Advent 2B 2023

The Rev. Dr. Kenneth H. Saunders III
St. James Episcopal Church
Greeneville, TN

December 10, 2023

• Isaiah 40:1-11
• 2 Peter 3:8-15a
• Mark 1:1-8
• Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13
  

Today, we have heard the beginning of the Gospel according to Mark. A gospel that we will spend a lot of time in the days ahead. Mark's account of the Good News of Jesus Christ didn't begin with a baby in a manger. It didn't start with angels and wise men and shepherds. It began with an ancient prophecy remembered. The prophet Isaiah speaks of a messenger, a voice of one crying out in the wilderness, "Make the rough places plain and the low places made high and the high places low. Make the crooked places straight and prepare the way of the Lord."

Mark introduces this messenger as John. The one who baptizes with water. The one who preaches repentance for the forgiveness of sins. This is the beginning of the Good News of Jesus, he says. Mark sets it up right where Salvation begins. He sets it up to be good news to us in order for us to know who Jesus is and why he came so that we must repent and believe.

So, now I've used a bunch of churchy words. We may understand a few of them if we paid attention in Sunday school. I remember Mrs. Creekmore's 4th grade Sunday School class, but I don'temember one lesson. That doesn't mean that Mrs. Creekmore was a bad teacher; on the contrary, she was an outstanding teacher. She would teach us the churchy words, hoping we would someday understand. But the churchy words are still there. Words like prophecy… Baptize… repent… sin… and salvation… Advent is when we might reexamine what these words mean and why they are important to us in the context of these readings. 

When I hear the passage from Isaiah, I cannot help but think of Handel's Messiah and the Tenor Aria in the first movement, "Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people." This beautiful piece puts Isaiah's great prophecy to music, and these are the first words sung in Handel's great work. I think the main thing we must remember here is that God is making way for God's people. God always continues to make a way.

Isaiah uses his prophetic voice to speak to God's people who are in exile and let them know that they will be comforted after such hardship. Isaiah reminds Israel that even though they are in exile, God is still with them and making a way through all the rough places... God is leveling off the playing field. God is coming with great power and will establish equity through restoration.

Isaiah uses his prophetic voice to remind Israel not to give up hope that God continues to be the restorer of all things. This prophecy is fulfilled by John the Baptizer, whom Mark introduces us to in the Gospel reading...  The one who cries in the wilderness, "Make the paths straight"

John is called "the Baptizer" because he takes folks down to the Jordan River and gives them a ritual bath, calling for them to repent. Repentance, or in the Greek, Metanoia (say it with me): You've heard me use this word before. Repentance isn't an "I'm sorry, I won't do it again." Repentance is literally, "I will go in a different direction. Metanoia is an "about-face," it means to go in a different way than the way that we are going; in our context, to repent would be to begin going in the right direction, following the ways of Jesus, living a life in response to him and honoring Jesus by the way we live our lives. In our repentance and turning from the ways of sin. 

Oops, there's another one of those churchy words. One of those churchy words that folks like to use a lot. Sometimes, sin is thrown in our faces; I've actually heard someone referred to as a "filthy sinner." And I'm sure some folks intentionally sin. But I like to define sin as this... Sin is a shortcoming. It's missing the mark, sometimes deliberately and sometimes unintentionally. Sin is anything that destroys the relationship between God and God's people.

I'm sure you've heard of the "Seven Deadly Sins." Greed, Lust, Gluttony, Sloth, Wrath, Envy, and Pride. But these aren't the only sins. These are just classified as the worst. Sin could be as simple as a shortcoming. Like a sin of attitude or neglect, or it could be as bad as a sin of action or intent. ALL these sins are the things that John is asking folks to turn away from. They were to repent (turn away from) sins and be ritually cleansed. In order to restore their relationship with God, they acknowledge to God that they understand where they have gone astray.

In the same way, we are to examine our own lives to prepare the way for God. We need to repent of those things we have done that we ought not to have done. And also those things we didn't do that we should have done. With that reconciling act, we are restored to right-relationship with God (by doing what we should do) and right-relationship with each other.

Then, we have the idea of Salvation. Salvation by grace through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. More churchy words. Salvation means we are freed from the burdens of our sins and restored to God through Jesus. And we are redeemed by God and set free of our sins, evil, and death. 

In the second letter of Peter, it talks about time and patience in waiting. Last week, we were told to keep watch, stay alert, and wait. This week, we are offered a word that puts our waiting in context. A word that draws all the churchy words we've been talking about - together.

The word is patience. Patience is hard for us. Waiting takes time. We want control. We want things to happen on our terms and in our own time; we want God to fit into our timeline; we want to say when things begin and end. Advent is our time to remember that we don't control everything; Advent calls us to question those things we think we are in control of. Advent is an opportunity to rethink our relationship with time. There is a distinct difference between God's time and our time. God's time is not our time, and our time is not God's time. God's time is eternal, and our time is chronological or linear. The promises of God do not happen on our timeline. So, we are called to be patient. Patiently wait for a time when all will be restored. Patient and stay on God's time. To be patient means someone else is in control. God is patient with us; we need to be patient with God.

