Second Sunday in Advent
Mark 1:1-8
’Turning Around"
1:1 ¶ The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
2 As it is written in Isaiah the prophet, "Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, who shall prepare thy way;
3 the voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight--"
4 John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
5 And there went out to him all the country of Judea, and all the people of Jerusalem; and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.
6 Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, and had a leather girdle around his waist, and ate locusts and wild honey.
7 And he preached, saying, "After me comes he who is mightier than I, the thong of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie.
8 I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit."
Grace and peace to you from our Lord and Saviour, the coming Christ. Amen
Our lessons this morning speak about the coming of Christ. During this Advent season, we learn about the three ways that Jesus comes into our lives, Jesus, the babe born in the manger, Jesus who is coming in the second coming, and Jesus who is in the present, in our lives. This Jesus brings his grace and forgiveness into our lives.
This is the Jesus that I want to dwell on this morning. The one who brings forgiveness as we repent.
John the Baptist is speaking about this Jesus this morning when he says: "After me comes he who is mightier than I, the thong of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie.
A Mark begins this passage with a quote from Isaiah which speaks about this coming of the one who will prepare the way for Jesus when he says: "Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, who shall prepare thy way;
3 the voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight--"
And finally mark says this about John: "John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins."
John has come to prepare the way for Jesus, to call the people to repentance.
I would like like to tell you two stories that show how John is preparing us for Jesus.
Do you remember the old Johnny Carson show? Johnny received a warm welcome every tine he stepped out on the stage, because some always announced him. Ed McMahon would always bring Johnny out with this great announcement, "Heeere’s Johnny" and the band would break into the theme song and Johnny would stand on stage, make a few pretend swings with a golf club and wait for the clapping to die down.
No one since, I think, has been introduced in the same way.
John the Baptist come to introduce Jesus in the same way. He came to proclaim that the Saviour of the world was coming and we should prepare.
Gordon McDonald tells this story:
"A Nigerian woman who is a physician at a great teaching hospital in the United States came out of the crowd today to say something kind about the lecture I had just given. She introduced herself using an American name.
’What’s your African name?’ I asked. She immediately gave it to me, several syllables long with a musical sound to it.
’What does the name mean?’ I wondered.
She answered, ’It means "Child who takes the anger away."’
When I inquired as to why she would have been given this name, she said, ’My parents had been forbidden by their parents to marry. But they loved each other so much that they defied the family opinions and married anyway. For several years they were ostracized from both their families. Then my mother became pregnant with me. And when the grandparents held me in their arms for the first time, the walls of hostility came down. I became the one who swept the anger away. And that’s the name my mother and father gave me.’"
McDonald concluded, "It occurred to me that her name would be a suitable one for Jesus."
Jesus is coming into our lives now to remove the anger, the frustration we feel with live. Jesus is coming, he is here now to take about our guilt, to forgive us, as we repent, as we turn away from our sins.
This concept of repentance or metanoia only occurs in this chapter and verse in the whole of Mark’s gospel. Mark wants to make the point that repentance is very important. It marks the stage for the coming of Jesus in our lives.
In repentance; we are turning back to the ideal, the way God created us to be. Our repentance is accepting and acknowledging that we are sinners, who need the forgiveness of almighty God.
In our act of repentance, we are turning to God, asking him in a sense to recreate a new person, one who is more like what God intended us to be in the first place. In the act of repentance we are taking the I, that personal pronoun out of the picture, and replacing it with a three-letter word, G O D , God.
In our act of repentance, we are declaring that we are no longer relying on ourselves, but we are surrendering to God, so that he may, through the waters of our baptism, recreate a new me, a me who is closer to the image that God created me to be at the beginning of time.
There is an old Hindu parable that illustrates very well what I am trying to say.
There was a motherless tiger cub who was adopted by goats and brought up to speak their language, emulate their ways, eat their food. In fact, the little tiger cub believed he was a goat.
However, there came a day when a king tiger happened along and all the goats fled in terror. But the little cub lingered behind, afraid and yet somehow unafraid. The cub brayed a bit and then nervously nibbled at the grass.
The king tiger laughed and asked the small tiger what he meant by this masquerade. He said nothing, only bleating once again. So the king took him to a pool of still water and forced him to look know at the 2 reflections side by side. But the little one failed to see any significance to it.
When this failed, the king tiger hunted down a young deer and brought some of the raw meant to the young tiger.
