Hear the Good News

Second Sunday in Advent, Dec. 7, 2008; Mark 1:1-8.

Last week, we put ourselves into the shoes of the doorkeeper, the servant waiting for the return of the master. We thought about what it’s like to wait for an arrival, to wait for Christ to arrive in our lives. We thought about what we’d be doing when our master, Jesus Christ, would return home.

This week, we jump back to the beginning of the Gospel of Mark. Mark’s Gospel, Mark’s good news, was almost surely the earliest of the four gospels. Thus, Mark was the first to write down the story of the good news of Jesus Christ. So if we read the first words of the Gospel of Mark, as we did this morning, then we are reading the first published words about Jesus Christ. And it begins with a proclamation, an announcement, that the waiting is almost over.

Mark knows the Jews are waiting for a Messiah to come. Old Testament texts such as Isaiah and Malachi promise that when the Messiah comes, the way will be prepared. Mark quotes these ancient texts, saying to the Jews, “I know you are waiting. I know you expect the way to be prepared. Well, the waiting is almost over, so let us prepare the way of the Lord. Let’s get ready for the Messiah to come.”

So along comes John the Baptizer, more commonly known as John the Baptist. Well, he appeared in the wilderness – showing up out of nowhere. His whereabouts before the wilderness are not known to Mark’s readers – all they know is some guy named John is preaching out in the middle of nowhere. In a place where no one lives. He’s in West Texas, or Siberia, or the deepest corner of the Australian Outback, you might say. And he’s preaching – to no one, presumably, because he’s in the wilderness. As if that isn’t strange enough, John the Baptizer is wearing horribly outdated clothes – camel’s hair and a leather belt – and he’s eating stuff found on the banks of the Jordan – locusts and honey. One might say he’s wearing M.C. Hammer parachute pants while eating pop rocks and drinking Tab cola.

So, if an out-of-style preacher proclaims the good news in a forest, and no one’s there to hear it, does anyone get saved? That’s the question posed to us in this morning’s text. If John the Baptist is hanging out alone in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, does anyone repent and enter into baptismal waters?

The short answer is yes. The long answer is that not only do a handful of people travel out into the wilderness to hear this crazy secluded preacher, but all of the Judean countryside and everyone in Jerusalem went out to him, and it seems all were baptized in forgiveness of their sins. I often wonder how anyone got word of John the Baptizer’s preaching, but somehow they all did. And he got everyone from the urban and rural populations.

Yet, we see that John the Baptizer is not the main event. “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me,” he says. Thanks to the author, the words from Isaiah, “Prepare the way of the Lord,” are fresh in our memory as we read John’s proclamation. With an audience of Jews, urban and rural, John the Baptizer preaches the good news – The Messiah you’re all waiting for is coming. The Lord is near, so prepare the way of the Lord. Christ is coming!

We have to remember that the Jewish community was completely in the dark about this. Unlike us, they did not know that Jesus Christ was on his way, that the Messiah was about to enter their lives. Unlike us, they do not have months and months of proclamation that Christmas is “right around the corner.”

There’s a weekly column I like to read on ESPN.com called “Tuesday Morning Quarterback. The author, Gregg Easterbrook, monitors the “Christmas Creep” with the help of his readers. He has a weekly part of his column called the “Christmas Creep Watch,” where he offers examples of how Christmas is slowly creeping its way earlier and earlier into the calendar year. This year, as early as September 8, he was already writing about Christmas displays going up in stores in August! Is Christmas really “just around the corner” when it’s 1/3 of a year away?

You see, with our society’s Christmas Creep, the church’s Christmas preparation becomes old news by the time we get to it. First Sunday in Advent, Christmas is coming? Puh-leeze. We’ve been bombarded with Christmas displays, Christmas commercials, Christmas catalog mailings, and Christmas party invitations for months now! So when we come to church and hear that Christmas is coming, we’re hardly excited. We’ve heard it all before, and now we’re just waiting for it to be over because all it means is more things on our to-do list anyway. For months now, the stores have prepared the way of the shopper. The way of the shopper is prepared.

