Introduction to the text I Hate Waiting Sermon on Mark 1:1-8 by Berry French @ BMPC December 7, 2014, Second Sunday of Advent As we turn to our gospel reading for this Second Sunday of Advent, I want to remind you that we are at the very first verses of the Gospel of Mark where we will encounter the adult John the Baptists. The Gospel of Mark doesn t begin with Mary and Joseph and a baby. Mark has no stories of shepherds or wise men. Mark is very intentional about where he begins - for he begins not with Jesus birth, but with the prophets who foretold Jesus coming. The Gospel of Mark begins by looking back centuries earlier to God s word spoken through ancient prophets like Isaiah and Malachi who long ago foretold of the Messiah s advent, and of a messenger who would come before the Messiah to prepare the way. John the baptizer is so central to Jesus message that all four gospels connect John s story with Jesus story. And all three years of the lectionary cycle assign John the Baptist texts to both the second and third Sundays of Advent. Year after year, John the Baptists helps focus us on ADVENT on the coming of Christ, on PREPARING for the long awaited Messiah, and on anticipating Jesus return with expectancy. The Gospel of Mark also urges us to remember it s not primarily baby Jesus that we are preparing for in Advent, rather we are encouraged to prepare for the mature Jesus who calls us to love our neighbor and usher in God s Kingdom of peace by our tangible acts of love and hospitality to all. And Mark declares to us that to understand Jesus, we must know the ancient and powerful stories that he is grounded in. Mark starts with the Beginning, but invites us to look back. For Mark firmly roots Christ in the history of Israel and in their stories of how God has been active in salvation from beginning. 1
Text: Joshua 24:1-3a, 14-25 Let us hear God s word to us this second Sunday of Advent from the first 8 verses of the Gospel of Mark. The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. As it is written in the prophet Isaiah, See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way; the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight, i 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. Now John was clothed with camel s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. He proclaimed, The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit. Sermon There are at least two kinds of waiting. In our 21 st century world of instant gratification and personal entertainment that we carry around in our pockets to fill every spare second waiting is not something that we do well. Most of us hate waiting. I ll admit I have grossly underdeveloped the spiritual discipline of patience. I hate waiting. I dread having to go to the DMV, for I know that pretty much no matter why I go, when I go, or where I go, I am going to have to WAIT at the DMV. And all of us dread going to the doctors, because most of what we do at the doctor s office is wait. They even have a room called the waiting room. Then we wait in the exam room to be seen by the nurse, so we can wait even more to, eventually, see the doctor. Waiting it s painful. 2
In Oh The Places You ll Go, Dr. Seuss describes this type of waiting so aptly: Headed, I fear for the most useless of places the Waiting Place for people just waiting. Waiting for a train to go Or a bus to come, or a plane to go Or the mail to come, or the rain to go Or the phone to ring or the snow to snow Or waiting around for a Yes or No Or waiting for their hair to grow Everyone is just waiting. But there is another kind of waiting: a waiting that matters, a waiting that has some meaning, maybe some expectancy and some hope to it. Like waiting for a dear old friend to come in town for the weekend. Or waiting for a child s first steps or first words a waiting that is full of energy and excitement. Waiting for the weekly phone call from your loved one that comes every Sunday afternoon. Or maybe the feeling of waiting and preparing for your wedding day. Friends, Advent is a season of waiting and a season of preparing. Not pointless waiting, but waiting with purpose. Waiting that carries some expectancy and some meaning and is therefore connected to preparing. Waiting in great anticipation of what is to come. Though our family is not currently in a season that particularly lends itself to it, I love to have friends over for dinner. When we lived in Durham and before we were parents, Katie and I hosted dinner with friends pretty often. But I never learned to adequately prepare. Inevitably, when the guest arrived at the appointed time, I d welcome them in and then give them a task to help finish getting ready for dinner set the table, finish sautéing these green beans, grab an extra chair from the den some task that needed doing while I wrapped up some other last minute detail for the meal. It mostly worked, and our closest friends now know to come ready to jump in, but I am not what you d call always prepared. But my older sister knows how to prepare. Our family traveled to Charlottesville over Thanksgiving to stay with my only sister and her husband and their two kids. Katie and I planned this trip before Will was born, because we knew that as long as we could get to their house, Mary & Steve would be ready for us. 3
