Advent 2 - The Prophets

Mark 1:1–8 NRSV

1 The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. 2 As it is written in the prophet Isaiah, “See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way; 3 the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,’ ” 4 John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5 And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. 6 Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. 7 He proclaimed, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. 8 I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

This Advent, we’re looking at what it means for us to be light! As God speaks into Creation, let there be light, we now hear the call — “Let us be light” — we are co-creators with the Light of Christ, who lives in us. The God of mystery, in whom we live and move and have our being calls us to be Light, to carry Light, to speak the Light, and to see the Light in one another.

Today, we continue on in the book of Mark, now back to the very beginning. Last week, we heard Mark’s apocalyptic imagery, as Christ tells of the signs of the times, the moments of incarnation that we bear witness to in him. Today, in typical Marcan fashion, we cut to the quick, going back to the start and hearing the voice crying out in the wilderness.

John the Baptist points to Jesus, preparing the way. John cries out from the wild, echoing the words of the Prophet Isaiah. John, the wildman, is our prophet who lays the final groundwork for the coming of Jesus, the Messiah.

It is important to note that we don’t have a birth narrative or any of the prologue in Mark that we find in the Gospel of Luke, where our familiar Christmas story unfolds. There is no census, no decree to come to your city of origin, no innkeeper, no manger, no shepherds. This is all a foregone conclusion, an accepted reality. Mark is earnest, instead, to get his point across — the prophets have seen the light dawning and now— it is here! The time is now — pay attention, watch and wait.

We also need to note something about how Mark narrates John the Baptist’s ministry. I think we are tempted to assume that religious practice in this time was limited to what we hear about happening in the synagogues. We have the official histories of the temple, its leadership, and actions from this period. We know the Pharisees and the Sadducees, among a number of religious communities, had set up structures and power as the holders of what we might call the temple religious of Judaism in first century Palestine. But what I realize as I read this text is that John the Baptist is doing something else in this season and people are flocking to it. He’s that crazy revival preacher, gathering people out in the sticks, for some old time religion, baptism, and prophecy. I find it super interesting that people were opting for these wilderness rituals, spending time with a man wearing a coarse, camel hair cassock, finding religion outside the walls of the temple.

It puts John into perspective, especially as he’s a forebearer for Jesus, who would do the same — gather people on the hillside or the shoreline, preaching a new take on the good news of God’s love for the people. The rules are changing, it seems. And yet they are both so deeply related to the prophetic tradition of the Hebrew religious system, the voice of truth that stands outside the establishment and offers critique and insight into its failings.

And how are we, then, to hear John?

Do you ever feel like you’re a little bit outside the established religious way of things? Do you, like so many people who live in Cascadia, the Pacific Northwest, consider yourself a bit more spiritual than religious? Have you ever experienced God up on a mountain top in as profound a way as you experience God in a building like this? Do you have an imagination for God being revealed to you outside the walls?

We are fortunate to have the narratives and pronouncements of the prophets, like John the Baptist, because they show us that the Light spreads far beyond the confines of religion and orderly worship. The Light of Christ is coming, and its heralded by the wild.

As you know, I like to run. And especially over these last few years, I’ve found how much I love to run on trails, up into the hills around our beautiful little town. I remember years ago, when I was training for a marathon, taking a 20+ mile run up into the Chuckanuts, winding through ravines and stream beds, up and down the ridges, gaining views of both the Salish Sea and the foothills of Mount Baker. These are sacred spaces, places on the land that people have walked for many, many years, seeing the spiritual break through amidst the natural.

I’ll admit something to you. Oftentimes, when I’m out on a long run in those hills, when I know that no one else is around (or at least I hope not), I like to lift up my voice like John the Baptist. After climbing a steep trail, I love to let out a shout, a triumphant echo that let’s my voice express the joy and hard work that I’m experiencing. Letting our voice cry out in the wilderness can be such an authentic expression of our inner self, our light, and hope. It is often guttural, deep. It’s the interplay of lungs and tendons, my vagus nerve and my gut, all crying out.

And while we don’t think of that kind of voice as very decent or put together, to me, it often feels like it’s the way my Light cries out from inside.

Yesterday, I ran up at Galbraith Mountain. After a long uphill, which included a short accidental detour off the trail while being pelted with sleet and wet snow, I came into the trees once more and let out such a cry. It felt so good.

I digress.

