United Church of Christ of Seneca Valley

Sunday, December 07, 2025

2nd Sunday of Advent

Advent Sermon Series - What do you fear? Insisting on Hope

This series looks closely at the fear and terror looming in the background during the time of King Herod and invites us to consider the fears we hold now. This series gently invites us to identify where fear is present—both in the Advent story and in our lives—while also finding our way toward hope, with the angels’ voices in our ears. 

Sermon Title: When We're Running Out of Hope, God Is at Work

John the Baptist sends word to Jesus from his prison cell, asking, “Are you the one?” John has spent his entire life preparing the way for Jesus; but from his prison cell, now certainly facing death, the future looks grim. Like John, even the most confident of us wonders from time to time: Is all this work worth it? Does anything I do matter? Am I on the right track? We can’t always see the fruits of our labor, yet God is at work anyway. How might we, like Jesus and Isaiah, point to the places where God is at work in our world? How might we keep hope alive?