Those Who Dream … Prepare the Way
Isaiah 40:1-11,
Mark 1:1-8
December 3, 2023
Emmanuel Baptist Church; Rev. Kathy Donley
Note: A recording of the worship service in which this sermon was preached may be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHcd66dFuTk
The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
This is the either the first line of Mark’s narrative or it is the title of the whole ting. The beginning of the good news. Perhaps Mark wants us to hear echoes of another beginning “In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth.” The good news that Mark is telling began a long time ago. It rests on other beginnings. It is a continuation of an old dream, a new chapter in a long book.
Perhaps Mark is suggesting that everything he will write, his whole story about Jesus from John the Baptist to the calling of disciples to healing the sick and feeding the hungry to his execution and resurrection – all of that is just the beginning.
This is the beginning of the church year. In another month, the beginning of the calendar year. Seems like we’re always beginning things, by participating in the opening rituals of another cycle of life or trying to re-establish habits which we have let slip. We begin again to practice healthy ways eating, exercising and sleeping. We resolve again to be generous, to read more good books, to spend time outdoors, to seek to love that person who pushes all our buttons.
For some of us, this time of year carries nostalgia and longing. We unpack decorations that carry memories- good and bad. We sing the songs and make the favorite holiday foods. Others take on the persona of Scrooge or the Grinch and resolve to grit our teeth until the month is over. Whether you love or hate this time of year, there is often a sense of “here we go again”. After a few decades of that, we may become jaded. Is decorating really worth all this time and effort? What really matters? We have begun again and again so many times and what have we accomplished?
“The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ the Son of God,” Mark writes. The Greek word there is euangelion. I love to say that. Euangelion. In the second half of the word, angelion sounds like angels. Angels are messengers. Angelion means message. Eu is a prefix that means good. Good message, good news, sometimes we translate it gospel.
When Mark was writing, euangelion was used most often about good news of victory from the battlefield. By extension that mean good news of peace and prosperity, or the good life resulting from military power. [1]
Mark deliberately uses that word, with its cultural implications, in the title of his story about Jesus. The good news of Jesus is not news of a military victory. Mark’s story is of a different kind of battle. He is declaring war on the political culture of Empire; he is subverting the way things are with the way things could be.
Mark begins his story of Jesus with John the Baptist. Of course, John’s story begins earlier, with his parents Zechariah and Elizabeth. His parents who were faithful to God in spite of the lifelong disappointment of not having children, of struggling to live under occupation and practice a faith that was being corrupted by politics. The story of John’s beginnings includes his father’s dream that his son would be part of guiding his people in the way of peace.
In Zechariah’s time, a decisive military victory in Egypt ended decades of war in the Mediterranean and united the known world. Caesar Augustus inaugurated the Roman Peace, the Pax Romana. No one before had accomplished such a feat. And many declared Caesar the savior of the world, the one who ended the cycles of endless war. One commentator, Kelley Nikondeha, wonders “Why did God choose this time in human history to enter the world through the vulnerability of incarnation? Why come when peace had finally arrived?”
Her answer lies in recognizing how Caesar’s peace had arrived – through crushing military victory and control over his subjects through violence. The Pax Romana benefitted the few while exploiting the many. [2] Nikondeha writes “After world peace was announced by the empire, God began a counter-campaign in the hills of Judea, a vision of peace with no reliance on violence or war. “
Tradition says that John was born in Ein Karem, a village about 2 ½ miles from downtown Jerusalem. Both of his parents were from the tribes of priests. It would have been the most natural thing in the world for John to have followed the path to priesthood and to have stayed in the center of power in Jerusalem, to use that power for the cause of peace.
Instead he emerges from the wilderness. He dresses strangely – wearing clothes of camel hair. He is likely very thin, even by first century standards, because he mostly eats honey and locusts. John has abandoned the easier life he might have had in Jerusalem, for a life of identifying with the poor. His lifestyle is not eccentric but rather a reflection of his disciplined ability to live on the sustenance the desert provides.[3]
Out in the desert, John is preaching about repentance. He is asking people to change their ways, to start over with God and with each other. He implores them to get ready for the one who is coming.
