Third Tuesday of Advent
16 December 2025
More than words
As Advent moves deeper,
the Scriptures shift their focus.
Yesterday we were asked whether we recognize the King when He comes.
Today, the question sharpens:
What does real repentance look like when God draws near?
The first reading from the prophet Zephaniah is not gentle.
It is uncomfortable…
and intentionally so.
Zephaniah preached in Jerusalem during the reign of King Josiah, just before one of Judah’s greatest reforms.
The city was outwardly religious
but inwardly corrupt.
Worship continued.
Sacrifices were offered.
But obedience was missing.
So Zephaniah speaks plainly:
“She listens to no voice,
accepts no correction;
in the Lord she has not trusted.”
For a Jewish audience,
this is devastating language.
Israel’s identity was built on listening:
“Hear, O Israel.”
To say that Jerusalem no longer listens is to say she has forgotten who she is.
Religion has become habit rather than relationship.
Ritual has replaced repentance.
It’s an age old problem that we still see today with many of us.
And yet
even here
God is not finished with His people.
Zephaniah looks beyond judgment to restoration.
He speaks of a future moment
when God will give the people “pure lips”
language that in Hebrew refers not just to speech,
but to worship rightly ordered.
God will purify not just behavior,
but the heart behind it.
And then comes the most surprising promise:
“I will leave in your midst
a people humble and lowly.”
Not powerful.
Not impressive.
Not self-justifying.
But humble.
In Israel’s Scriptures,
humility is not weakness;
it is not self-deprecating
It is truthfulness before God…
knowing who you are and who God is.
That humility is the soil where salvation grows.
That brings us directly to the Gospel.
Jesus tells a parable that would have struck His Jewish listeners immediately.
A father asks two sons to work in his vineyard.
Vineyards were loaded with meaning in Jewish tradition:
they symbolized Israel herself,
God’s covenant people.
The first son says “no,” but later repents and goes.
The second says “yes,” but never shows up.
Then Jesus asks the question that turns the story into a mirror:
“Which of the two did the father’s will?”
The answer is obvious…
and dangerous.
Because Jesus immediately applies it to real people standing in front of Him:
“Tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God before you.”
This is not an insult…
it is a diagnosis.
Tax collectors and prostitutes were people whose lives clearly showed they were far from God.
But when John the Baptist came preaching repentance,
they listened.
They changed direction.
They took responsibility.
They were baptized.
They acted.
The religious leaders, on the other hand,
had the language of faith
but without the movement of faith.
They said the right words.
They maintained appearances.
But when God called them to conversion,
they refused to budge.
Again, a well-attested problem for us church people today.
Jesus is exposing a truth that runs all through Scripture:
God prefers an honest sinner who repents
over a comfortable believer who does not.
This is not about moral superiority.
It is about responsiveness.
Advent is not asking whether we say the right things.
It is asking whether we are willing to change direction when God speaks.
Zephaniah promises that God will preserve a people who are humble enough to listen.
Jesus shows us who those people often are…
not the ones who look righteous,
but the ones who know they need mercy.
That’s uncomfortable.
But it’s also hopeful.
Because it means that no past failure disqualifies us…
but present stubbornness might.
Advent repentance is not dramatic or theatrical.
In Jewish thought,
repentance — teshuvah — literally means turning around.
It’s movement.
It’s action.
It’s obedience lived out over time.
The son who said “no” did not stay there.
He turned.
He went.
He acted.
The question for us today is simple, but demanding:
Where have I said “yes” to God with my words,
but not yet with my life?
And where might God be inviting me, even now
to turn, to listen, and to begin again?
Because the vineyard is still there.
The Father is still calling.
And Advent reminds us:
there is still time to go to work.