Notes from a Sojourn
December 6, 2020
What’s Your Message? What’s Ours?
A Sermon for the Second Sunday of Advent (Year B)
Isaiah 40.1-11; Psalm 85; Mark 1.1-8
“The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God…”
According to Mark, the beginning of the good news of Jesus the Christ is
a message delivered
an announcement proclaimed.
The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ is embodied in a messenger.
in someone who picks up the phone and dials your number,
who composes an email addressed to you and clicks ‘send’,
in someone who knocks on your door and asks to come in for a visit
to testify to something happening,
to bear witness to an unfolding story of God’s arrival in their life.
Today, the messenger of the good news of Jesus the Christ is John the baptiser.
he has dialled in the number of God’s people and is addressing Jerusalem and all the cities of Judea
he speaks from the outer frontier into the centre,
from the threshold of Israel at the Jordan River
and he has this message to give:
God forgives.
God forgives.
It’s a message of peace, not war.
A message of hope, not despair.
A message of embrace, not of estrangement.
God forgives.
I wonder what experiences of God’s forgiveness John had in his life, don’t you?
John is a witness testifying…how else could he testify to this forgiveness unless he had experienced it for himself?
He isn’t a messenger proclaiming a gospel for other people – he is telegraphing the arrival of God’s forgiveness into his own life.
I think that’s why John’s witness was so powerful – his story, his life, his way of being, must’ve radiated the truth of what he was proclaiming in a mighty way because he routinely had to redirect and re-clarify, “I am not the Source of this Light that you’re seeing and responding to in my life, but the One who is the Source of that Light is coming to you if you’re ready for him.
“How will we find him?” I imagine the people asking John.
“What does he look like? How tall is he? What colour is his hair? Where does he live?”
I hear John reply, “Don’t worry, he’ll find you…so get prepared for his arrival! He’s on his way.”
There’s a very practical way that John helps people prepare themselves:
Baptism.
The baptism John administers is a baptism of repentance – of turning.
Turning in response to what?
In response to the good news: God is forgiving! God forgives you!
And John’s message seems to be this: whatever wilderness you’re living through, whatever desert places you’ve found yourself lost in – because of other people’s doings and because your own
God forgives you.
And he will soon arrive for you and bring you home.
//
Exile and homecoming are the themes of today’s scripture readings.
The prophet Isaiah is speaking to the People of Israel in exile in Babylon – speaking words of comfort and words of hope in the future day when messages of good tidings will arrive into their lives; when the storm clouds of fear and alienation that currently hover over their lives will break into showers of peace and reconciliation – good news!
Like the prophet John, the prophet Isaiah says, “God forgives! God will arrive for you and bring you home,
“He will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead the mother’s sheep.” (Is 40.11)
And, so Isaiah also says, “Get prepared for this day, live in preparation for this arrival of Good news”:
“In [your] wilderness prepare the way of the Lord,
make straight in [your] desert places a highway for God,
[and] every valley shall be lifted up,
and every mountain and hill be made low,
the uneven ground shall become level,
and the rough places a plain,
then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed…” (Is 40.3-5)
The Psalmist of Psalm 85 also wrote in this time of exile:
“Show us your steadfast love, O Lord,
and grant us your salvation…
Will you be angry with us forever?
will you prolong your anger to all generations?
Will you not revive us again so that we may rejoice in you?”
The psalmist answers her own questions in hope:
“Let me hear what God the Lord will speak,
for he will speak peace to his people,
to his faithful,
to those who turn to him in their hearts…”
Again, the “turning”, the “repentance”, the preparation of a way for God to show up in our lives without delay – making the paths straight, the rough road smooth, the high hills low and the low valleys high.
The Psalmist goes on to describe, like Isaiah, the welcoming and peaceful embrace of God for us:
“Steadfast love (that’s God) and faithfulness (that’s us) will meet;
Righteousness and peace will kiss each other (justice and peace will embrace)
Faithfulness will spring up from the ground (that’s us),
and righteousness (that’s God) will look down from the sky…”
Exile and Homecoming.
Guilt and Forgiveness.
Estrangement and Embrace.
The journey from any one of these to the other is described by Isaiah, the Psalmist, and John the Baptist as the arrival of God – the advent of God – into our lives.
We have a role to play in preparing the way for that to happen in whatever wilderness or desert places we may inhabit.
The Psalmist prepares a way for God’s arrival with her trust expressed through lament.
The Prophet Isaiah prepares a way for God’s arrival in Israel’s life through his hope.
The Prophet John prepares the way for God’s arrival through announcing God’s forgiveness in his life.
How do you prepare the way for God’s arrival here?
Will you lead us through lament to trust boldly in God’s goodness?
Will you lead us with hopefulness in the future God is giving this congregation in our Area Parish?
Will you lead us with the gift of your forgiveness to bring release to those who have offended us?
Will you lead us in prayers that invite God’s will to happen here on this patch of earth as it is in heaven?
Will you lead us with generosity that empowers our trust in the sufficiency of God’s ability to care for us?
Will you lead us in testimony that witnesses to the activity of God’s Spirit at work in all our lives?
I could go on and on with questions like these.
But my point is this:
the prophet, the psalmist, and the baptizer
seem to be showing is that preparing for the arrival of God in our lives
is not an activity that can wait.
It begins everyday.
In the wilderness of now, and the desert places of tomorrow.
We’ve baptized ourselves with Christ into the depths of human need and the depths of God’s love, to minister the faith, hope, and love of Jesus Christ right now. And as we do, we prepare the way not only for ourselves, but for everyone we encounter to receive Christ gladly whenever and however he comes to us, both now and in the fullness of time.
The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ is a messenger with a message:
What’s your message?
What’s ours?
Colin+