From all this, we know all too well that Christmas is coming. But sometimes what gets lost in this season is the proclamation that Christ is coming. As Christians, we do usually have a sense that “Jesus is the reason for the season,” as we might say. We may understand in a way that because Christmas is coming, Christ’s arrival is coming. But what’s unfortunate is that Christ has already come in Christmases past. Christ will come in Christmases future. And Christ is here in this Christmas season. So we have a hard time getting that excited about it when it has become a yearly event, both sacred and secular. While our culture loves to prepare the way of the shopper, we have a hard time preparing the way of the Lord.

The Jews who went to John the Baptizer in the wilderness were excited. They heard from the wilderness preacher that the Messiah is coming! Hear the good news! The promise will be fulfilled! The one you’ve been waiting for is about to show up! You’ve been waiting all your life for this moment, and now it’s almost here!

Jesus Christ is coming! Jesus Christ is on his way! He is about to enter our lives, cleanse us through baptism by the Holy Spirit, and change us forever! The arrival of the Messiah is a life-changing event! What better time to celebrate our own baptism by the Holy Spirit than Christmas? What better time to celebrate the life-changing message of Jesus Christ than Christmas? This season in the church year is a time when we are to celebrate that moment when the Messiah did appear – the moment when God entered into our humanity, broke into our lives through the miracle of the incarnation! It is a time that we remember how Christ has changed our lives by entering in as our Savior! It is a time to remember what it feels like to wait for the Messiah, just as the Jews did in the Gospel of Mark. It is a time to remember what it felt like when our waiting came to an end, when we finally felt the presence of the Holy Spirit cleansing us and making us new creations in Christ. It is a time to look back on the history of the Jewish people and the history of the Christian people. It is a time to look back on our own history. But it is also a time to look forward for Christ’s second coming. It’s also a time to look forward to Christ’s unexpected arrivals into our lives as we go about our daily business. And it’s a time to look forward to the arrival of Christ, once again, this Christmas. It is time to prepare the way of the Lord!

How might we prepare for Christ’s arrival this Christmas? How might we prepare the way of the Lord, the one who is coming that is much greater than any earthly thing? How might we allow ourselves to be cleansed by the Holy Spirit once again? How might we get excited about Christ’s arrival like the expectant Jews, treating Christ’s coming as the moment we’ve been waiting for all our lives?

And how might we, like John the Baptizer, use the arrival of Christ as an opportunity to proclaim the good news? How might we shout from the mountaintops that Jesus Christ is coming, that one greater than us is on the way? How might we get others excited about the arrival of Jesus Christ? How might we, like John the Baptizer, speak and act prophetically so that others may yearn to be cleansed by the baptismal waters for the first time? How can we move through the world as proclaimers of the good news of Jesus Christ?

Each year, more and more people are coming to understand the season of Lent as a time of increased meditation as we approach Holy Week and the culmination of the season at Easter. But few of us view Advent as a time of increased meditation and reflection. But Advent does call us to meditate. It calls us to prepare for the coming of the Christ child. It calls us to meditate on what that means for us. So maybe we can prepare the way of the Lord this Advent by meditating on the birth narratives more often. Why don’t we use this season as a time to get back into the habit of prayer? Why can’t we gather our families around and light Advent wreaths in our homes, teaching our children how to prepare the way of the Lord? This month, Lisa and I will be writing Christmas cards to send to family and friends. When we do this, we’ll be taking time out of our lives to sit down and think about those we love. We’ll take time out and meditate on relationships that we have with others, most of them living far away from here. And we’ll think a little more about how blessed we are to have these people in our lives. We are preparing the way of Christmas.

What if we treated Christ the same way? What if we prepared the way of Christ the way we prepare the way of Christmas? What if we set aside time this season to sit down and think of our relationship with Jesus Christ? What if we allowed ourselves to reflect on the ways that Christ has blessed us in our lives? What if we prepared the way of the Lord this Christmas?
Let us all use the arrival of Christmas as an opportunity to celebrate the arrival of Christ. And let us also use the arrival of Christmas as an opportunity to share the good news with those who haven’t heard it yet. Let us open our ears to the good news once again, and allow it to overtake us so much so that others see and hear the good news in us. I hope and pray that you may find time this season to meditate on what the coming of the Christ child means to you. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.