Advent 2025 - Week 2 (Dec 7-13)

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Advent Week 2 (December 7-13)

In this week's Gospel reading, we have jumped forward to an adult John the Baptist, who sends word to Jesus from his prison cell, asking, "Are you the one?" John has spent his entire life preparing the way for Jesus, but from his prison cell, now certainly facing death, the future looks grim.

Like John, even the most confident of us wonder from time to time: Is all this work worth it? Does anything I do matter? Am I on the right track? We can't always see the fruits of our labor, yet God is at work anyway.

How might we, like Jesus and Isaiah, point to the places where God is at work in our world? How might we, like Jesus and Isaiah, point to the places where God is at work in our world? How might we keep hope alive?

This week's readings

Matthew 11:1-11

Isaiah 43:19-21

Visual images for the week

Something In the Water

by T. Denise Anderson

Inspired by Isaiah 43:19-21

Hope Like a Dance

by Lauren Wright Pittman

Inspired by Matthew 11:1-11

This week's poetry... God in the Kitchen

I called home my first semester of college. I told my mom I was fine,

but I was homesick. She must have heard the truth in my voice.

The ache ate at me. It was a long, slow song, a million tiny ants

slurping the juice from a peach. I was tender and bruised,

in the doldrums of it all. But she could hear all of that. So three states away,

she preheated the oven. Three states away,

she tossed blueberries in a thin layer of flour. Three states away,

she dusted a layer of streusel over the soft peaks

of a dozen warm muffins. And three days later,

I unboxed a package from home—

a dozen blueberry muffins, a love letter with my name on it,

a reminder that I was not alone.

If you’re running out of hope, count to three.