And so it begins...
First Sunday of a new year! And we are going to hit the ground running…
Today, we return to the Narrative Lectionary after a little bit of a detour for Advent and Christmas. And there was a reason for that detour! You’ll get a feel for that shortly.
Remember that the narrative lectionary is a four-year cycle of reading scripture in which each year focuses on a single gospel as the primary lens for understanding Jesus’ ministry. In this year’s cycle, we are growing in our relationship with Jesus through the gospel of Mark.
Mark’s gospel is tightly written – it is the shortest of the gospels. Reading it you might even say it is “abrupt.”
Notably, there is no birth narrative in Mark’s gospel – no story of the baby Jesus. Which is the key reason that we took a seasonal detour for Advent.
The text that you heard today is at the very beginning of Mark’s gospel. We kind of get “dumped” into the middle of a really big story. OR we are launched into a big story with no preface. It is a story we are told from the very first line is “good news.”
The word translated good news here is the Greek word euangelion (yoo-on-gell-e-on). In modern language, the word gospel equates to this “good news,” to this euangelion.
Each of the four gospels has a slightly different take on how to proclaim that “good news.” In Mark’s gospel, the good news begins in the wilderness, with John the Baptist letting folks know that he has been sent to prepare the way for God’s anointed – the Messiah.
Often, we talk about preparing for Jesus in the season of Advent. I know that I think of Advent that way. I was struck in this text that there is one who goes before to prepare the way for Jesus. Can we receive Jesus if we are not prepared? Are you prepared for Jesus? Do we play a role in preparing the way for Jesus in this time and this place? I invite you to sit with that question. Here at the beginning of Mark’s gospel we are invited into a season of preparation that is so very different from the stories of a virgin birth that angels herald and shepherds watch.
Here in Mark’s gospel, while in the wilderness, John promises that the one who comes after him will offer a different kind of ritual cleansing – not one of repentance but a baptism of the Holy Spirit.
Anytime we teach about John the Baptist, someone notes their surprise about a Jewish baptism – and to be clear, Judaism has deep practices of ritual cleanliness and immersion in water is a part of those rituals. One of the things I was amazed by when traveling in the arid landscape near the dead sea was the lengths ancient cultures would go to in order to collect water for bathing and immersion for purity rituals. So John is offering an immersion ritual for turning away from sin.
Also important here is this first mention of the Holy Spirit. And in a few short verses – it is just one of a few. Pay attention to that.
So Jesus shows up at the Jordan and is baptized/immersed – and as he comes up out of the water, the heavens are torn open and the Spirit descends on him like a dove. A voice comes from heaven, You are my son, the beloved; with you I am well pleased.
In Matthew and Luke’s accounts of Jesus’ baptism, the heavens “open,” but in Mark’s text, the heavens are “torn” when the Spirit descends. I think this is a vital detail. There is a marked difference between something “opening,” and something being torn…. A tear involves force. And if you think about tearing cloth or tearing flesh, a tear is less easily repaired or sewn back up or closed again. The language of Mark’s gospel suggests a forceful change – and an opening between God’s realm and the realm of these folks gathered by the Jordan in the wilderness.
That forceful change includes God’s voice and Spirit “anointing” Jesus in this moment.
In the first 15 verses, this gospel wastes no time identifying this person, Jesus, as anointed, special, the one – God’s chosen.
And in the tight style of Mark’s storytelling, Jesus, now anointed, is immediately driven into the wilderness by the SPIRIT (There’s that Spirit again!) where Jesus is tempted by Satan and waited upon by angels for 40 days before heading to Galilee.
I want you to get a glimpse of the movement from the wilderness to the area of Galilee. Can we cue up those photos on the screen please?
Given the order of events in the gospels, it is likely that Jesus’ baptism took place in a part of the Jordan that was in the “wilderness.” Like a lot of religious pilgrimage sites in Israel, there are multiple locations where people remember Jesus’ baptism and claim it happened in that spot – but given the reference to “wilderness,” this one you see on the screen seems most likely or at least the setting closest to the possible action.
The biblical wilderness was barren and rough terrain – like these pictures you see, near the Dead Sea and Qumran.
And in contrast, the Galilee, the region where Jesus’ ministry unfolded, was more lush, green, agricultural…with the Sea of Galilee – a large freshwater lake – serving as a source of fish, drinking water and possibly irrigation for communities nearby.
Entering in Galilee, Jesus is immediately proclaiming the “good news” of God – the time is fulfilled and the Kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe the good news. These are the very first words credited to Jesus in Mark’s gospel. So we should pay attention.
Jesus’ good news includes the nearness of God – you know, the God who unleased the Spirit in the tearing open of the sky. Jesus, God’s anointed Son, is proclaiming God’s nearness! It is almost as if this is an invitation to be amazed by the ways that God is on the move – in Jesus and by the inbreaking of the Spirit.
And we skipped over a few short verses about the calling of disciples today to end with Jesus preaching in the synagogue in Capernaum. Here we encounter another kind of spirit – an unclean one who recognizes who Jesus as the Holy one of God – the Messiah, the anointed one. Jesus speaks directly to the unclean spirit, commanding him to leave the man – and he does.
This really gets the attention of the crowd, and from this point forward, the crowds of followers grow.
I wonder how many times Jesus repeats to those who gathered from place to place, “repent, and believe the good news?”
And this, just like calling the disciples away from their family and their trade, is a call to those who will listen.
Repent, and believe the good news.
How are we called today – right now – to repent and believe the good news?
Perhaps you have thought about repentance before – in the Greek this is the word metanoia, a term that suggests a transformation of worldview, a kind of reorientation. And sometimes I think we throw around the term “good news” in church community as if we all OBVIOUSLY share the same clear and exact understanding of what “good news” means.
But have you thought about it lately?
How are you called to repent, and what is the good news you believe?
The turning of a new year seems like a really good time to consider a reorientation – a transformation of worldview.
I’ve been thinking a lot about how I am called as a pastor in this place and time, and about how we as the body of Christ are called to be transformed (to become something new) in the year to come. I’ve been sitting prayerfully, letting the Holy Spirit speak…
And a thing that has surfaced for me, particularly as I think about Mark’s gospel, is the vital need for us as people following Jesus to actually KNOW Jesus.
Not just know about Jesus.
But to know Jesus for ourselves. And for Faith as a community to know Jesus for our “collective” self.
Knowing about something is brain work. It is rational. In is information.
Knowing someone is relational work. It is practice based. It is heart work. It is rooted in lived experience.
When we know Jesus, I believe that we know God’s love. We experience God’s love in ways that reorient us – reorient our worldview, our priorities, the way that we choose to relate to one another. In this way, we are transformed by God’s love day after day after day. We become a new thing in relationship to Jesus.
And so…as we journey through Mark’s gospel, the good news that begins proclaiming that Jesus is God’s anointed, the good news that is infused with the work of the Spirit, the good news that heals and cleanses and calls out what is unclean, …as we journey through this good news, let’s root ourselves in relational work to know Jesus.
The hymn we will sing before communion begins this way:
Will you come and follow me
If I but call your name?
Will you go where you don't know
And never be the same?
Will you let my love be shown,
Will you let my name be known,
Will you let my life be grown
In you and you in me?
Like we have used silence in the past, like we have used an affirmation of faith in the past, let’s use this hymn as a way of listening for how God speaks to us today.
And then, we will gather at the table and share communion.
Practices – worshiping with music, reflective listening, showing up to share bread and wine – open us up to relationship with God’s chosen one.
May it be so.
Amen.
Comments
Post a Comment