But I tell about this because when we talk about the prophets, when we hear these narratives about wild men out in the sticks preaching about the coming of the Messiah, we need to pay attention and we need to ask “what’s going on?”

Is this just some guy who’s a little half-nuts? And we’re supposed to listen to him? Are we to do the same, go off into the wild to find the voice of God, the voice of the Light in us?

What are we to do with this? …

What Mark does for us is helpful, and it approaches some sense of what we might be able to glean about being the Light. Again, like we noted earlier, there is not a birth narrative in the book of Mark. Rather, Mark gets down to business by telling the story of John so as to situate the narrative of Jesus’ ministry as aligned with the messages from the Hebrew prophets, both old and new. John is a prophet. We typically think of him as “the Baptist” but really, he belongs alongside Isaiah, Elijah, Ezra, Nehemiah, and the rest of the Old Testament prophets. John is the one who links the Old tradition with the new way. John’s light is meant to point to what is coming next, what is the new movement of God that is about to unfold in Jesus’ life and ministry.

And so we hear Mark tell of this: John says, “Someone is coming soon who is greater than I am.”

It is easy for us to look at a prophet and think, if they don’t totally weird us out, that they are both message and messenger. What I mean is, we look to the ones who speak out and speak up and think they are, perhaps, the one who will change things. But looking to John to be the one who sets things to rights is to misread his role — he is the one who points to the Light. His light is meant to point to Jesus, the Light.

Prophets are not, typically, the greatest leaders or change makers. They are often the ones who look a little on the crazy side.

But to see John as off his rocker is also a way of misreading him. John knows exactly what he’s doing and Mark capitalizes on that in how he tells John’s story. John is a prophet and, therefore, John is telling us something true.

Something true. Prophets tell us the truth. Not necessarily always the objective, scientific, factual truth. But always the truth, something of deep truth, telling it how it is, telling us what the Light looks like, perhaps telling it in slant, but still pointing directly to the truth. Prophets see in ways we do not always see.

Back to that guttural cry in the woods on a long run. Is it how I would present myself in front of the church on a Sunday morning? NO! But it’s true. It’s a deep truth echoing out of my lungs.

It’s actually similar to the kind of cry we hear from a newborn baby. It’s similar to the rasping rattle we witness at a person’s death. The voice that cries out the in the wilderness has no regard for decorum, grammar, articulate speech, or proper timing. The prophet is here to speak what must be spoken.

So what do these stories tell us? How do we learn to be Light through the witness of John the Baptist.

Remember, John is telling us the truth and he’s pointing to the coming Light, the Christ.

I know each of us probably squirms a little bit when we think about being a prophet like that. Thank you very much, I’ll leave that to someone else. I like my comfortable, orderly life. I’m much more apt to preach the Good News in a smart cardigan and slacks than a hairshirt or cassock. I’m no prophet, ahem.

But that guttural cry still comes from somewhere…doesn’t it?

Here’s what I see: We may not be the people who go off into the wilderness to find God in the wild. But each of us has the Light and so each of us has a Light to share.

What do you know, deep in your bones, is true? What, if you chose to speak it, would echo deep in your bones as truth that you would build your life upon?

Is it saying a deep “I love you” to the people you hold dearest?

Is it standing up and protesting genocide?

Is it found in how you hold firm to your convictions about equity and inclusion?

Is it part of how you use your resources to speak up for the hurting and the poor?

You see, as people who have the Light of Christ in us, we DO have a spark that wants to cry out and speak up and tell the truth. Not in the same ways, sure, but in our own ways. When we say, “let us be light,” the implication is that we will shine, we will speak, we will tell the truth when we are asked to. We will point to the goodness we know and say, “LOOK, this, this is what it’s about…this is what it’s all pointing toward.”

Again, I’m sure some of you are thinking, “yeah, that’s not me.” And so in closing, I want to challenge us.

Where do you see injustice in the world today that you cannot help but react to and do something?

What sparks your passion, so much so that you have made it a cornerstone of who you are?

Who do you need to tell the truth to, not because it will be easy, but because it will be good?

Where do you come alive? Isn’t this, perhaps, how the Light in you is trying to shine?

I challenge us, all, in this season of Advent, when the darkness gets so close, to interogate the Light — to cry out to it, to speak to Jesus about it, and see where that Light MUST shine out today, in us.

Friends, you are a Light to the world. As Christ now lives you in you, so you now bear a Light to the world. How will you share it? How will you speak it? How will we own it and proclaim it?

Let us be Light!