Sermon for 12.4.11

Scriptures for today are Here.

Some years ago, I read a story –a personal reminiscence by a man who had been an American soldier in World War II. He saw a lot of battle in Europe, a lot of darkness, cold and pain. He couldn’t believe he had survived – but he found himself on his way home at last – and the night before he was to get on the ship home to America, in London, he went to see the musical Oklahoma!, which had just opened there. He described what it felt like to sit alone in the theater as the lights went down, to sit in complete darkness with strangers all around, in silence, waiting. And then a light slowly began to dawn on the stage, sunrise on a cornfield, and the chirping of birds began to sound, and some notes of music began to play. And as day dawned, a man rode out of the cornfield on stage into spotlight, began to sing: Oh, What a Beautiful Morning, Oh What a Beautiful Day. And the soldier sat in the dark in the theater with tears running down his cheeks – because he had suddenly realized that in a world that for years had been only darkness, cold and death, that light was dawning and peace had come. A beautiful new day had dawned, he was alive, and he was going home.

Think of our gospel passage today as the sudden dawning of light in darkness. Think of the people of Mark’s time as sitting in a theater, wishing the lights would come up, tired and hurting and worn out, not sure what to expect. And then a spotlight comes on, and a man strides out of the wilderness. And Mark begins to proclaim: a whole new day has come: the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

I think this is a fascinating beginning to a gospel that is also fascinating. Unlike other gospels, Mark does not begin with a Christmas story or theological background about who Jesus is. Mark just plunges right in, with an adult John the Baptist arriving on stage. John arrives out of darkness and silence, to a people living in fear and despair.

By the time John the Baptist began his preaching and baptizing, the prophets in Israel had fallen silent for hundreds of years; one foreign emperor after another had conquered Israel; the gap between rich and poor was ever-widening, the worship of God continued in the Temple, but the Temple rulers were notoriously corrupt; the Roman conquerors were harsh and merciless rulers who would torture and crucify anyone who caused a disturbance. The ordinary people of Israel must have wondered if God had forgotten them.

Out of this darkness, suddenly light begins to shine – not center stage, in the Temple, where people would have expected God – but off to the side, in the wilderness, away from the capital where important things happened. And the hero doesn’t take the stage, not yet – we see the forerunner, the herald, the one who will proclaim what the story will be about: and John begins to preach: Prepare the way. The images in this story are familiar to Israel: wilderness, prophets, river Jordan. Moses had led the people out of slavery into the wilderness, and Joshua (after whom Jesus is named) led them across river Jordan into Promised Land – a new day.

What John tells the people is that another new day is dawning. And what they must do, as they wait for God to act, is to prepare themselves, with repentance, – a word that in Greek doesn’t just mean feeling sorry for what they have done. The Greek word is metanoia, and it means a turning point, a change in life, a whole new mind – John is telling them to begin looking at the world differently. With their repentance, they will prepare to learn a whole new way of living, guided by the One who is coming, who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.

I’ve said this before: in any Bible passage, you can interpret it on three levels: the level of the story itself; the level of the writer; and the level of our lives today. So let’s talk about the second level, what did the author intend? We are entering lectionary Year B, when we will read a lot of Mark’s gospel. Mark is the earliest of the four gospels, the first to be written, between 65-70. Mark actually invents a whole new form of literature – he is the first to decide that story of Jesus should be written, and he calls it a “gospel” – which simply means good news.

What is going on in Mark’s world that makes it necessary for him to invent a whole new literary genre? A lot: 30-35 years before, Jesus had died and been resurrected. The disciples’ hopes were crushed when he died, but were awakened with new hope when he rose: they underwent metanoia, a whole new way of seeing the world. The resurrection meant a new light dawning in the darkness of a world of death. Resurrection helped them understand that Jesus had come not to conquer earthly empires, but to bring light in darkness, a new heaven and a new earth – to usher us all into a new way of life, resurrection life that begins now.

The earliest disciples believed that Jesus would return any day to bring his kingdom to fulfillment. But the years go by, and Jesus doesn’t return, between the years 60-70 major events happen that turn the fledgling Christian community upside down. Leaders begin to die: James – leader of church in Jerusalem and brother of Jesus, is martyred in 62; Peter and Paul were both martyred in Rome around 64-65.

A shocked Christian community is living through other cataclysmic events too. Rome, where Mark is probably living, burned in 64; in Jerusalem, a rebellion in the years 66-70 will end with mass starvation, the Temple destroyed, the Jews scattered all over the world. For the disciples, the world is falling apart, Jesus is not coming back anytime soon, the generation of eyewitnesses to his life are dying off, beloved leaders are being martyred.

In a situation like this, many small cults withdraw into themselves, wait for the end, focus inward. But if you decide not to withdraw and stay an inner-focused cult, you have to figure out how to adjust to a new world, how God is working in new ways, how to undergo metanoia, how to begin seeing the world with new eyes, new life. The only reason for Mark to write down the events of Jesus’ life in a new gospel form is because he realizes there will be future generations who need to know about Jesus: a revolutionary change in expectations, metanoia.

So Mark sits down to write a gospel, and writes a title across the top of the page. And the title is not “The Gospel according to Mark” – that name comes later. The title is “The Beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ, Son of God.” That first line is not a complete sentence– it’s the title of the whole gospel. The whole gospel, the story of Jesus’ life, is the beginning of good news.

Mark’s gospel ends strangely, it doesn’t really end at all (and I’ll talk about the ending in a later sermon). It just sort of ends with a dot dot dot … because, for Mark – the story continues. The gospel according to Mark, the whole story of Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, is only the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Because that story continues, down through history, by the power of the Holy Spirit. It continues through one metanoia after another, through the upheavals that inspired Mark to write his gospel, through change after change in Christian history.

With each change, God acts in a new and unexpected way, through people who learn to see the world with new eyes, again and again, through new actors who come onto the stage and introduce new ways of thinking by the power of the Holy Spirit: all working in ways that will continue the good news of Jesus Christ. Right down to the present day, when more change and upheaval is happening.

I don’t have to tell you that the world is changing, almost faster than we can keep track of. Our church is changing along with it; the church’s position in society, its way of doing things, what we believe about our mission. And each of us, in our personal lives, have also been through huge changes and upheavals. Sometimes those are good changes, like the birth of a child or a move to a warmer and sunnier climate. But sometimes they are disturbing and disorienting changes: the loss of a relationship, the death of someone we love, terrible challenges and difficulties.

When these things happen, I believe God is calling us to undergo metanoia once more, to look at world with new eyes, to look for how God is working in new ways. Here’s what I find exciting: what God did long ago in Jesus was an entirely new thing, a movement that would change the world. But it was only the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

That story hasn’t ended yet; Jesus’ earthly life ended with a dot dot dot. Because the story continues with us – we are the disciples who are writing a new book in Christian history. We are the ones figuring out how to live in a new world, preparing for new ways of following Christ. We are the ones whom God is calling, right now, to repentance, to metanoia. Metanoia is not something you can decide to do for yourself; it is a gift God gives you. But you can prepare yourself for metanoia, you can open your hearts to it.

We are called to cleanse our hearts, to prepare for new things God is doing. We are called to prayer and worship and service and love of neighbor. These are all acts that will open our eyes and open our hearts to the continuing drama of Christ who has come and will come, and is always coming, into this world. Because a new light is dawning, and the curtain is going up, and it is our turn to take our place in the continuing story, the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.