke. They joined in, scoffing at him, mocking him, deriding him. The word “if” came up a lot. “He saved others, let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one.” Or as the soldiers said, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself.”

One of the criminals being crucified beside Jesus joined in on the mocking from the people below. He derided Jesus, ridiculing him with sarcasm: “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself! And get us down from here while you’re at it!”

That sign identifying Jesus as the King of the Jews may have been intended as a joke, but there was one there who understood that it was true. The other criminal somehow saw in Jesus’ innocent suffering that something divine was happening. He somehow saw that Jesus’ crucifixion was his coronation. He somehow saw in Jesus’ crown of thorns a real king about to enter his kingdom.

And so he rebuked the other criminal who was talking trash to Jesus. “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.” This criminal recognized that he was getting what the law demanded. He accepted his own condemnation. He acknowledged his own guilt while pointing to Jesus’ innocence.

And then he said something truly remarkable. He turned his head towards Jesus, and he said to him, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Notice he didn’t use the word “if,” like so many others did. He said “when.” He firmly believed Jesus had a kingdom! As far as he was concerned, there was no “if” here, it was only a matter of when! That’s faith!

He then asked Jesus to remember him when he comes into his kingdom. This is more than just asking to be called to mind. He wasn’t asking Jesus to put a picture of him on his fridge and think about him once in a while. In asking Jesus to remember him when he comes into his kingdom, this criminal was asking him for mercy when Jesus takes his place in his royal court. He was asking his King Jesus for pardon, for clemency in the coming kingdom. He was asking the King he knew would soon be on his heavenly throne to remember him with grace.

And Jesus said to him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”

“Today,” Jesus said. On that very day Christ’s kingdom would come to him. There would be no waiting, no delay. He wouldn’t be taken down from the cross for a second chance in which he could prove himself first. He didn’t have to come back for a hearing at a later date. “Today,” Jesus said. His grace was imminent. It was available on the very day of his asking! “Today.”

“Today you will be with me,” Jesus said. This criminal would not be alone. He would not be cast out into the outer darkness. He would not be stuck with his mouthy fellow criminal. He would not be dumped with all the other bodies piled up at the bottom of the hill. He would be with Jesus. He was going where Jesus was going.  “You will be with me,” Jesus told him.

“Today you will be with me in Paradise.” Jesus doesn’t tell him he will be in Purgatory, with a sentence still to serve. Jesus tells him he will be with him in Paradise. This word can also be translated as “garden.” What Jesus is promising is a return to the Garden, a return to the paradise of Eden before the fall. He is promising a complete restoration, where he will be free from sin and its consequences, free from the condemnation of the law, free from guilt and shame and pain and weeping and death.

Jesus won’t just remember him, he will re-member him. That is, he will put him back together the way he was supposed to be. He will heal everything in his life which has been dis-membered. He will restore him to the wholeness and perfection God intended for him at the beginning of creation. This is the picture of heaven Jesus gives him with this beautiful word, “Paradise.” And if anyone questions this criminal as to why he is there, he can just point to the King and say, “He invited me! He let me in!”

My pastor during my high school and college years died from cancer while I was in seminary. We kept in touch in the years before his death, even after he took his last call to a congregation in Arizona. Once when I was down in Arizona on a trip, we met for lunch. He talked about how he endured all the ups and downs – mostly downs – of dealing with a terminal illness. He said that in his worst moments of suffering he would sing a chant he had learned, a musical setting of the words of the criminal from the cross: Jesus, remember me, when you come into your kingdom.

This didn’t entirely make sense to me at the time. He was one of the most godly, honest, upright, gentle, and kind people I have ever known, and I thought it was a little odd for him to be meditating on the words of a criminal, making them his own.

But years after he died, I came across something Martin Luther wrote about this criminal and his words. Luther wrote: “The criminal, perceiving his guilt and Christ’s innocence, trusts that Christ’s innocence will help him. He sees right into the heart of Christ, as though through a solid wall. The criminal is one of us, and we are like him; therefore, let us cry out to Christ trusting that He will say to us: `Yes, Amen!’

“The criminal is one of us, and we are like him,” Luther insists.

You don’t need to be a felon to need forgiveness. The scriptures tell us we all have fallen short of God’s law. The scriptures tell us that if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. The truth is we all need mercy in the court of our King. The truth is that we all suffer from sin and death. The truth is we all need to be re-membered and restored.

But this is just the first part of what Luther gets at here. Luther also says that we are also like the criminal in that we perceive that Christ can help us! We are like him in that we too see the heart of Christ in his innocent suffering for us! We see his great mercy. We see his great love. We are like this criminal in that we trust that our Lord Jesus will help us. We cry out to Jesus trusting that he will say to us, “Yes, Amen!”

Reading this snippet from Luther helped me make sense of my pastor singing the words of this criminal. He didn’t just meditate on them because he knew he was a sinner – although he certainly did and would be the first to admit it. He meditated on these words, making them his own, because he had faith that Jesus could help him.

He sang those words over and over again because he believed that the words on the sign hanging over Jesus’ head are true. Christ is indeed our King, and he is a King who can help. He is the King of mercy. He is our highest authority and our deepest hope. He is a King who suffers alongside us while promising us Paradise.

When the world looks to Jesus, it still sees that sign over his head and laughs, thinking it is all a big joke. It still scorns and derides him. King of the Jews? What kind of King dies on a cross?

But with eyes of faith, we too see that that sign is true. We see in Christ a King who helps us. We see a King who wore a crown of thorns, bearing our sin, in order to set us free. We see a King who suffers with us, so that we would know that he is with us even in our pain. We see a King who shared our death so that we might share his eternal life. We see a King who remembers us with mercy and promises us Paradise.

And so we pray, “Jesus, remember me, when you come into your kingdom.”

And already now, our gracious King says, ‘Yes! Amen!”

Thanks be to God.

Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer

Oak Harbor Lutheran Church