The Beginning

 

Sunday, December 7^th, 2008

Advent 2B (second of the liturgical year)

Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA

Mark 1:1-8

Theme: Prepare the Way of the Lord – of Peace

 

 “¹The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

² As it is written in the prophet Isaiah,

 

          “See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,
           who will prepare your way;
          ³ the voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
          ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,’”

 

⁴John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. ⁵ 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. ⁶ Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. ⁷ 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. ⁸ I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

 

When I mentioned that today’s theme – the theme for the second Sunday of Advent – was Peace, she paused and then asked “is peace the absence of conflict?  I thought for a minute, thought about everything that is going on in the world today – the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, the humanitarian crisis in Zimbabwe, and any number of random acts of violence that peppered our country over the last several days and I answered in the negative.  Peace cannot, it seems, be the absence of conflict. “Then what is it?” she asked.  I back pedaled a couple of paces and joked, “Um … oh, yes, it IS, it IS the absence of conflict.  Although we were speaking through a partially closed door, her next comment came through loud and clear:  “I’m serious.”  So what IS peace?  What does it mean to prepare the way for the Lord, for the Prince of Peace, or to work for Peace?  That is, after all, one of Christ’s titles.  Does it seem like that is also a seasonal thing, just like the Christmas tree and the lights and the decorations on our houses and front doors or lawns, and even in our sanctuary?  We don’t generally pull out John the Baptist’s ‘voice of one crying in the wilderness’ at Christmastime, do we?  Do we focus on Christ’s being the Prince of Peace on the fourth of July or Memorial Day or Veteran’s day?

 

Are we guilty of compartmentalizing the role of Christ in our lives depending on the season of the year we are in?  It’s easy enough to do.  It even struck me as a little odd, in getting used to thinking in terms of the liturgical year, we have where we are now at the beginning of the year – Advent – the waiting time before Christ’s birth, then the celebration of his coming, the Christmastide, where we talk about the baby Jesus and how and where he was born, and the shepherds and the animals in their stalls, and the angels in the heavens, then before you know it we turn around and there it is Lent again and the walk towards Easter, and we focus on Jesus’ suffering and crucifixion, and on his resurrection and rising from the tomb, and then a few weeks go by and we’re suddenly at Pentecost with Jesus appearing to his disciples, then some other folks and finally somewhere around 500 others, then comes the ascension … all within a five month period … and then we have the other seven or eight months of the year to deal with, and they are called “Ordinary time”. 

 

It seems like those seasons can be reflected in our lives as well.  We spend time thinking about the baby Jesus this time of year, and come lent we think about the dying of a grown Jesus, then at Pentecost we remember that … and then we settle into the routine of our lives, the ordinary time of our lives.  We may or may not think of Jesus in other terms during more than half of the year, in the different ways that he could be changing us and challenging us and molding us … the danger of disengagement is that we will lose sight of the fact that God in Christ’s call on our lives, just like it was on Jesus’ own life, was to total self-giving, to claiming him as Lord, as I spoke of a couple of weeks ago, of EVERY ASPECT of our existence, including how we live out the peace of Christ‘s presence in our lives.  How would God’s living in us through the presence of the Holy Spirit translate? 

 

We name him Lord of Lords, Prince of Peace, Everlasting Father, but what do those terms MEAN if we don’t LIVE as though God is indeed Lord of Lords, IS indeed the Prince of … do we say here OUR peace, do we qualify it that way, or do we dare to contemplate the possibility that serving the Prince of Peace means to actually WORK for not just an internal, spiritual peace, but an external, tangible peace among the mass of humanity?

 

There are obvious problems with that – with wanting to work towards an external --- universal peace.  First, the sheer scope of the task – beginning with interpersonal relationships – that’s one step removed from the internal peace just mentioned – it is about how I get along with YOU, or YOU get along with HER, and how SHE gets along with THEM … and it goes on and on … the circle expanding from individual, to family, to neighborhood, to community, to county, to state, and then eventually to nation states, and somewhere in there millions of variables get injected into the mix.  How can I be at peace with THEM after what THEY did to MY family?  How are we supposed to live in peace with THEM after they stole my sheep/my land/my brother’s life along with nearly three thousand others when they attacked the World Trade Center?

 

How indeed?  And is that what Christ REALLY calls us to?  There is an element of the Gospel … not really an element, but an aspect of it – one that permeates it so completely that to speak of “the Gospel” apart from it is to have gutted the message altogether. 

 

It is the “application” part.  

 

It’s that part where we take what we’ve learned and have been taught and believe and actually DO something with it, actually MAKE a change in something about us BECAUSE we believe it.  In other words, that we live a life that speaks to a faith that is more than just words and thoughts to us, that has more to do WITH doing, and being, than just thinking something because it is a nice thought and makes us feel good about ourselves. 

 

So the central proclamation in the passage we read a few minutes ago is the quote within our quote of the prophet Isaiah – “Prepare the way of the Lord” … if that is OUR call, OUR command, OUR mandate, then what are we supposed to prepare?  Our hearts?  Our lives?  Our homes?  Where does it stop? 

 

I would submit that the answer is ‘yes, all of the above, and then some’.

 

We DO start in our hearts, but we don’t wait for that reworking to be completed … we are all of us works in progress, and we won’t be completed until, just like our brother Elwood, we are face to face.  We DO prepare our LIVES, inasmuch as we are able, to bring them into and under the Lordship of Christ, because we are called to submit to him and to surrender to him.  We DO continue in our homes, providing the model and example of Christ to our children and spouses.  It all comes together.  Each of those places to prepare is part of the greater whole… part of the whole of our lives as people integrated into an existence that is both physical and spiritual, that is both here and not yet as a part of the Kingdom of God.  

 

Yesterday at Elwood’s bedside I read one of my favorite passages of scripture:  2 Corinthians 4:7-18. (read)  Paul writes – and you've heard me read this before:

 

⁷But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us.

⁸We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; ⁹persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; ¹⁰always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies. ¹¹For while we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh. ¹²So death is at work in us, but life in you. ¹³But just as we have the same spirit of faith that is in accordance with scripture—“I believed, and so I spoke” —we also believe, and so we speak, ¹⁴because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus, and will bring us with you into his presence. ¹⁵Yes, everything is for your sake, so that grace, as it extends to more and more people, may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God. ¹⁶So we do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. ¹⁷For this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure, ¹⁸because we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal.

 

Because  of where we are, because of WHO we are, we are called to work in this world, to live through the travails of this life, always keeping in mind what Paul says – that what is seen is temporary, what is unseen is eternal.

     

Would you pray with me?