2 Advent – December 10, 2023
Mark 1:1-8
John the Baptist is best known as the forerunner of Jesus, the one who calls on people to prepare the way of the Lord’s coming. He is the messenger, the voice of one crying out in the wilderness.
Forerunners are often unseen figures and unsung heroes. And their back stories are unknown. The details of their lives are underimagined or undervalued. They garner minimal attention, because they are forerunners—those who plow the ground, destabilize the terrain, and make ready for change that is to come. They are not The One; they are those who come before The One.
Every kind of movement needs people who function as the advance team, that is, those who prepare the way for something beyond the present state of affairs. In today’s reading we find John preparing the way for Jesus.
This is how Mark begins his gospel, “The Beginning” “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ”. And notice that the beginning of the story about Jesus isn’t about Jesus at all– it’s about John. According to Mark, Jesus’ story begins before Jesus has come on stage, when his cousin John is in the spotlight, drawing crowds out to the River Jordan to confess their sins and be baptized – including, later on, Jesus himself.
As Erica Lloyd, from Seekers Church, shares: “In America, we love the gospel of the “self-made” man, and the woman who “came from nothing” yet reached great heights. Their stories give credence to our claim to being the land of opportunity, where rugged individualism means anyone can succeed. But according to Mark, even Jesus’s story starts with the one who came before him. John prepares the way for Jesus, and in doing so reminds us that no one is self-made; none of us complete the work all on our own.
This is important, I think, not only for the healthy dose of humility it provides, but also for the hope it brings: we are in this together. Those that came before us laid foundations for our work, and those that come after us will continue to build where we leave off. We need not despair that the work of the kingdom will go unfinished. John, like all martyrs, was killed by those who wanted to silence his message, but even now, over two thousand years later, we hear his voice loud and clear. We know his story, know that it was part of Jesus’s story, know it is part of our own story today.”
John appears as a wildly liminal figure, a character who lives and works in a threshold space, an in-between space. He dwells in the wilderness; hangs out by a river; offers the ritual of baptism and devotes himself to preparing a way for the one who is to come. His purpose is not only to make a path for Christ but also to help others cross into a deeper relationship with God.
John the Baptist has a way of holding the past, present, and future in dramatic and creative tension, not becoming overly attached to any one of these realms. Open to the ways that the God of the ages is at work, John is able to recognize Christ when he comes. Most importantly, this John, the wilderness man, announces that change can happen, that repentance is possible, that God is doing something new, something unexpected.
Advent reminds us to keep awake, to be aware of what is right in front of us. Advent reminds us that Christ is present, even in the darkness. Advent Hope. Will we recognize Christ when he is right in front of us?
A story: Back when the telegraph was the fastest method of long-distance communication, a young man applied for a job as a Morse Code operator. Answering an ad in the newspaper, he went to the office address that was listed. When he arrived, he entered a large, busy office filled with noise and clatter, including the sound of the telegraph in the background. A sign on the receptionist’s counter instructed job applicants to fill out a form and wait until they were summoned to enter the inner office.
The young man filled out his form and sat down with the seven other applicants in the waiting area. After a few minutes, the young man stood up, crossed the room to the door of the inner office, and walked right in. Naturally the other applicants perked up, wondering what was going on. They muttered among themselves that they hadn’t heard any summons yet. They assumed that the young man who went into the office made a mistake and would be disqualified.
Within a few minutes, however, the employer escorted the young man out of the office and said to the other applicants, “Gentlemen, thank you very much for coming, but the job has just been filled.” The other applicants began grumbling to each other, and one spoke up saying, “Wait a minute, I don’t understand. He was the last to come in, and we never even got a chance to be interviewed. Yet he got the job. That’s not fair!”
The employer said, “I’m sorry, but all the time you’ve been sitting here, the telegraph has been ticking out the following message in Morse Code: ‘If you understand this message, then come right in. The job is yours.’ None of you heard it or understood it. This young man did. The job is his.”
All of the applicants (presumably) knew Morse Code, else they would not have bothered applying for the job – but only one of them was awake to what he knew. All of us know Christ – but we sometimes tune ourselves out, and completely miss him – not recognizing the one standing among us.
Stay awake! Advent Blessings to you all! Amen.
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