Hi everyone,
Welcome to worship for this 3rd Sunday of Advent, landing on December 14, 2025!
This service won’t be live streamed, unfortunately, but the sermon that will be shown is posted on this page along with its manuscript below it. You can also access the bulletin for the non-live-streamed service here. It will have the order and words for the people in person, so you can read what happened during the service without actually seeing it happen. Feel free to go through the service at your own time and view the sermon in whatever manner you feel comfortable with.
May God’s unending presence fill you with joy, today and always!
https://youtu.be/KDk0fFYtSAk
(Video will go live on December 14, 2025 at 10am PST)
Pour out your Spirit in this place, O Lord, and may the wisdom of your Word and truth blossom in our lives and flourish our joy, though Jesus Christ, the One who is, was, and will always be. Amen.
So our kids, their friends, and their friend’s friends have been on this thing that quite honestly makes me want to poke my own eyes out. Kids ranging from elementary school to about early high school, basically the exact age of 2 of our kids, have been staying this stupid thing any chance they get. The worst part of it is that they think it’s hilarious for no particular reason, so they keep saying it and pointing it out and laughing whenever it happens. Maybe you know what I’m talking about. 6 7. 6 7. 6 7. For goodness sakes.
It’s ok if you don’t get it. No one does. But still, these kids think it’s hilarious. Any instance of the digits 6 and 7 in that exact order in any situation, no matter how inappropriate, will make them look at each other, giggle, and make this hand motion that only adds to the head-slapping nonsense. Sure, we can look up the origins of this phenomenon, but it won’t make it more understandable. We can try to figure out why it caught on, but it won’t make them stop. We can even try to adopt it and start saying it ourselves, but it still won’t make funny out of that which isn’t funny. And to be honest, doesn’t that seem to be the case with much of what the kids laugh at these days?
I mean, humour these days just isn’t what it was like before. In my day, we had real comedy, like legendary stand-up routines that literally left me in uncontrollable laughing fits. We had classic and memorable movies that would make us laugh just by thinking about them and reciting their lines in our heads. And of course, we had timeless jokes like, “Hi hungry, I’m dad.” Gets me every time.
But these days? These days kids laugh at these nonsensical memes like this 6 7 thing. They find humour in the most ridiculous sources that are more confusing than anything else. They just think the weirdest stuff can be considered funny. They don’t understand how jokes should be smart and insightful and can serve as a commentary on the state of the world. They don’t see how humour can come from a place of seriousness and maybe even pain, but it moves us to smile anyway. They just don’t get that what they think is funny isn’t actually funny.
And… when the heck did I turn into this grumpy old man? Thank goodness we don’t have a front porch that I can sit on with my shotgun yelling at those young whippersnappers to get off my lawn.
But you know what I mean, don’t you? Maybe not just around the humour of these days, but kids now aren’t built the way they used to be. They aren’t as resilient. They aren’t as hardworking. And they most certainly aren’t as religious as we are as it’s so evident in our own greying hair and declining numbers.
Things just aren’t the way they used to be.
Which is fine, I guess, because we all know and can accept the fact that things change. But aren’t they supposed to change for the better? Doesn’t progress mean moving forward? Shouldn’t we be moving away from the dark, broken, and totally unfunny society that we’re in now and towards, I don’t know, more joy?
So it’s in times like these, when I think about the state of the world and how I’m not really happy with where we are even after all these years of learning, growing, and progressing as a human race, that I can totally resonate with John the baptizer’s very innocent and telling question, “Are you, Jesus, the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”
I mean John has it way worse than my kids squandering the rich tradition of impeccable humour that I passed down to them. John, at this point in the story, was in prison. Jailed for doing nothing more than speaking truth. For calling out poor judgement and a lack of morality. All John did was stand up to the king of that land and point out his short-sighted hypocrisy, his depravity of ethics, and his selfish evil that had the king seduce his own sister-in-law. Actually, maybe I can see why the king decided to put John behind bars, but that doesn’t make it right.
Because the world isn’t supposed to be like that, is it? The world shouldn’t be so full of corruption, lust for power, and petty vindictiveness, should it? The world wasn’t meant to stay so broken and lost, especially if the promised Messiah is supposedly here in our midst, was it?
That’s what John probably was thinking as he sat there shackled to the floor. He might have been disappointed that he was now sleeping in the dirt with various rodents and not given his three square meals of locusts and honey. He must have been disillusioned with how things didn’t improve, continued to be devoid of joy, and that he wasn’t freed as he was led to believe and was still behind bars.
And perhaps in more ways than one.
John was literally in jail, yes, but he was also imprisoned in his own inability to see past his preset ideas of how things should be. He was actually caged up, but he was also trapped in his own closed-mindedness that told him there is only one right way how things should be. John sat there disappointed in his incarceration, but was also stuck getting in his own way, holding himself down, keeping his eyes shielded from all that Jesus has been doing, is doing, and continues to do for the sick, the poor, and all those in need. All the hope in healing, all the peace in persevering, all the joy in Jesus’ presence with, among, and through the people.
So then that makes me think, what jails us in our lives? What perhaps nonsensical non-negotiables do we hold on to that keep us from seeing, hearing, and feeling God with us? What preconceived closed-mindedness has kept our eyes from recognising that hope, peace, and joy in our lives?
Just a few minutes ago, I was complaining about the kids and their 6 7 meme and their complete lack of “normal” humour. But to be honest, those were my feelings at the beginning of when this whole thing started. And while I still don’t think it’s all that funny, I am seeing the joy that it brings to these kids. Enough that they almost hoot and holler when they see or hear those numbers in a big way. Enough that they are connected to each other with this not-so-inside joke. Enough that no matter what they’re currently up to and maybe even feeling, just the mention of an instance of 6 7 can bring a smile to their face.
Enough, for me to even sort of sometimes maybe in a small tiny way, get into the hype. I use it to get my kids to laugh. I sometimes make fun of it so they know that I care about what they care about. I might even say it here and there, just to cheer them up. I said it to a kid at a field trip just earlier this week, and I tell ya it looked like that totally made his day.
Now I want to be very clear, it still isn’t funny. I’m not saying that we all need to start laughing whenever 6 7 shows up. Nor do I think that it’s something that has been ordained by God to bring the people together or anything like that. But I have to admit it is a point of connection for these kids who have faced a lot that they might not realise or comprehend through the pandemic. It is how some of us can find joy, not in the unfunny joke itself but in the joy of others who do find it funny. It is a place where we can find some sort of respite from the seriousness of the world, and be freed to just laugh. Laugh with our loved ones. Feel connected through community. See the joy that Jesus brought and continues to bring in and around our lives.
And maybe not just through this goofy meme that makes no sense, but throughout life. Maybe we can see how we’re freed from the things that shackle us in the darkness. Maybe we can see how we’ve been saved by God from being held back in our own cages of narrow-mindedness. Maybe we can see how Jesus is, was, and will always be with us and, in spite of whatever we’re facing, lifts us up and grants us joy.
So on this 3rd Sunday of Advent, as we continue to look forward to one who is to come, may we see God’s presence with us, here and now, that we might recognise how we’re loved and joined together as a body of Christ, and brought into the hope that leads us into the peace that brings us an eternal and everlasting joy. Thanks be to God. Amen.
