Advent 2

May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)

SEASON: Advent 2
PROPER: B
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: December 5, 1999

TEXT: Mark 1:1-8 - THE BEGINNING OF THE GOOD NEWS OF JESUS CHRIST.
"John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins."


ISSUE: Unlike a biography, Mark's Gospel is a "proclamation" of the Good News. It is presented like an announcment that The Son of God has come, and the sins (debts) of the world shall be forgiven. There is the forerunner, John the Baptist, who goes before The Son of God to call all people Jew and Gentile alike to repentance, change and readiness for the new Kingdom. The problem today is that not too many people are aware of the need for change. Change what when everything seems so good, i.e. affluent. Yet much festers under the surface that needs our attention as we embrace the renewed coming of Christ.
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The Gospel reading for today is difficult for us to really appreciate, but struggle with it along with me.
We begin today at the beginning, at the very opening verses of Mark's account of the Gospel. Throughout the year we will be giving special attention to Mark's Gospel account. It is the shortest of the accounts and is thought to be the oldest account that we have of the story of Christ's mission and ministry. The Gospel of Mark is rather straightforward, and is written in the style of a "proclamation." It is not a biography of Jesus. Mark takes no time to tell us about Mary and Joseph and the details of Jesus' birth. Mark does not need Mary and Joseph, and their ancestry to give Jesus the honor status. Mark sees Jesus as the one who was to come, Son of God, and that is honor enough.He goes straight to the core of it all: This is the Good News about Jesus Christ, the Son of God."
In these times whenever something special happened, the government would issue a proclamation. A proclamation was sent to the people and they announced various things. They reported military victories. They sometimes reported the birth of a new royal child. The reported the amnesty or the ascendancy of a new monarch. Mark is proclaiming Good News of the coming of The Son of God. Obviously, he uses a royal form of proclamation to give credence and honor to the fact that Jesus as Son of God is indeed royal. And in these times the coming of a monarch was reason for the people to get ready, and to prepare, and shape things up in their area of that aniticipated coming. Thus, a messenger is sent ahead to herald that coming, and quoting from Isaiah and Malachi: "See I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way; the voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight."
Around Jerusalem was the prophet John, who was referred to as John the Baptist. John plays something of the role of the hearld of the goodtidings. He is the one preparing the way, and who is a figure very much like Israels favored and most honored prophet Elijah. He fulfills Malachi's statement (4:5) Before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes, I will send you the prophet Elijah . . ." John wears animal skin, a coat of camel hair and a leather belt, as proclaimed of Elijah 2Kings1:8) "He was wearing a cloak made of animal skins, tiked with a leather belt." John is preaching and teaching in the wilderness, that is, he is standing outside the controlled stuctured society. He is calling people out of the routine into a place to give special attention to the message of hope, that will also stand outside the normal routine ways of the world.
The non-elite people begin venturing out into the desert to hear John, and his heralding message. He himself makes no claims to honor, only to declare that one far more honorable than himself will come, who sandal thongs he is unworthy to stoop down and tie. Again notice the great honor and royal status being proclaimed here. John says that he will baptize, cleanse, immerse the people with water, but the great one will baptize them with a holy wind or spirit. The baptism of John is for all both Jew and Gentile alike. Now, at the time there was a liturgy of baptism for Gentile people who converted to and accepted the Jewish God, Yahweh. They had to be purified from the past idolatry and uncleaness. Jews themselves, however, because of their ancestry were not required to be baptized. What John is (and Mark too) declaring is that all people need cleansing and preparation to receive the Christ. You cannot depend upon you birthrite and ancestry. Each and every person has to make their ready preparation to receive the Christ.
Now John calls for a baptism of repentance for forgiveness of sins. The need for forgiveness in these times was quite significant. Who were these people who came out to hear John. They were the non-elites. They were the expendable people. They were the people without land and status. They were the beggars, the prostitues, the people who were the dispossessed. Taxes were quite high. Many people lost everything that they had. Sin was debt. They were all in debt. To be forgiven from sin was analgous to being released from indebtedness. Remember in the Lord's Prayer it reads in many translations, "Forgive us our debts, as we forgive the debts of others." The very idea that one was coming who would forgive them their debts meant that they were about to come upon an age where they would be restored to dignity and worth again. This was what the coming of the Empire of God was all about. You had to be ready, and be made clean, and prepared to step into the Kingdom of God. And there you will receive and be baptized into The Holy Spirit of God. John comes bringing hope to a forlorn, disenfranchised people, preparing them and readying them to follow the coming King, and step into his Kingdom. John is the realization for these people of Ezekiel's vision of new hope and life for Israel (36:25), "I will sprinkle clean water on you and make you clean from all your idols and everything else that has defiled you. I will give you a new heart and a new mind. I will take away your stubborn heart of stone and give you an obedient heart. I will put my spirit in you and will see to it that you follow my law and keep all the commands I have given you. Then you will live in the land I gave your ancestors. You will be my people, and I will be your God. . . . " And so here was the beginning and anticipation of something new and wonderful. It was a great message of hope for an alienated and destitute people.