My sister, Mary, knows the spiritual practice of preparing. My idea of preparing for a dinner is to make sure the major ingredients for the meal are at least in the house. But my sister has the gift of preparing and not just making sure the meals are planned and shopped for, but she thinks about her guests and almost prays over them by preparing for their arrival with care and attention to detail. She has the snacks we all like and the beds are all made. She is thoughtful about what meals are served and who like leftovers. Mary had thought about who prefers what for the Thanksgiving meal. When our parents arrived on Thanksgiving, she had put out place cards with our names on them for the optimal combinations of personalities. And that preparation set us up to have a wonderful family time. There were outdoor adventures planned for the kids, activities that were enjoyable for our parents, and really good food. Mary s thoughtful preparation allowed us all to enjoy one another and focus on family and relationship. I suppose that you could say my sister was waiting for us to arrive, but it was much more than just waiting she prepared for our arrival. She anticipate and worked towards our coming. Advent waiting is more like that actively preparing. Mark opens his gospel by combining two separate Prophetic texts about PREPARING. If we consider that the first verse is in all likelihood the selfproclaimed title to the Gospel, then Mark opens his gospel by pointing directly to the past quoting from the great prophets Isaiah and Malachi, who centuries earlier foretold Jesus Advent, and prophesized a messenger to precede Jesus and PREPARE the way for the Messiah s coming. Prepare the way of the Lord, they say. Mark s entire gospel begins by inviting us by urging us to PREPARE the way! And he reminds us that has always been the task of the faithful. Mark reminds us that long before Jesus arrival in the manger there were those of the faith who, for centuries, were doing the work of preparation preparing the people to hope for the Messiah, preparing the people to expect the Messiah. 4
And so John the baptizer arrives on the scene as the one who prepares, the prophet who points to Jesus as the Coming One the Messiah of whom the prophets of old prophesied. John plays and critical role in the gospel story: For John simultaneously points us back to the past, calls for action from his hearers in the present, and points us all into the future. ii For a gospel of few details and action pack stories, Mark lingers to describe John s outfit. In doing so, Mark highlights for us that even down to his very clothing, John is reminiscent of the great prophets of the faith. John s camel s hair outfit was several centuries out of fashion, but it was just the kind of clothing worn by the prophet Elijah centuries earlier. iii In ancient Judaism, it was understood that with Elijah all prophecy ceased until the coming of the Messiah. iv So John s physical appearance signaled to many that the Messiah s arrival was imminent. And they came out in droves to hear him preach and to heed his call to repent. Verse 5 tells us: The people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to John, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. Why did they flock to him? They came because John the Baptizer brought a message of hope and anticipation and expectancy. John created great excitement about the Messiah s Advent, about Christ s coming. Now prophets were weird. Their visual appearance let you know that they were other-worldly. This is not just a normal day-to-day interaction with the baker at the bread shop, or the bagger at the Ingles this is a person God called to awaken us to the bigger story, the overarching story that defines our lives. Prophets point us to that which is much bigger than our daily tasks and responsibilities. But make no mistake, Mark warns, John is a prophet he dresses like a prophet and his role is that of PREPERATION for Jesus, the Messiah. John rushes to assure his followers, and assure us that his only task is to insist that we look back at our own past, and then to prepare for Jesus coming. John s primary role is to POINT to point to Jesus as the one we have been waiting for and to point others to Jesus. Nearly every time John the Baptizer is portrayed in medieval or renaissance art, he has one figure POINTING to Jesus. You can always pick out John the baptizer by his extended finger pointing the direction of Jesus. 5
