2nd Advent - Blazing the trail

Every event has a beginning. No matter what the event there it starts with some a thought, a reaction, a correction, a plan; From the conception to actual occurrence or implementation. It is true of all events. For example when someone is planning a wedding there will be plans that are made concerning the wedding. How many people do we want to invite. Who will sit at whose table. What songs do you want to play at the wedding. Will there be a rehearsal dinner? Where will the wedding take place, church, beach, mountains, or at the justice of the peace. Who will be the best man and who will be the maid of honor not mention groomsmen and brides maids. What will be the attire? And the list goes on and on.

One of the important steps is invitations. It is getting the news out the friends and family - hopefully personally rather than social media. There is the announcements that go in the newspaper if you so chose. It is the proclamation of the bands of marriage.

The announcement, the proclamation of a special event. That is what our gospel is about today. It is about a proclamation from God through John the Baptist, the announcement that the kingdom of God is at hand and the need to turn back

Our gospel reading this morning in many ways is the announcement and prclamation of what God has done and what He is about to do. It announces the fulfillment of promises He made throughout the ages and fulfills how they come to be. Our gospel reading introduces us to something greater in itself. Its opening heightens the reader, the hearer our awareness that something is about to happen and that something is great – It is about something that has been foretold coming and now to its fullness. It tells the reader and the hearer… Listen, pay attention, this is about God’s promise and greatness. It is the assurance and fulfillment of what was promised through the prophets.

The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Within Mark’s opening statements are two words that lure us into to the message… They are “The beginning” and “the Good News”. It is an invitation that if you continue to read and listen you will discover the great things God has done through His Son and what His Son has done for us. And all of it is “Good News.”

What is Good News

On the surface may not seem like a bold statement but Mark’s opening has a more significant meaning to those around him and those read the text. He uses the word Good News of Jesus Christ.

In the days of the Emperor, the Emperor proclaim his birthday as a day of good news for the empire. Emperor’s thought of themselves as gods, just the Pharaoh’s did. His birth and birthday he thought were good news to the world. He was born and ruled over the Emperor and should be glad and grateful that he was their emperor. It was proclamation of his power over the Empire, over the world as they knew it.

Good news was also associated with the victories they had. We all like to hear good news. It means that we have been successful or victorious in something we set out to accomplish. If I stood here and said I have some good news and bad news, you’d want to hear the good news. We want to hear about the success, we want to hear about victories.

So for Mark to begin the gospel with, “The beginning of the gospel (the good news) of Jesus Christ, Mark is boldly stating and the reader and listener would understand this to mean, “This is the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ (God’s Son) – greater than the Emperor or any king on earth – This is the good news of His victory…of God’s victory for His people.

An Announcement:

Our Gospel is really an announcement. It the announcement of the good news of God’s promise He made both through the prophet Isaiah and Malachi being fulfilled. It is God’s announcement being proclaimed by John the Baptist of God fulfilling His promise of Messiah to His people, to the world.

Unlike the Emperors who would send their messengers into the cities and the towns to announce the news of their victories and or their arrivals we find John the Baptist in the wilderness, a place that is barren and without life. It is place where survival is difficult and one would eek out a meager existence. It is a place of harshness and despair… And yet people from all over Judea are flocking to the wilderness the desert to hear John, to repent and to be baptized rather than staying in their cities or towns.

John the Baptist, was a prophet of God whose purpose and mission was to announce what God was doing for His people and to announce the coming of the Messiah.

His voice and his message is one that can either lead one to reject what God is doing or accept and receive it. It is not a message filled with flowery speech that one would miss it. Rather it straight and to the point.

Like when God appeared to Moses on Mt. Horeb. In God calls Moses and tells Moses to back to Egypt to tell the people of Israel who are enslaved by the Egyptians what God is going to do. Moses is afraid they will not believe him. God tells Moses to identify their God as the God of their Fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Tell them I AM who I AM and will be His name for ever and thus to be remembered throughout all generations ()

God was announcing that deliverance was coming to them and they would be delivered from the bondage of slavery to freedom. It is the same with us. We are being delivered from the bondage of sin to redemption and reconciliation with God. John the Baptist, announces the deliverer – Jesus. God’s promise to be fulfilled.

The people would know and understand who John was… In the prophet foretold of a coming prophet who announce the coming of the Lord. The hope of salvation…

"Behold, I send my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the LORD of hosts.

There was a man sent from God, whose name was He came for testimony, to bear witness to the light, that all might believe through him.

And John’s message as Mark reminds us came from the prophet Isaiah …

Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. 2 Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the LORD's hand double for all her sins. 3 A voice cries: "In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

It was announcement of hope, of salvation, of God entering into the world again on their behalf. But there was more than just the announcement of God’s Messiah – it was an announcement of repentance.

For so years Israel had longed for God to return to presence. They had wandered away, from Him, and now was the time… John called Israel to repentance, change their hearts and turn back to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. To turn back from their ways and return to the God of their Fathers for God was sending to them the Messiah, His Son.

And John not only proclaims this through his preaching, he also proclaims it by his actions. John tells the people that there is one who is coming whose sandals he not able to untie.

In those days the owner of a slave would untie the slaves sandals as a symbol that he owned the slave… What John is telling those around him is there is some greater than he. There is someone greater than a prophet coming.

John is announcing the glorious hope of God to the people. He is announcing God intervention into the world. He is announcing God revealing His glory to world who waits in anticipation for Him. He is announcing the transforming display of God’s glory to Israel and to the world.

The Desert is a Barren Place:

The desert as we know is a barren place. But I don’t think the desert is only a location. I believe our hearts can be deserts. Our hearts can be barren places where God does not reign. Our hearts can be empty of God’s love or the hope we can have in God.

But the desert is the place we also realize we cannot do it on our own. When we are in the desert we recognize our needs. In the prophet writes

6 A voice says, "Cry!" And I said, "What shall I cry?" All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field. 7 The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the LORD blows upon it; surely the people is grass. 8 The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand for ever.

What Isaiah is telling us, is proclaiming to us, is that God’s word stands forever. We in our frailness can have the assurance and that God is with us.

John the Baptist is also proclaiming God’s word and greater than that – that when we come to Him and believe in His Son we will be baptized in the Holy Spirit.

Make straight the way, Prepare the way

For Israel then and for us today the message was and still is to make the way for the king to come. To make the path smooth and straight.

Before we had super highways we had roads that weaved through and around towns. Today we can travel almost coast to coast – up and down the eastern seaboard in almost a straight line on the various interstates…

Making our hearts smooth and preparing the way for God to be with us.

The promise of salvation: