Dove Sermons

Sermon based on Matthew 3:1-12

Like I mentioned last week, there’s a strange tension the Church deals with every December. On the one hand, the world is humming with joy: houses glowing, Christmas playlists running, kids counting down the days, and grocery carts full of sugar and butter like we’re all collectively training for the Great American Bake-Off.

On the other hand, the gospel lectionary hands us John the Baptist.
And John… does not match the décor.

There are no warm fireside vibes in camel hair and a leather belt. There’s no soft glow around locusts and wild honey. John steps onto the Advent stage with all the social subtlety of a brick. He looks like someone who hasn’t been inside a building in a decade and talks like someone who isn’t auditioning for “most inspirational quote” on Instagram.

And his first public words?
“Change your hearts and lives.” (or, in other translations he simply says, “Repent!”)
That’s the welcome mat.

His second line?
“You children of snakes!”
Which, to be fair, is not a phrase I’d recommend weaving into your Christmas cards.

Yet here he is, our Advent companion, shouting from the Judean wilderness, calling us to turn around, rethink everything, examine our lives. John doesn’t care if this feels festive. He cares if it feels honest.

And if Advent is really about preparing room for Christ… in our world, in our homes, in the quiet, unexamined corners of our own lives, then maybe John is exactly the person we need. Not because he’s warm and approachable, but because he names what we usually try to politely avoid.

John as Elijah: The Man Who Signals a Turning Point

Matthew goes out of his way, borrowing lines from Old Testament prophets… Isaiah, Malachi, Exodus, and echoing 2 Kings, to tell us that John isn’t just a quirky wilderness preacher. He’s Elijah 2.0. And that matters.

In ancient Israel, the prophet Elijah wasn’t remembered for being gentle. Elijah was the guy who walked straight into the king’s house and said, “You have forgotten God, and this is not going to end well.” He confronted power. He exposed injustice. He reminded Israel of who they were supposed to be when they’d drifted too far into who they preferred to be.

John shows up wearing Elijah’s uniform because Matthew wants us to understand the stakes.
This isn’t business as usual.
This isn’t seasonal sentiment.
This is a turning point.

When John appears, Matthew signals to the reader: “We’ve entered the moment the prophets warned us about. This is the day of the Lord. God is coming.”

And if God is coming, if the world is about to turn, then something in us needs to turn too.

Repentance Isn’t About Shame—It’s About Alignment

The word “repent” often gets tangled up in our heads. We picture someone yelling it on a street corner surrounded by cardboard signs predicting doom. But biblically, repentance, metanoia, is far less punitive and far more hopeful.

To repent is to turn.
To change direction.
To recognize when we’ve been walking one way and choose—intentionally, courageously—to walk another.

It’s not about beating ourselves up for the things we’ve done wrong.
It’s about waking up to the life God is calling us toward.

Repentance is not God wagging a finger. It’s God holding a door open.

John is inviting people to break away from the assumptions, habits, and cultural narratives that shape life in what scripture calls “the old age”—a world built around fear, scarcity, violence, exploitation, and competing allegiances. And he invites them to step into something better: the values of God’s realm—justice, mercy, generosity, peace, courage, dignity, wholeness.

John’s message is dramatic, yes. But beneath the fire and fury is a deep hope:
“The world does not have to stay as it is.”
“You do not have to stay as you are.”

Repentance is the doorway into transformation.

The Wilderness as Classroom

A funny thing happens when John starts preaching: people leave the city to go hear him. They walk out of Jerusalem, the religious capital, the place where everything sacred is supposed to happen, and they meet God in the wilderness instead.

The wilderness is where Israel first learned how to trust God.
It’s where the clutter and noise of civilization fall away.
It’s where there’s nothing left to rely on except God’s presence and provision.

John doesn’t preach in the shadow of the Temple.
He preaches where they can hear again.

It’s striking that Matthew tells us even the religious leaders, the Pharisees and Sadducees, wander out to see him. They’re curious. Maybe threatened. Maybe assessing whether this wilderness prophet is a problem to be solved or a movement to be taken over.

But John is not impressed.
“Don’t even start with me,” he says (I’m paraphrasing slightly).
“You children of snakes.”

This isn’t polite disagreement. This is confrontation.

And he isn’t calling them children of snakes because they’re Jewish, or because they’re religious, or because they’re leaders. He calls them that because they claim to speak for God, but aren’t living it.

Their faith has slipped into entitlement, “We have Abraham as our ancestor.”
Their identity has drifted into autopilot, “We’re the good ones. We’re the faithful ones.”
Their fruit, their actions, don’t match the trust they profess.

John’s point lands hard:
“Don’t tell me your heritage. Show me your life.”

It’s not about spiritual pedigree but spiritual practice. The kingdom isn’t inherited; it’s lived.

“The Ax Is Already at the Root”

John’s imagery gets even sharper:

“The ax is already lying at the root of the trees.”
Meaning: This is urgent. This matters right now.

John sees people, leaders especially, who are spiritually thriving in name only. They have leaves, but no fruit. And John, still channeling Elijah, says: “That’s not going to cut it anymore.”

We know this moment too well. We know what it’s like to maintain the appearance of health while something deep inside us is withering. We know what it feels like to be busy instead of whole, admired instead of honest, functional instead of flourishing.

