Sermon on Mark 1:1-8, 2nd Sunday in Advent 2020 (B), "Prepping"

 Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. This new church year we’ll spend a lot of time in the Gospel of Mark, the shortest of the four Gospels, but no less meaty or nutritious with Jesus’ good news. In fact, the opening words are: “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” Straight to the point and purpose; Mark’s style. Early tradition identifies him with John Mark in the book of Acts, a missionary companion of Paul and Barnabas and a friend of Peter (Acts 12:12, 25; 15:37). Some early church fathers, the first generation after the apostles, tell us that John Mark wrote his gospel by interviewing Peter and recording his experiences. To-the-point, Mark skips long introductions and brings us straight to the adult Jesus at the start of His ministry, being proclaimed by His cousin John the Baptist.

Let’s take a minute to reintroduce ourselves to John the Baptist. With hindsight, we can see him as the last of the great prophets of the Old Testament, who bridges the gap from the Old to the New. He introduces Jesus, His younger cousin, to the people of Israel by preaching out in the wilderness. Not where you would ordinarily go to meet the crowds. Wouldn’t downtown Jerusalem or Caesarea Philippi be? Find the forums or the markets where people crowd around? It would be as if I walked out to Kaupo and started rallies for Jesus out in the rocky ranchland, far from the city centers. You’d have to make an effort to get out there. But people poured out in droves to hear him. How do we explain John’s strange success?

When I say John was last of the OT prophets, that’s because he dressed and acted like the prophet Elijah. And because he was an expected spokesman or forerunner. From OT days, it was anticipated that a messenger would come to “prepare the way.” Malachi was the last of the OT prophets, about 400 years before John the Baptist. And it was common knowledge that no prophet had spoken or visited in Israel for the longest time. 400 years ago from 2020 was the arrival of the Pilgrims and the Mayflower on the North American continent. An awful lot has happened since then, and the same was true for Israel. They were at the end of a terrible 400 year “famine” or dry spell from hearing God’s Word (Amos 8:11). Like the waking up of an ancient spokesman, Israel was at last hearing God’s Word again from the voice of a prophet! It was quite a stir! A prophet was back on scene!

There’s a neat thing hidden in vs. 2, quoting the prophets: “Behold, I send my messenger before your face who will prepare your way”. Mark has switched the pronouns on us. The old prophecies, God was saying the messenger will prepare “my way”. This little switch from “my way” to “your way” shows that God, who is coming; God, whose way needs preparing by John the Baptist, is Jesus! Jesus is on the way, and Jesus is God! When God said He was on the way, and the messenger would prepare His way, it was Jesus who walked out on the scene, to the announcements of John the Baptist. Right from the get-go we establish what Mark says in verse 1: “Jesus is the Son of God.”

If it was a big stir to have a prophet speaking for the first time in 4 centuries, how about God Himself walking up on the scene! People came a long way to hear, and when they did, John led them into the waters of a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. If spiritual life had grown sluggish, stagnant or stale, John was jolting the people awake, and showing them where to go. Enter the waters of baptism, repenting of your sins, and receiving forgiveness. And his rough finger pointed past himself to Jesus, the Greater One, who would baptize with the Holy Spirit. The Son of God was arriving on scene to baptize you with the Spirit!

We have the “perfect” conditions today for spiritual life to grow sluggish, stagnant, or stale. We are hindered from doing a lot of the in-person, human contact activities that are common to Christian fellowship. We have an ongoing pandemic that keeps many away from church. Yet just like in John’s time, there is opportunity in all challenges, and to jolt ourselves out of sluggishness and discontent into a renewed life of faith. Baptismal renewal is always a proper place to begin! Back to the waters with Jesus.

You could say that John the Baptist was the quintessential “prepper.” You’ve heard of preppers? Sometimes called doomsday preppers, they stockpile non-perishable food supplies and survival gear, in case society collapses. Some go to elaborate lengths, and even have bunkers or compounds. They live by the creed of “preparation.” Of course, it is perfectly sensible to have stores of food if you are able—every time we have a hurricane approach we are warned to stock up on food and water in case of disruptions. An earthquake or tsunami could damage the harbor and cause shipping delays. All of that is possible. We live in anxious times. We worry about the same things that people in Jesus’ time worried about. Food, clothing, a job, who’s ruling the country, how free am I, etc. Today we might get advice: stock up on food. Invest in gold. Stock up on masks, toilet paper, and hand sanitizer. How prepared would we be?