At first the cub recoiled from the strange taste. But he kept licking and soon sunk his teeth deep into the raw flesh. His tail began to swing wing, and his claws began to dig into the soft earth.
A roar began to swell deep in his throat. He glanced over at the king tiger and he began to realize he was indeed a cool cat."
Repentance for us is the same thing. When we repent and turn, or make that U-turn back to what God intended for us to be then, we are cool cats. In sin, we are less than God intended for us to be. In Christ, in our U-turn, we are becoming more and more like God intended us to be at the beginning of time.
John is preparing us for Jesus, preparing us today for Jesus, preparing us for Jesus for His second coming, and reminding of of the first coming of Jesus on that first Christmas over 2000 years ago.
Today, in this sermon we are focusing on Jesus here in the present moment as we repent , as we turn around from our sins and seek and accept the forgiving power of Jesus Christ in our lives.
Mark is telling the people in his day and age about the one who is coming and he is telling us with proof about the one who is coming by quoting from Isaiah when he says: As it is written in Isaiah the prophet, "Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, who shall prepare thy way;
3 the voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight--"
The people in Mark’s day were somewhat skeptical about Jesus’ coming so Mark points them to Isaiah were it speaks about one who is coming.
John came to prepare the way, to call people to repentance, to make sure people turned away from sin.
There’s a story of a young American engineer who was sent to Ireland by his company. It was a two-year assignment. He had accepted it because it would enable him to earn enough to marry his longtime girlfriend. She had a job near her home in Tennessee, and their plan was to put their money together and put a down payment on a house when he returned. They wrote often, but as the lonely weeks went by, the girlfriend began expressing doubts that he was being true, exposed as he was to the beautiful Irish lasses.
The young engineer wrote back. He declared with some passion that he was paying absolutely no attention to the local girls. "I admit," he wrote, "that sometimes I’m tempted. But I fight it. I’m keeping myself for you." In the next mail, the engineer received a package. It contained a note from his girl and a harmonica. "I’m sending this to you," she wrote, "so you can learn to play it and have something to take your mind off those girls."
The engineer replied, "Thanks for the harmonica. I’m practicing on it every night and thinking of you." At the end of the two years, the engineer was transferred back to company headquarters. He took the first plane to Tennessee to be reunited with his girl. Her whole family was with her, but as he rushed forward to embrace her, she held up a restraining hand and said sternly, "Just hold on there a minute, Billy Bob. Before any serious kissin’ and huggin’ gets started here, let me hear you play that harmonica!" (Bits & Pieces, October 15, 1992, pp. 17-18.)
By briefly taking the time to point to the prophecy of Isaiah, Mark "pulls out the harmonica." In quoting Isaiah’s prophecy, Mark demonstrates how John the Baptist’s ministry was a critical sign &endash; given by God - to indicate that the Good News of Jesus Christ was real. He’s giving proof that the Good News that he is writing about is faithful to the prophetic scriptures given by God to his people.1
Do you believe in the sign that John the Baptist was pointing too? Do you believe in the forgiving power of Christ in your live today?
John was pointing to the one who was coming, who has come into this world to bring forgiveness as we turn away from sin.
" Not too many years ago newspapers carried the story of Al Johnson, a Kansas man who came to faith in Jesus Christ. What made his story remarkable was not his conversion, but the fact that as a result of his newfound faith in Christ, he confessed to a bank robbery he had participated in when he was nineteen years old. Because the statute of limitations on the case had run out, Johnson could not be prosecuted for the offense. Still, he believed his relationship with Christ demanded a confession. And he even voluntarily repaid his share of the stolen money!"
Repentance means turning around, turning away from sin to the forgiving arms of Christ.
We close with Luther’s Prayer of Repentance
"Behold, Lord, an empty vessel that needs to be filled. My lord, fill it.
I am weak in faith; strengthen thou me. I am cold in love; warm and make me fervent that my love may go out to my neighbors. I do not have a strong and firm faith; at time I doubt and am unable to trust Thee altogether.
O Lord, help me. In Thee I have sealed the treasure of all I have. I am poor,Thou art rich and didst come to be merciful to the poor. I am a sinner; thou are upright. With me, there is an abundance of sin, in Thee is the fullness of righteousness. Therefore I will remain with Thee whom I can receive, but to Whom I may not give." amen
John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
Amen
Written by Pastor Tim Zingale November 28, 2005
1from a sermon by Eloy Gonzalezfound on SermonCentral
