Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“He said,
‘I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness,
“Make straight the way of the Lord” ’,
as the prophet Isaiah said.”
NL Daily Devotion for Sunday, December 28, 2025
by Madison Johnston, Clergy Stuff
Main Idea: The Christmas season is the ultimate time for us to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ.
The act of proclamation—the practice of declaring what is true—has been a part of what the Christian church, universal, has understood as its differentiator from its inception. In a life of faith, proclaiming the good news doesn’t mean what proclamation means in secular circles, in politics or drama or even generalized rhetoric. In a life of faith, proclaiming the good news means wielding a cosmic influence that isn’t quite your own. In a life of faith, proclaiming the good news means speaking truth to power, and changing minds and hearts as your own mind—your own heart—also continues changing. Growing.
You’d think, then, that proclamation is a complex, nuanced thing. You’d think that proclamation requires some kind of specialized knowledge or training or tradition. But it’s just the opposite. The things we are called to proclaim in Christ are simple. They’re all the way broken down. They’re baseline things that help both us and the people around us reorient. Refocus. Recharge. Proclamation is where the heavenly meets the earthly. Where we can make sense out of things that wouldn’t ordinarily make sense. Where we can see and hear and feel the otherwise just-out-of-reach.
There is perhaps no more textbook proclamation than the testimony of John the Baptist. When Priests and Levites confront John the Baptist, quite obviously looking for the one they did not yet know (the one understood to be the Messiah), John did three confoundingly simple things in response.
1) He denied being who he wasn’t, even though the Priests and Levites wanted him to be who he wasn’t,
2) He told them who he was, citing prophetic traditions he knew they would recognize in an attempt to draw and foster connection,
3) He told them why he does the things he does—where his inspiration comes from.
And in these three things, John became incredibly powerful. John had people listening to him. John had people paying attention to him. And John had people making big decisions based on his account of his slice of the world.
As we transition out of the season of Advent and into the season of Christmas, let us ask the same question these Priests and Levites asked of John the Baptist: “What do you say about yourself?” Because your testimony—your proclamation—matters.
Who are you? Who are you not? What histories do you tie yourself to? And what futures are you trying to build up in Jesus?