I don’t know how you picture John the Baptist. I picture him looking kind of wild – dressed in camel hair with a belt cinched tightly around his skinny self. I think of him shouting at people, like a sidewalk evangelist with a megaphone, maybe almost foaming at the mouth while he tells them how much they need to change. That’s often my mental picture. But that’s not what Mark describes.
Mark quotes from the Hebrew Bible, mostly from Isaiah 40 which was read a few minutes ago. Isaiah 40 describes a messenger in the wilderness. It begins with God saying “Comfort, comfort my people.” “Speak tenderly.”
What if all those people are going out to see John in the wilderness, not for a scolding, but for comfort. What if John is tenderly inviting them to imagine themselves living a different life? Inviting them to be done with all the things that bind them to anger and resentment. With kindness and love, suggesting that they face the truth about themselves and prepare for change.[4]
As he quotes from Isaiah, Mark inserts a new verb. Where the older text described preparing a path, Mark speaks of the construction of a new way. What is being created is no mere path; a new way of life is being built into the shell of the old world.[5] John calls for repentance. Repentance is beginning again. Repentance requires a shift in imagination, the ability to dream a new dream, to see a new pattern, and the energy to construct that new way.
John shows up at the beginning of the good news to tenderly invite us to begin again, to prepare for God’s appearance as much as we can, because the Holy One always breaks into our world in ways that surprise us. There is a danger that we may reject this invitation -- that we may close ourselves off from one another, cutting away any risks that might lead to joy, refusing to believe that God could care enough to comfort us and others in distress.[6]
How do we receive this good news? How do we begin again? Maybe by returning to what we already know, to loving God with our whole hearts and our neighbors as ourselves. Barbara Brown Taylor writes, “To make bread or love, to dig in the earth, to feed an animal or cook for a stranger—these activities require no extensive commentary, no lucid theology. All they require is someone willing to bend, reach, chop, stir. Most of these tasks are so full of pleasure that there is no need to complicate things by calling them holy. And yet these are the same activities that change lives, sometimes all at once and sometimes more slowly, the way dripping water changes stone. In a world where faith is often construed as a way of thinking, bodily practices remind the willing that faith is a way of life.” [7]
There is a story told about Ruth and Billy Graham. One afternoon they were traveling through the mountains of North Carolina where they lived. On that day, they encountered several miles of road construction. There was one-lane traffic. There were detours. It was frustrating. Finally, they came to the end and they saw a road sign. Ruth Graham turned to her husband and said, "Those words, on that road sign, that is what I would like to have printed on my tombstone." The words on the road sign read: End of construction. Thanks for your patience.
Beloved ones, until the end of our days, we are always under construction. And so, we do not lost heart. We begin again, preparing the way, dreaming God’s dream so that imagination and compassion and God’s creative love can find a way into our lives and into the life of this world. Thanks be to God.
[1] Eugene Boring, Mark (New Testament Library) (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 2006). p. 30
[2] Kelley Nikondeha, The First Advent in Palestine: Reversals, Resistance, and the Ongoing Complexity of Hope (Minneapolis: Broadleaf Books, 2022), p. 25-26
[3] Mary Grey, The Advent of Peace: A Gospel to Christmas, (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2010), p.21-22
[4] Richard Swanson, A Provocation: Second Sunday of Advent, December 10, 2017, Mark 1:1-8 https://provokingthegospel.wordpress.com/?s=Mark+1%3A1-8
[5] Ched Myers, Binding the Strong Man (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1988, 2008), p. 124
[6]Glenn Bell in Connections: A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship, Year B, Volume 1 Joel Green, Thomas Long, Luke Powery, Cynthia Rigby, Carolyn Sharp Editors, , (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 2020), p. 21.
[7] Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith, (New York: HarperOne, 2009), p. 9