The prophetic voices of Isaiah and John are ringing through us today, calling for us to repent of our sins and turn to God. Calling for us to be restored to right-relationship with God and each other. And for us to be patient as we wait for Jesus to come. We are to strive to be found at peace. And regard the patience of our Lord as our Salvation.

RCL Year B (Advent 2) - December 7, 2008

The Rev'd Kenneth H. Saunders III
Christ Episcopal Church
Cleveland, NC

RCL Year B – (2 Advent) - December 7, 2008

Isaiah 40:1-11
Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13
2 Peter 3:8-15a
Mark 1:1-8

If a tree falls in the woods, and no one is around to hear it… Does it still make a sound? I suspect that some of you would immediately answer… yes, of course it does! and then some of you would say… there goes Ken with those silly questions again...

And then I would say, “how do you know?” You weren't there to hear it…

Well, you say, I have been there at other times, and when I was there and the tree fell, I heard this great crashing sound as it hit the ground… so, I know for sure that this “in fact” happens.

Ok. So, you've experienced this happening first-hand, you saw and heard, you are an actual witness to this truth, so you know without a doubt that this does occur… But, what about those of you who, perhaps, have never been in the woods when a tree fell?

Some of you are saying, yes, it does make a sound, even though you have never actually been present to hear the tree for yourselves... Because you know others who have, and by faith in their testimony, you have come to believe that this is a "true" and "real" thing.

This leaves some of the rest of us… those who've neither been in the presence of a falling tree, nor can we take it on faith... from the witness of others who claim to have been present when the tree fell, and heard the noise.

So let me rephrase the question for you… If a prophet 2000 years ago cries out in the wilderness, “repent and be baptized… prepare the way of the Lord… make a straight way to God” and you weren’t there to hear him, do you still believe it? Do you still listen to his message?

I am sure that some of you, especially the ones growing up in Cleveland, have been lost in the woods before? I mean really really lost in the deep woods? I know that I have, and I also know that it can be a very scary experience.

You have heard me talk about wilderness before… The Israelites traveled in the wilderness for 40 years after they left Egypt. God used the wilderness to deliver them from slavery in Egypt and lead them to the promised land…

But the wilderness is a scary place… In the ancient world, traveling anywhere was dangerous… especially travel through in the wilderness. You only would travel to or through the wilderness places for specific reasons… The wilderness and the desert were considered those “in-between” spaces between the lush valleys and the mountains, the places of the unknown where evil dwelled.

Traveling to the wilderness as a destination was absolutely unheard of… the wild woods were considered the haunt of demons and a very unusual place for anyone to go. Now, do you think it was easy to follow a guy as different as John into the woods… That would NOT be a very comfortable feeling... And it probably shouldn’t be!

You have got to admit… John the Baptizer is a bit of a strange character, and a very unlikely messenger… I am not just talking about the way he acted… but also the way he dressed in his camels hair and leather belt not to mention his diet of locust and wild honey.

What would you think if you came up on this character today?… Would you follow him into the wilderness to hear his prophetic message? I don’t think so.

But folks paid attention to this unlikely character… they came from all over the Judean countryside and followed him to the in-between space of the wilderness... and heard his message.. “Repent, and be baptized – prepare yourself.”

What could he possibly be talking about? I am sure that they were all fascinated… John wasn’t giving them just any old message. He was telling them to get ready for something. He is there to shake them up and get them ready – and his prophetic message lingers to shake us up and get us ready.

The folks back then knew the ancient writings of Isaiah… the ones we just heard and they knew what it said about a prophetic voice crying out “in the wilderness – prepare the way of the Lord, make strait in the desert, a highway for our God.” They wanted to know more… so they followed John.

Followed John to that pace in-between the valleys and the mountains… a place, so unlikely, so riddled with mystery and the unknown… a place considered by some to be where evil dwells, a place that God will use to save us.

Last Sunday, we learned that Advent was a time of preparation and anticipation, because the Son of Man is coming in all his power and glory. Those themes continue this week with today’s text – And John is here to help us prepare the way… and shake us up a bit.

In Advent we are called to search down deep… Deep down into the wilderness places of our lives… Deep into that emptiness, where demons dwell… Places that we don’t like to go… Places that are strange and different to us… Those unlikely places that are in-between this life and our life to come…

We go to these places to prepare and examine ourselves to repent and to worship our God. John takes us on that journey, and the strange and different John gives us a message… The message of hope that something great is coming… The narrative that we are given today in the first chapter of Mark, identifies the one who is coming…. it is Jesus Christ, the Son of God…

And we are called by the text to prepare, and repent, and make our paths straight and ready for God… We all know that Christ is coming, and we don’t know the hour or even the day… But we need to be ready and God will unfold the story in due time ALL will be reviled in God’s time…

All we can do today is to sit still and be silent so we can listen carefully… listen… to listen and see if we can hear the sound of John crying out in the wilderness… listen for that prophetic voice of God that talks to us though unlikely messengers and invites us to those in-between spaces… listen and heed their warnings, so that when the time comes, we can be fully prepared!