John s role as the one who points to Jesus is one we should imitate. Our job is to POINT to Jesus and to actively work to PREPARE for Jesus not just for baby Jesus, but to prepare for mature Jesus who came to proclaim the good news of God s Kingdom at hand. Years later, when John the Baptist s followers come and ask Jesus if he is the Messiah, Jesus responds: Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them v So, friends, how do we prepare? What does it mean to get ready for the Lord s coming? What does Advent waiting Advent preparation look like? John tells us to prepare by looking to our own past and repenting and then looking to the future, looking to Christ s return with joyous expectation. We prepare by turning from our sin. In his commentary on Mark, our own Lamar Williamson highlights for us the Greek word Mark used for repent means to change one s mind. The Hebrew word Shuwb ( shoob ) is behind the Greek verb Mark uses. Shuwb means to turn around, to change one s will and conduct. vi Another biblical scholar prompts us to acknowledge that Advent preparation involves repentance and confession it involves HONESTY. Repentance and confession entail facing the truth about ourselves and changing the direction of our lives. And frankly, who want to do that? Friends, it is hard work. Repentance and Confession require a searching and an honest looking back. But this John who insists on keeping the focus on the future and the one who is to come, forces us to look back vii to our own past with his call for repentance. We prepare for the future by looking to our past and changing our actions today. Advent preparation is hard work, but it s our work preparing for the promised Christ and pointing to Jesus is our life-long work. David Loose is a biblical scholar that I admire because of his gift to bring the central thrust of a biblical passage into our everyday lives. I love what he writes about promises and OUR role in God s promises. 6
The thing about promises is that they are not static. Not ever. Rather, promises if you believe them create an expectation about the future and set something in motion now. When you promise to call someone after a date, that person typically anticipates the call. And when a friend promises you a ride home after the game, you don t make other arrangements why should you; you ve got a promise. Promises create an expectation about the future and that future expectation sets something in motion right here and right now in the present. That is true about God s promise. And that, perhaps, is the key message of Advent. That in the stable at Bethlehem God is not only keeping promises God made to Israel but also making promises to us. That in Jesus, God hears our cries of fear and concern and doubt at our lowest points and responds. The question is what kind of waiting do we want to do? Sure, we can sit around and wait for Christmas, or wait for Christ s return. Or we can get in the game, see how we can spend our time, our energy, our wealth, and our lives making a difference right now. Because, friends, it s not just John who is called to prepare the way. It s all of us. Right here, right now, waiting actively, by PREPARING for Jesus and making a difference in the lives of the people God has put all around us. God is continuing the story of the good news of Jesus in and through our words and our actions. Each of us will have a hundred opportunities this very week to contribute to that sacred story, to make it come alive, to help God keep God s promises here and now. We don t have to wait for that passively. We are invited to throw ourselves into that venture both trusting God s promises and living them right here, right now. This is the kind of active, involved, participatory preparing of Advent. viii In the name of the one who came, who lived, who died, who lives again, and who is coming. Amen. 7
Footnotes and Sources i This is a combination of the prophetic texts: Isaiah 40:3 & Malachi 3:1, with a reference to Exodus 23:20. ii Lamar Williamson in Mark, in Interpretations Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching, page 30. iii See 2 Kings 1:8. iv Judy Yates Siker, Feasting on the Word, page 47. v Luke 7:22 (also found in Matthew 11:4-5). vi Lamar Williamson in Mark, in Interpretations Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching, page 31. vii Mark Copenhaver, Feasting on the Word, page 47. viii Much of the final page of this sermon is a direct quote from Lutheran theologian David Loose that I added to and edited. David s comments on this text helped shape this sermon and for his gifts and offerings I am grateful. David blogs on biblical text at http://www.davidlose.net/topics/devotions/advent-devotions/ 8