But how was John the Baptist a “prepper”? He certainly was out of the ordinary, with his funny clothes and bug diet.  But he’s got a much more relevant message of preparation that hasn’t changed for 2,000 years: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make His paths straight.” You could be ready for famine or war or chaos but be totally unprepared for God’s arrival. And Jesus has promised He will return. The days are counting down. And readiness has nothing to do with your IRA’s or household supplies or food stash. How many people are thinking about the fact that God is on the way? Probably not too many, except for some Christians. How many of those people are not ready? How many are your friends, neighbors, co-workers?

The good news of Jesus Christ is that preparation is not costly or accessible only to the elite or the insiders. John’s message, “Prepare the way of the Lord, make His paths straight” rings down to us over 2,000 years. A simple man who called everyone to that simple baptismal washing and confession of their sins. The Holy Spirit continues that preparatory work in your hearts today. Hear God’s Word. Confess your sin. If you don’t know what your sin is, examine your life in light of the 10 Commandments. If you are still having trouble, ask a family member or Christian friend. We should all quickly enough discover where we have told lies to ourselves or others, been greedy and discontent, where we have harbored bitterness, anger, or resentment in our hearts, where we have lusted after someone who was not our spouse. We should all quickly enough remember the ugly words we spoke, the corners we cut, the good that we meant to do, but left undone.

You won’t have to turn over too many rocks in your life before we all come to the naked realization that we haven’t lived up to our own standards, much less God’s standards. And in the spirit of John the Baptist, we preachers are sent to hold up the mirrors. We all stand in front of those law mirrors. See what a sinner I am. See what a sinner you are. The view is not for comparison, or anger or jealousy or self-righteousness. It’s for truth and honesty. To see our sins as they are, so we can join the crowds around John the Baptist and confess our sins. Most or all of you have already been baptized, and this renewed awareness and confession of our sins doesn’t lead us to a second, third, or endless numbers of new baptisms. Rather it leads us back to our original washing of water and the Holy Spirit under Jesus’ newer commission. The baptism of the Spirit that John anticipated. That’s where we return with our sins, and when the mirror shows us unclean, we lay it all back down before Jesus.

Luther taught baptism means this for our daily life: we daily repent and drown our old sinful nature with all its sins and evil desires, “that a new man should daily emerge and arise to live before God in righteousness and purity forever.” Baptism is preparation for Jesus’ coming because we repent of sin, but that’s just the first half. The other half is that it preps us by forgiveness and raises us to new life! Every day we return to our baptism, we walk out a new man or woman or child of God, rising up to new righteousness and purity forever. Sin will drag you down daily but drag that old flesh down further into the baptismal waters, and drown it, so the new you in Christ Jesus rises up alive!

This is preparation for all. This is preparation for free. This is spiritual preparation that has every day living consequences. It’s not a mental exercise that is invisible to the world. It’s openness to God transforming your life, by agreeing that you are sick in sin and needing help and rising up with the health and healing that Jesus provides! And the health and healing of life in Christ changes our words to goodness and truth. It changes our actions to kindness and love. It brings new heartfelt motives of sincerity and generosity to our heart, so that Christ continues building in us new life, tearing free of the old, dead ways of sin.

Prepping is simple. So simple that many might scorn to do it. Or that anything needs to be done at all. Get ready for what? Get ready for who? You think anything or anyone’s coming? You’re crazy. These scoffers are proof themselves of God’s Word. They arrive just as Jesus and His apostles warned us. And Jesus will arrive just as He promises. God’s been at this a long time, and long before John and Jesus arrived, He told people to get ready. We might not have 400 years, or 2,000 years, or even 20 minutes. All that matters is that God has told us to be ready, and He freely supplies the whole survival kit you need: His Word, faith in Jesus, Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. With His gifts you can go on living day by day with the confidence and hope that He’ll arrive on time, according to plan, and you’ll be prepared to greet Him with joy! Amen, Come Lord Jesus!