This is the text of the message I prepared for Eventide Homes, an aged care facility in Stawell, for Sunday 10th December 2023, the second Sunday in Advent, in Year-B. I visit one Sunday a month to bring worship and holy communion to the residents.
Mark 1:1-8
I really like The Gospel according to St Mark. As I was saying to the gathering at St Matthews church this morning, if Mark isn’t actually my favourite gospel it’s definitely in my top four. It is the shortest of the four gospel accounts we find in the Bible, and most scholars think it was the first written. After the apostle Paul had written his letters and completed all his travels, but before the evangelists Matthew or Luke put pen to paper (or stylus to papyrus), Mark wrote down the stories he had heard of the life and teaching of Jesus. For those of you who have read all or some of Mark, which I assume to be many of you, you may be surprised to be hearing from this gospel in Advent for one simple reason: Mark does not say anything about Christmas.
Each of Matthew and Luke reads extensively about the birth of Jesus. Even John 1:1-14 reads about the coming of the light of God into the world, when the Word became flesh in the form of a man, and therefore a baby as that is where men generally come from. But Mark 1:1 reads “this’s the start of the story” and Mark 1:2-8 reads “here’s John the Baptist”, with Jesus appearing in Mark 1:9. No angels or mangers, no stars or mystic visitors, just the voice of one crying out: Prepare; and that’s what I like about Mark as a story, it’s so abrupt and pacey.
The question that sermons and commentaries often ask about these verses from Mark is what they are referring to. Mark 1:1 reads The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. That’s what it says in the NRSV, other translations word it slightly differently, but that’s basically it. It is another version of Genesis 1:1 and In the beginning when God… before we get into the story of Jesus and what God did next. That’s actually what Mark was doing when he wrote that line, reminding us of Genesis: in fact John 1:1 does the same thing. But the question is whether that one line, or verse, is the beginning, or whether the whole of Mark’s gospel in its sixteen chapters is the beginning. Is he writing a one-line introduction to his story and we’re supposed to keep reading; or is his whole story the introduction to Jesus and we’re supposed to stop reading at Mark 16:8 and start thinking? Again, abrupt and pacey things are going on with this whole gospel and that is why I like it.
So, what can we say in the last few minutes about an Advent theme? Today is the second Sunday in Advent, the Sunday of peace, and this morning at St Matthews and other churches in Stawell and across the world two candles were lit on the wreath. Mark 1 says nothing about the baby, and actually says very little about peace for that matter: it’s more about getting ready for the adult Jesus who comes with the authority of God to name and cancel sin for those who repent and are washed clean. And there’s our Advent theme; not that the baby is due soon but that God is coming back to the world God created, to engage with creation and to redeem it. The One who came is coming again, the one who walked with Adam just after the beginning is now coming to walk with John in the wilderness, and then with us. The one who is more powerful, he who will baptise you with the Holy Spirit is here: the good news is at hand, the gospel has had its beginning. So, how will you respond?
Here is the question asked by the gospel; with Jesus Christ, the Son of God on the horizon how will you respond? Mark has not given us the option of fawning over the baby in the manger, cute and pudgy as he lays there in his poverty in a food trough in a barn: we are immediately confronted with the messiah of God who comes with such great authority that even John, who issues God’s call to repentance in the words of Malachi and Isaiah, is unworthy to touch his feet in servitude. Abrupt and pacey messages demand immediate responses: Mark doesn’t muck around because, according to John, Jesus will not muck around when he gets here, and he is almost here, even in the wilderness.
We will have a whole year with Mark, that’s how the lectionary works, and I am excited by that. I liked Matthew last year, and I will like Luke next year. John comes all through the story, especially at Easter, so we’ll get to hear him too. But for a gospel that doesn’t do Christmas, the way that Mark does Advent has really grabbed me. Has it grabbed you? How do you respond?
Amen.
damienwrites 