John’s imagery is not about punishment, it’s about honesty.

An unfruitful tree doesn’t need shame; it needs intervention. It needs pruning. It needs turning. It needs to be reclaimed by the God who wants life for it.

And sometimes, the Advent invitation is simply this:
Are you willing to tell the truth about where you’ve stopped growing?
Are you willing to let God cut away what no longer gives life?

Baptism: A New Beginning

People flock to John because his message takes hold of them, there’s something true about his words that resonate in their souls.

So, they wade into the Jordan River, the same river their ancestors crossed when they entered the Promised Land for the first time, and they confess. They drop their pride. They name what’s broken. They let the cold water rush over them as a sign that they’re stepping into a different future.

John’s baptism is not Christian baptism. It’s not the sacrament we practice.
Instead, it’s a ritual of preparation, a turning of the soil, a clearing of the ground, so that something new can take root.

What John is doing is announcing a new Exodus. A fresh start for Israel. A clean slate for anyone willing to step into the river.

And then he says something stunning:

“I baptize with water those of you who have changed your hearts and lives. The one who is coming after me is stronger than I am. I’m not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.”

John is saying: “I can call you to change. But Jesus can actually change you.”

The Holy Spirit is the power of the new age breaking in.
Fire is the imagery of refining, burning away what’s false, illuminating what’s true, purifying what’s worth keeping.

The Hardest People to Change Are the Most Comfortable

One of the commentaries I read this week put it bluntly: repentance gets harder the more invested you are in the way things currently work.

If your life fits the world as it is, why change?
If the system benefits you, why question it?
If the status quo treats you well, why imagine another way?

That’s why John’s sharpest critique is aimed at the Pharisees and Sadducees—not because they’re villains, but because they are the people most likely to mistake comfort for faithfulness.

Most of us today aren’t too different.

Advent invites us to ask:
Where have we become too comfortable?
What assumptions do we make without questioning?
What narratives do we carry… about ourselves, about our neighbors, about the world, that need to be surrendered so something new can flourish?

Repentance isn’t a one-time experience. It’s a posture of readiness. It’s recognizing that God may break into our settled lives and say, “It’s time to learn a new way now.”

Preparing the Way Today

Some Advent sermons lean heavy into judgment. Others lean exclusively into hope. John forces us to hold both.

The message is hopeful because God is coming.
The message is urgent because we must be ready.

But let me name something we often miss: John is not only preparing people to receive Jesus. He is training us to prepare the way ourselves.

John is a model for the church.

We are called to be wilderness voices… clearing paths, naming truth, helping others navigate a landscape cluttered with competing narratives and exhausted souls.

Preparing the way looks like:

• Turning toward truth, even when the lie would be easier.
• Letting go of habits that numb instead of heal.
• Asking harder questions about our assumptions.
• Challenging the internal stories that keep us stuck.
• Opening our lives to the Spirit who still refines, still renews, still creates.
• Choosing practices that align us with the kingdom—not because we have to, but because we’re being drawn toward something better.

John reminds us that the Christian life isn’t inherited.
It’s lived.
It’s shaped.
It’s practiced.

Where the Sermon Meets Real Life

Maybe part of our Advent work is identifying the places where we feel the tension between who we are and who we are becoming.

Maybe for someone here it’s recognizing that anger has been steering the ship too long.
Maybe for someone else it’s admitting that fear is making too many decisions.
Maybe it’s a relationship that needs honesty.
Maybe it’s a habit that needs naming.
Maybe it’s a pattern that needs breaking.

Repentance is not what God demands before loving us.
Repentance is what frees us to receive the love that’s already pouring toward us.

John is not shouting to shame us. He is shouting because he sees what’s at stake. He knows what’s possible when people turn toward God with open hands and honest hearts.

The Promise at the Heart of All This

The loudest words in this passage are “change your hearts and lives!”
But the most important word may be “near.”

As in, “The kingdom of heaven has come near.”
Meaning: God is already moving toward you.
God is already at work.
God is already breaking open a new future.
God is already stirring the waters.
God’s new world is already pressing into this one.

And the question John asks, thousands of years later, is still the right one:

Does your life make room for it?
Do your habits make room for it?
Do your assumptions, your attachments, your priorities make room for it?

Advent isn’t just about what happened in Bethlehem.
It’s about what’s happening now.
It’s about the God who still arrives, unexpected, unpolished, but unmistakably present, calling us to turn, to wake up, to prepare the way.

The world doesn’t get better by accident.
And neither do we.

But Christ is coming.
And that is reason for hope.

So maybe the question for this week is not:
“Do I feel joyful enough for the season?”
But instead:
“What fruit is growing on the tree of my life?”
“What needs to be pruned?”
“What needs to be nurtured?”
“What new thing might God be planting in me right now?”

John stands in the wilderness, announcing that a better world is breaking in.
And Advent invites us to step toward it…
honestly, humbly, courageously.
Because the same Spirit that rested on Jesus rests on us,
and the same fire that refines can burn in us,
and the same kingdom that drew near in his day draws near again today.

May we have the courage to turn.
May we have the wisdom to bear fruit.
And may we have the hope to believe that God is not done with us yet.

Amen.

Written by: Rev. Dave Wasson