Looking into the Lectionary
Second Sunday of Advent
December 7, 2025
Matthew 3:1-12
“In those days, John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.’”
I’ve been thinking a lot recently about what constitutes a good apology.
Maybe this is because I keep stepping in it. This fall, I seem to have acquired the unfortunate superpower of unintentionally making people angry. My beloved seminary Hebrew professor Carson Brisson used to tell us the longest he’d ever gone without making a mistake was 14 seconds. These days, I’m pretty impressed by his record. Not sure the last time I went longer than 10.
Maybe this is because we all keep stepping in it. We’ve recently emerged from the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, yet none of us feel like enough progress has been made that we won’t land there again. We are a people polarized, traumatized, and exhausted — and it shows. Our whole society is on edge, quick to criticize and slow to reconcile. Add to that the pressure of the holiday season, when expectations and emotions run high…well, let’s just say I think the precise theological description of the world right now might be “a dumpster fire.”
Into our holy dumpster fire of an Advent Season, John the Baptist speaks a word about repentance.
Most of what I know about apologies, I have learned in the rooms of a Twelve Step Program. The twelve steps talk not about apologies, but about amends. This is perhaps a better word than apology because making amends implies not just claiming mea culpa but also taking restorative action to fix – mend – the situation and relationship. This is the territory of repair and restoration.
I think that’s exactly what John means by his favorite word: Repent. Literally, the Greek translates “turn around” — change our ways. Live our lives in such a way that our future looks different from our past.
In the twelve steps, steps eight and nine are the most directly related to the process of amends. Step eight asks us to “[make] a list of all persons we [have] harmed and [become] willing to make amends to them all.” In step nine, we “[make] direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.” A typical amends involves naming what we have done wrong to the person we have harmed (confession) and telling them what we plan to do to differently going forward — or asking them how they might like to see us repair the harm (repentance).
Notice there is no room in the amends process for self-defense or lengthy explanation. The template is simply, “I did wrong and hurt you. I am sorry. Here’s how I will change my behavior in the future.”
Recent psychological research on what constitutes a “good” apology says the same thing. It’s natural to want to justify ourselves and explain why we did what we did, but that serves the apologizer much more than the apologizee. As Marjorie Ingall, co-author of Sorry, Sorry, Sorry: The Case for Good Apologies puts it “Intent is far less important than impact when it comes to apologies.”
Ultimately, the goal of repentance is not getting it right: it is allowing ourselves to be transformed by the grace of God and repairing our relationships with God and one another. To that end, I must admit that I prefer John the Baptist in Luke’s gospel, where he spends less time yelling about snakes and more time giving his listeners practical instructions for how to live a transformed life (Luke 3:10-14).
But that’s step nine, and the steps are meant to be done in order. Perhaps for this Second Sunday of Advent, we are invited to simply sit in the tension of step eight: Are we willing to make amends? Are we ready to be transformed? The Christian life is a lifelong journey of confession and repentance. This Advent season, how might we allow ourselves to be transformed and take the next step toward restored relationships?
Reflection questions on the second Sunday of Advent
- What constitutes a “good apology” to you personally? Can you remember an apology you received that felt good? How about one that felt not-so-good?
- Every Sunday in worship, we confess our sin together. What is a small way you could follow up on that confession this Sunday, making the move from confession and apology to repair and repentance?
View the corresponding Order of Worship for the second Sunday of Advent
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Each Advent, we are invited to slow down and pay attention — not just to Christmas on the horizon, but to Christ’s presence with us here and now. Draw Near, written by Outlook Editor/Publisher Teri McDowell Ott, is a daily devotional that helps you do just that.
