Sunday, December 7, 2025 – Advent II
First Congregational Church of Cheshire
© the Rev. Dr. James Campbell
Isaiah 11:6-9
The wolf shall live with the lamb;
the leopard shall lie down with the kid;
the calf and the lion will feed together,
and a little child shall lead them.
The cow and the bear shall graze;
their young shall lie down together;
and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp,
and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den.
They will not hurt or destroy
on all my holy mountain,
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea.
Romans 15:7-13
Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God. For I tell you that Christ has become a servant of the circumcised on behalf of the truth of God in order that he might confirm the promises given to the ancestors and that the gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. As it is written,
“Therefore I will confess you among the gentiles
and sing praises to your name”;
and again he says,
“Rejoice, O gentiles, with his people”;
and again,
“Praise the Lord, all you gentiles,
and let all the peoples praise him”;
and again Isaiah says,
“The root of Jesse shall come,
the one who rises to rule the gentiles;
in him the gentiles shall hope.”
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
“The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them.”
Years ago, Marcos and I and some American friends hiked to the top of a Brazilian mountain to catch a bird’s eye view of the colonial village below and the Atlantic just beyond it. At the top of that mountain there was an old fort. It was closed that day, but strangely the gate was open and so we decided to go have a look.
While exploring, we noticed a very large bird circling overhead and having no idea what it was or what it wanted, we asked Marcos, but he wasn’t sure. About the same time, two other people arrived. So, Marcos decided to ask them about the bird. But when he turned, his foot got caught in the large stone outcropping upon which he was standing. The next thing we knew, he was flying through the air and crashing to the ground below. And once we got to him, it was clear that there was something wrong with his arm and shoulder.
The two strangers rushed to our sides. And before I could understand what was really happening, Marcos was on the back of their motorcycle and on his way down the mountain to the tiny village hospital below. The rest of us followed on foot as quickly as we could.
Inside that simple hospital, afraid and relying on my limited Portuguese, I struggled to find out what had happened to him and where he was. But soon enough, they took me back to see him.
The fall had dislocated his shoulder and fractured a bone. And Marcos was in a great deal of pain. But the doctor was at lunch and so, all he could do was wait. When the doctor returned, Marcos was taken to x-ray. I followed as far as I could. But even in the hallway with the door of the x-ray room closed, I could still hear his pain.
There were seats there and so I sat down. And that’s when I noticed her: a little girl of about 8 or 9, all by herself in another seat. Marcos would cry out. I would wince. And the little girl would watch me. Finally, trying to distract myself and not to frighten her, I smiled and said hello. She smiled and asked me if that was my friend in the x-ray room. “It is,” I said. She nodded her head to acknowledge that she understood, because after all, if she was in that hallway, then someone she loved was in one of those closed-door rooms too.
And then this little girl did a most extraordinary thing. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a box of orange-flavored Tic Tacs. She smiled and handed the box to me and said: “Maybe some candy will make you feel better.” Well, it did make me feel better. A lot better, because in that moment I understood that I was not alone, and neither was Marcos.
In the years since that difficult day, I have sometimes pondered the little girl’s meaning to me. I have always assumed that her kindness was an extension of the grace of God; a simple but powerful reminder that we are never alone. But as I considered the lectionary texts for this week, it also struck me that this little girl was more than that. She was also an agent of welcome. I was an outsider, and it was obvious – by the way I looked and the way I spoke. I was not home, but she was. And so, with a box of Tic Tacs, she welcomed me into her world. She made room. She took me in.
“And a little child shall lead them.”
In the first five books of the Bible alone, we are commanded to welcome the stranger more than 36 times. Welcome and hospitality are the foundations of true religion. And Jesus underscored this dictum when he said to us: “I was a stranger, and you welcomed me.”[1]
Sometimes I think that if the church could just get this one right, then maybe God would forgive us for all the other things we have screwed up so badly. But welcoming strangers is hard work. It’s far easier and more expedient to fear them and scapegoat them and use them for our own advantage.
And welcoming strangers was hard work for the early church too. Remember that most of the first Christians were Jews, who saw in Jesus the fulfillment of the Messianic promise. But as the Gospel spread around the Roman Empire, more and more Gentile strangers began to respond to the Jesus story. And as they did, established customs and comfortable norms were challenged. New ideas and customs were introduced. And what had been a rather homogeneous group became a salad bowl of human difference.
And nowhere was this clearer than in the church at Rome. It had been founded by Jewish followers of Jesus but in the years since its founding, had had a large influx of Gentile converts. And so, the church confronted the same old question: should these Gentile outsiders observe Jewish customs in order to be truly Christian?
Now, we might expect that Paul, an observant Jew and a Pharisee, might insist on observing Jewish laws and customs. But he doesn’t. Instead, he makes the bold claim that the Christian faith is far broader than most of us could ever imagine; and that welcoming strangers remains a foundational idea. Paul wrote: “Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you...”
And then Paul implies that a by-product of welcoming strangers is HOPE. And isn’t that odd, in world in which we have been told that HOPE can only be found in conquering the opposition? HOPE can only be secured by winning and by dominance.
But of this welcome that gives birth to HOPE, Paul writes: “The root of Jesse shall come, the one who rises to rule the Gentiles; in him the Gentiles (also) shall hope. May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”
In two short verses, Paul punches the word HOPE three times so that we will not miss the point that HOPE is nurtured in welcome. Hope springs from difference and diversity and making room for all.
And I think that this is exactly what happened to me in that small town hospital, so far from home. That little girl had every reason to be suspicious of me. How many times had her mother told her not to speak to strangers? But you see, she hadn’t yet learned to be cynical. She hadn’t yet learned to wear her anger like a badge of honor. She hadn’t yet learned to make a fortress of her opinions. Instead, she saw need. She saw me. And she welcomed me. And the result was hope.
And in that little girl, all those years ago, the words of the prophet Isaiah were fulfilled: “The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them.”
[1] Matthew 25:35
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