2nd Sunday in Advent - Prepare the Way

Sunday 7th December 2025 is the second Sunday in advent, today we light two candles on the advent ring. The first candle symbolises Hope and the second candle symbolises Peace.

Today we also look at the birth of John the Baptist who prepared the way for Jesus.

Opening Words from Isaiah 40:3-5

A voice of one calling: “In the wilderness prepare the way for the Lord^, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. ⁴ Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain. ⁵ And the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all people will see it together. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

Hymn 457 Make way, make way https://youtu.be/alCQ7fb0hEA

Prayers and Lord's Prayer

Children's Address:

Zechariah's code from Scripture Union

Offering for the work of the church

Bible Reading: Luke 3:1-18

Hymn 249 How lovely on the mountains, Our God reigns https://youtu.be/n82_H4yabC4

Talk

This is the forgotten story of Christmas, the birth of the one who would be the forerunner of Jesus, the one who would make the paths straight and point to Jesus. His birth is also important in the story of the birth of  Jesus.

Let us look closer at the birth of the forerunner-

His parents, unlike Mary and Joseph were of priestly royalty.

Zachariah was an old family name, traced right back to the great Zachariah, the prophet whose songs and visions are recorded in the Old Testament. Zachariah is a name full of history or authority and promise. He was from the priestly line. This priest was the father of John the Baptist.

Likewise, Elizabeth was part of the family of the tribe of Levi descended from Aaron the brother of Moses, so she too was of noble descent. This was the mother of  John the Baptist.

However, Zachariah and Elizabeth had something missing in their lives, they had not been blessed with children, there was no one to whom they could pass on the family name. No more Zachariah’s in the family, all that history and authority and promise would end with them.

It is no wonder then that they had prayed so often and so hard for a child, particularly a boy.

But time was against them, Elizabeth was past childbearing age and they both had to accept that God had his reasons for not giving them a child.

Until that was on this special day in the great city of Jerusalem that something very special happened to Zachariah (and Elizabeth).

It was only once every year that a Priest was selected to enter the Holy of Holies, the place where the Ark of the Covenant was. It was a privilege afforded to one priest a year, an opportunity of a lifetime.

Zachariah was chosen and would enter the holiest part of the Temple and there pray for the Jewish nation. Can you imagine how excited he and Elizabeth were that he had been chosen as the priest for that day?

Into the temple Zachariah went hardly daring to touch the curtains to open them to go inside, close to the very heartbeat of God. And here literally Zachariah met God.

When I was preparing this, I was reading an advent passage of Moses, completely bewildered and lost having run away from Egypt, when he sees a burning Bush, he begins to move closer wondering why the Bush is not consumed by the flames. As he does so he hears a voice ‘take off your shoes for you are standing on holy ground’. Moses approaches the Bush and speaks with God.

Here Zachariah approaches the Holy of Holies, the Ark of the Covenant and stands in the very presence of God.

Suddenly the dim light began to glow brighter and brighter until it filled the place with an overwhelming startling blindness, just as God's glory had filled the temple in Isaiah's vision.

A being was there with Zachariah, it was as if heaven had opened its door and Zachariah was looking into the room of God. The Angel uttered the same words as it did to Mary later on ‘do not be afraid I have good news, you and Elizabeth will have a son and you will call him John’

We are told that it was not the Angel or the message that surprised Zachariah, rather it was the name, John.

It was then that Zachariah needed proof, that this would indeed happen, doubt began to form in the old priest’s mind and as the Angel Gabriel saw it, he declared that he would give him a sign. He would be speechless until the child was born. And then the Angel left Zachariah.

Meanwhile the people outside were becoming a little bit restless, why was he in there for such a long time, had he become ill?

Then he stumbles outside, pale shattered and humble. He tried to tell them what had happened, but as we know he couldn't speak, so all he could do was make signs. What they did understand was that something overwhelming had happened to him, they just were not sure quite what that was.

They suspected that God had appeared to him, but what He said to him they didn't know.

Zachariah tried desperately to make signs so that they could understand what had happened to him, but they weren't sure what some of the signs meant.

Then God kept his promise, Elizabeth conceived a child, a special child, the fore runner to the Messiah, a cousin of Jesus. It was 8 days after the birth of John that the family gathered for the naming ceremony, quite rightly they expected the child to be called Zachariah after all that was what you did. But strangely Elizabeth kept insisting that he be called John. There had never been any John’s in the family so why was she so insistent?

They looked puzzled at Zachariah, who asked for a chalkboard and on that chalkboard, he wrote ‘his name is John’

Suddenly from that very moment Zachariah began to speak again.

He broke into song, a song of utter praise to God. Let’s listen to Zachariah’s song of praise.

Luke 1:67-80

⁶⁷ John's father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit, and he spoke God's message:

⁶⁸ “Let us praise the Lord, the God of Israel! He has come to the help of his people and has set them free.⁶⁹ He has provided for us a mighty Saviour, a descendant of his servant David.⁷⁰ He promised through his holy prophets long ago⁷¹  that he would save us from our enemies,    from the power of all those who hate us.⁷² He said he would show mercy to our ancestors and remember his sacred covenant.^73-74 With a solemn oath to our ancestor Abraham    he promised to rescue us from our enemies and allow us to serve him without fear,⁷⁵ so that we might be holy and righteous before him    all the days of our life.

⁷⁶ “You, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High God. You will go ahead of the Lord    to prepare his road for him,⁷⁷ to tell his people that they will be saved by having their sins forgiven.⁷⁸ Our God is merciful and tender. He will cause the bright dawn of salvation to rise on us⁷⁹     and to shine from heaven on all those who live in the dark shadow of death, to guide our steps into the path of peace.”

⁸⁰ The child grew and developed in body and spirit. He lived in the desert until the day when he appeared publicly to the people of Israel.

We rarely ponder on this birth at Christmas, and yet this is just as significant.

Throughout the Christmas story, we see that God has put things in place, so that all those prophecies in the Old Testament  that pointed to who Jesus is, would come true.

Isaiah talked about one who would prepare a way, John the Baptist is the one who prepared the way.

Nothing, nothing, surrounding the birth of God’s Son was left to chance, God wanted the birth of Jesus to be perfect and to fulfil prophecy.

It was exactly as God intended it to be.

Choosing the most unlikely people, not the rich, not the powerful, but the faithful, the quiet, the ones who would obey.

Today, we are called to be like John the Baptist, to prepare the way for Jesus to shine as a light in the desert.

This Christmas we should not be afraid to say ‘I am a Christian and I believe that Christmas is about Christ’.

We are called to celebrate the gift of the Son of God into our world, into our lives.

This Christmas, let us put Christ where he belongs, at the very centre, let us point others towards the child in the manger.

Amen

Hymn 211: Hark the herald angels sing https://youtu.be/T3IghOn18VY

Prayers of Intercession

Jesus the Prince of Peace on this day where we focus on peace bring peace to your troubled world. We pray particularly at this time for Ukraine, Chad and Sudan where conflict continues. We pray for the fragile peace in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, for the people living amongst the rubble having lost everything. We pray for the victims of the floods in Indonesia and Sri Lanka where villages have been washed away and the survivors have no homes or work.

We pray for our own country, for the homeless, the lonely, the sick and for those with family problems. Not everyone has the luxury of a comfortable home with kind and caring friends and family. Bring your peace and harmony to those in conflict with others, make them kind and considerate to everyone.

We pray for the church members and adherents on our prayer list and for others known to us.

Hymn 491: O Come all ye faithful