In the beginning, I said that this Gospel passage was a difficult one for us today to grasp. It's difficult because so many of us think, if not all of us at one time or another, are not at all sure that we want to or need to change anything. Politically we seem strong. The economy in this country is reported to be the richest of any economy of any economy or era in the history of the world. So John (and Mark) calling the world to repentance and readiness, calling for cleansing and renewal, for preparedness for the coming of the Christ seems hollow. It seems unimportant, irrelevant. It seems that Jesus already came and everything just seems to be fine, with a few glitches here and there, but what does it have to do with me.
There is something that haunts me. There is this man that seemed to have everything, well almost. He had a nice family, and there are pictures of him dancing with family and friends. He had a really good job, and money in the bank. He had a nice home. He was comfortable it seemed to say the very least. Every external thing anybody seemed to know about him appeared to be normal and fine, and he appeared to be without problems. Then why di he take the yoke of the Egyptair plane and apparently turn it nose down and plunge it into the sea along with more than two hundred other people. I know the investigation of that terrible incident is still in porcess, although reports seem so clear that there was some deliberate action taken to cause the destruction.
Why is it that often people who seem to have so much, and who are by the world's definition so blessed will take some destructive path of action? Why will a man or woman suddenly take flight from their families and abandon them? Why do people and children take perfectly wonderful bodies and minds and destroy them with drugs and alcohol? How is it that people who are relatively well off and affluent can see pictures of other lands and people starving or oppressed and not feel some compassion that calls for action of some kind? How is it that we can run up and down the stairs, and yet never notice that for some people stairs are a barrier for handicapped people? Good as we may seem to be, and as good as things around us may be there is still underneath of it all a greed, an inability to sacrifice for one another significantly. There is a rigidness in our complacency and self-satisfaction.
I am reminded of pre-school age children who will fight over a toy. They see sharing as loss, not as opportunity for growing friendship and enriched relationships. It is frightening to the small child to give something up and share. That mind set seems to carried over into adult life sometimes, if not quite often.
There are those of us who cannot let go of their racial and class prejudices. We cling to a sense of superiority that says if I accept others, then somehow I will be diminished. Inspite of the fact that the varieties of cultural thinking, and different wasy of seeing things and doing things can and do enrich us all.
Isn't it curious to you, it is to me, that we have some of the best schools in the world, the most beautiful and attractive homes, the beautiful cities. Still, there are those many pockets of hatred and violence so severe that it is warlike.
There is an inclination to think in terms that tell us that they things that are wrong in the world are always someone else's fault. Never our own.
Is it not just possible that we need to take a look deeper into the human heart? Don't we sometimes have to recognize that there is still a desperate need for the human to think human more deeply about what we are doing and how the human heart may need to be changed? The human spirit may very well need to look at Christ again, to recognize a need to be opened to change and new ways of seeing and feeling about life. The non-elites of Jesus time recognized their poverty and so longed for restoration to dignity and place. I am believe that we all need this restoration in every age, and especially in this age where we have learned to cover-up and avoid, and have become in many ways so insensitive to a deeper human need to be closer to God.
Don't you sometimes feel like we need to say and pray: God help us. God come again and be with us. God our stark crass individualism and our affluence has blindedness us. We are in the dark when comes to know what we should do. Lord Jesus Christ come again, renew us, open our eyes to see you in the world around us, and help us to receive a new heart, mind, soul that gives us our true human dignity, and that embraces your Holy Spirit. Help us to get our act together, because there are times when we are so destructive without realizing it.
The Gospel is about Good News. The Son, one who has the qualities of God has and will come among us. We need to be ready to make the appropriate changes, the repentance, that renews a right spirit within us so that we become resonant with him.