THIRD SUNDAY OF ADVENT – DECEMBER 14, 2025
ADVENT 2025
THIRD SUNDAY OF ADVENT
DECEMBER 14, 2025
In the “Kin-dom” of Heaven
Rev. Dr. H. James Hopkins
(Rev. Hopkins is pastor emeritus of Lakeshore Avenue Baptist Church)
Matthew 11:2-11 (NRSVUE)
When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples 3 and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” 4 Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: 5 the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, those with a skin disease are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. 6 And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.”
7 As they went away, Jesus began to speak to the crowds about John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to look at? A reed shaken by the wind? 8 What, then, did you go out to see? Someone[c] dressed in soft robes? Look, those who wear soft robes are in royal palaces. 9 What, then, did you go out to see? A prophet?[d] Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. 10 This is the one about whom it is written,
‘See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way before you.’
11 “Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist, yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.
“Whoever is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.” Matthew 11:11b
While we cannot escape the fact that every last one of us is subject to the realities of the here and now, the invitation of Jesus is for us to see that, even in the midst of the here and now, we may also belong to the kin-dom of heaven.
We know a lot about the here and now. In the here and now, might makes right. In the here and now, the weak, sick and tired are forgotten and ignored. In the here and now, we learn to live in fear. In the here and now, nothing is more precious than fame with celebrities being guaranteed a place at the front of the line.
The kin-dom of heaven is a topsy-turvy place where things can seem upside down for in the kin-dom, the mighty are brought down and the poor are lifted up. In the kin-dom, the weak, sick and tired are the center of attention. In the kin-dom, no one needs to be afraid.. In the kin-dom, the least are the greatest.
In Matthew chapter eleven Jesus speaks to the crowd about his friend John the Baptist. He praises John as the greatest of the prophets, as a magnificent human being, as one deserving of the crowds that have flocked to the desert to see him. Yet, he instructs them that, in the kin-dom, the last, least and left out are greater than John, for the kin-dom is truly a topsy-turvy way of being.
At the very least, this means that we need to think again when we are told that we, those we love, the communities we belong to, are insignificant and irrelevant, unnecessary and unneeded. At the very least it means that we need to raise questions when we are told that we, those we love, the communities we belong to, are unwanted and unloved. Such messages do not square with the promise of the kin-dom.
It also means that, even if we find it hard to believe, there is something of John the Baptist in each of us, a courage that lurks, a truth that breathes, a strength that pulses, a greatness that will emerge when it is needed most.
We cannot escape the here and now. Yet, as citizens of the kin-dom, as those deemed by Jesus as greater than even John the Baptist, we can transform it, we can transcend it.
Loving God, Help us daily to claim our identity as citizens in the kin-dom of God and so develop our John the Baptist like traits, values and virtues. Amen.