Year B, Advent 2
December 4, 2011
Thomas L. and Laura C. Truby
Mark 1:1-8
Clear the Pathway!
The writer of the Gospel of Mark tells us what the book is about in the first sentence. “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” The first sentence is not even a complete sentence and my word processor underlines it saying “fragment, consider rewriting.” I like its clarity. The author is coming from a particular place. There is no ambiguity about what he believes. Right-off-the-bat we know this person, or this community for which he writes, have centered their lives in a relationship with a particular human being, Jesus Christ, “The Son of God.”
It sounds as though “Christ” is Jesus’ last name but really it means “Messiah” in the ancient Greek language, the language our author is using in his story. So we have a story, a gospel about Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of God. The people who wrote this story have experienced their relationship with Jesus as full of good news and the writer wants us to discover it. I wonder what this good news is and how we can incorporate it into our lives.
Our sentence fragment says it is the “beginning.” If it is the beginning what is the end? There is an answer and it will be strange to our ears. The end is the death and resurrection of Jesus and we are the beneficiaries of that end. The story is about how this all came to be and how it already has and always will impact us.
When the author wrote “the beginning” of the good news the reader already knew about the end. It is all of one piece. In the end is the beginning and in the beginning is the end. The cradle and cross are made of the same wood. The life, death and resurrection of Jesus are all dimensions of this gospel good news and we are about to hear the story of how this all works.
In year B, the year we are just beginning, we study Mark’s gospel and I look forward to exploring all that it has to teach us. We have an entire year to absorb its wisdom and be changed by its perspective. We will be focusing on the Gospel of Mark with a sprinkling of the Gospel of John from now until the end of November, 2012. By then I hope we have an even fresher and more vital understanding of “the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God”. In the coming year I encourage you to read Mark’s gospel again and again. Bathe yourself in its imagery and allow it to penetrate your imagination.
The second sentence after the “beginning of the good news” quotes Isaiah 40. “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.” The writer of Mark starts his story with a road straightener, a highway leveler; someone who goes ahead of the One coming, and pushes aside all artificial differences used to separate the high and mighty from the despised and lowly.
John the Baptizer, living outside, on the edge, recognizes no distinctions between people. He is a wild man who wears camel hair clothing and a leather belt. He eats grasshoppers and wild honey. He is a combination of Crocodile Dundee and Billy Graham holding rallies in the wilderness, and people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem go out to him. Proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins he baptizes hordes of people in the River Jordan. All of them confessing their sins and wanting to start life anew.
John the Baptist is a powerful attracter. People are moved to try harder in their effort to straighten out their lives. They want to be different than what they are and think that hooking their star to this fierce and rugged outsider will accomplish this. They allow John to baptize them and hope their actions will move them toward a new day. Even as we hear this, we know how it ends, and it does not end well for either John or Jesus.
The wild man makes a proclamation: “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.” Even John the Baptist doesn’t understand the full import of what he is saying. He knows he doesn’t have it in him to bear the full weight of all these people wanting to follow him. Someone far stronger is needed; someone with a new way and a clearer vision. He has given them all that he but more is needed.
He thinks the “moreness” has to do with power—power defined in the usual way of being able to impose one’s will on another. He cannot imagine any other kind of force in this cruel world. The thought of power through weakness and the strength to forgive does not enter his mind. It is beyond and outside his view. This is why it takes Jesus Christ, the Son of God, to reveal it. It would have to be an outside intervention.
Somehow John the Baptist knows that trying harder doesn’t get you where you want to go even though this has been the message he has been proclaiming! Something more, something different is needed. He goes ahead of Jesus and clears his way by decisively showing that trying harder doesn’t make it. It can temporarily change actions but it does not get to the heart. It temporarily curbs desire but does not reshape it at its effervescent source.
So how do we change desire? John’s answer, “Someone more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals,” he will know how to change desire, “He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” The difference is that John is about changing behavior, but Jesus is about changing the heart. And Jesus changes the heart by forgiving us.
John baptizes with water but this One who is coming will baptize with the Holy Spirit. What is this Holy Spirit? It will take the life, death and resurrection of Jesus to reveal it. Its clearest expression will be from the cross when Jesus says “Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they are doing.” The Holy Spirit is the way of forgiveness. It is the way of weakness, but the pathway of God’s power.
When we are “in the spirit” we live a life of constantly letting go of the hurts and revengeful impulses precisely because Jesus showed us how and did it himself in relation to us. Yes, Jesus baptizes us with the Holy Spirit—the spirit of forgiveness. Forgiveness has the capacity to change our hearts. When we have the Holy Spirit within, we want to forgive for we know the depth to which we have been forgiven. The artificial differences cease mattering. We have freedom to live without worry.
An attitude of forgiveness where we feel forgiven and forgiving prepares us for the coming of Jesus. It captures his spirit and anticipates his purpose. It clears the pathways of our hearts. Our son-in-law, Seth, wrote a poem on Thanksgiving Day after clearing a path through the fallen maple leaves in front of his house. He cleared it to open a way between his heart and the hearts of others who might pass by. He entitled it: To a Passer-By on Thanksgiving Day. I read it in the spirit of Advent.
Gentle Reader,
It is good that you have paused
Along your way, accepting
The silent invitation of these lines
For it was you I had in mind
When I sat to write these words,
You, holding a paper cup
Of lukewarm dark roast coffee
And a satchel filled with groceries,
Or you, clutching the dog’s leash
In one hand, with the other
Pushing a stroller around the corner,
And even you, whom I had not imagined in such precise terms
For you I drew my pen across the empty page
As earlier I drew my garden rake
Again and again through withered grass
And over the buried front walk,
Metal tines clawing wet concrete
Gathering sodden maple leaves,
Potent gift of high summer sun
Turning then returning now to earth
For you I cleared a solitary path
Prepared the way for your lonely passage
So that a mere moment of your journey
Through the detritus of this world
Might be blessed by an open space
Awaiting your arrival,
Conspicuous in its care,
This page inscribed in answer
To the ground now scraped bare.
This poem explains what Seth was doing with his heart when he cleared the sidewalk. God too has opened a way, cleared a path for us, and this is just the beginning of the good news!
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