h-advent2b

December 4, 2005

Second Sunday of Advent (B)

Rev. Richard Eslinger

Is 40:1-5, 9-11 X Ps 85:9-14 X 2 Pt 3:8-14 X Mark 1:1-8

There is a stock cartoon character—we see him now and then. Dressed in a ragged gown, wild eyed look, and long beard. He is barefoot, standing in the middle of a crowd and holding a sign. “The end is near,” it announces. And the funny part has to do with what the others are doing, or saying. And what is most interesting is that our apocalyptic friend seems to show up year after year in some cartoon or other, always with the same sign and always with a crowd that doesn’t seem to grasp the situation. At least this wild bearded one gets it. The end is near and God is really upset!

So now Saint Mark gives us a very similar picture. A wild-eyed desert figure out there in the wilderness. Clothed much the same way as the cartoon character. But there are some differences. For one thing, this messenger of God is definitely not carrying that old sign. Oh, he does call the crowds to repentance, but notice the difference. Instead of announcing the end, he proclaims the beginning. Saint Mark even begins his story of Jesus by saying, “The beginning…” And one other difference, too. Instead of hearing all bad news, Mark tells us that it is really good news that he proclaims. So it is “The beginning of the good news” that the appearance of the Baptist signals. Good news, not bad. And a beginning, not the end. And one other difference, too. As upset as God must be with us and with this whole messy world, God had promised the new beginning long ago, to old Isaiah. Good news, promised when God’s people were most fully convinced that only more bad news would follow the bad news they had already known. I mean, what good news could come to a people in exile? And for us, too. What good news, what new beginnings could God possibly be about today?

Well, first look at this one common thread running through all of these stories—of Israel in exile, of Judea under Rome, and our own story with its familiar sense of exile, too. (We do join with those other exiles in our gnawing sense that we are not really at home.) In every scenario, there is the temptation to just long for the end, to conclude that really good news was not to be found. In every case, God’s people confused about their future hope and bitter or demoralized about their present. In such times, it is tempting to laugh at the ironies of the crazy man with that “The end is near” sign, or read books about those who are “Left Behind.” It’s a familiar tactic when home seems far away or long ago: We look for an end to this world with all its strange people and distorted values. Hope for some kind of end, even if there is a chance of being left behind. The other side of the same coin is that of the scoffer. Like those in the cartoon who scoff at the bearded loony with the sign. “How silly to think that there could be such an end,” they think. “Except when you die,” they silently add deep down inside.

Now what is interesting about our present time of exile is that it has welled up upon us because so much is so new! Change is a constant, and it only goes faster. It is hard to keep up with a world that produces cloned sheep and genetically altered corn. It is hard to keep up with a world that outpaces our imagination with satellite radio and all-in-one hand held computers. It is hard to keep up with a world where two-parent families are increasingly rare. It is harder and harder to stay current when time itself seems to be accelerating. (Except, of course, if you are a member of one of the “X” or “Y” generations where all this change is more “normal.” But then, watch the DVD titles that appeal to those so recently come of age. Yep, the future is mostly a bleak, apocalyptic Matrix-style place, desolate and alien.) Everything is about what’s new, about change going faster and faster. Funny thing. This also produces a deep sense of exile.

Of course, we could also ask about that “good news” business. One thing for certain—lots of bad news abounds. Everywhere you look, there seems to be more. And to make it worse, there’s not much it seems we can do to make most of it any better. Avian flu spreading in China, a devastating hurricane season, politics getting more and more polarized,…the list goes on. Oh yes, there are, thank God, little ways in which we can help—the local food pantry, for example. Still, the big problems keep getting bigger, with our role becoming smaller, or so it seems. And within the church, where “good news” should abound, it seem as if we are keeping pace with all the other dreary news out there in the world. Some denominations have been shrinking in membership for so many years now that the best news they can come up with is that the rate of decline lessened over the last year. Others of us have been deeply hurt, scarred even, by the scandal of clergy sexual abuse. And at least for North American Christians, we find ourselves increasingly in a culture of disbelief—minorities in the midst of a crowd that regards us as strange as that bearded guy in the cartoon.

Well, let’s admit it. We are a somewhat strange people, God’s odd ones. I mean, just look at us. Here we are gathered for worship—in itself strange to so many. But even more audaciously, we claim that we have been called here, elected even, to be God’s chosen ones. (And when you look at us, we don’t seem all that “chosen,” now do we?) And what’s more, while our world has been merrily observing a commercial “Christmas” for weeks now, we obstinately proclaim this a season of Advent, of waiting and anticipation. Only when we light the white candle in the center of the Advent wreath will it really be Christmas, we insist. And what’s more, we proclaim that the promises of God to a people in exile twenty-five hundred years ago have come to fulfillment. God did become flesh in Bethlehem of Judea, and God raised up this strange Baptist to prepare the way of the Lord. “The beginning of the good news,…” Saint Mark calls it. A beginning in place of the end. A passing away of an old age only by the birth of a new and everlasting one. In Rome, the present basilica of San Clemente stands over a fourth century basilica, also honoring Saint Clement. Yet on a lower level underground, there is a first century Roman house, which according to tradition was the home of Clemens, a cousin of the emperor. Christians worshipped in Clemens home while just a couple of blocks away, crowds cheered the bloodbaths in the Coliseum. And just across a small alley from the Clemens home, a temple devoted to the Mithras cult was later built. Clemens was martyred for his faith and his wife exiled. Yet at the Eucharistic feasts in the home of these faithful Christians, the old age of Rome’s violence and idolatry was already passing away, as was the cultic worship of idols just across the way. Good news in the midst of the world’s darkness. God’s new age making obsolete all that belongs to the old.

What else is clear in our Gospel lection is that this new beginning, this great good news of Christ cannot remain some hidden secret. The Baptist, Saint Mark announced, cried out the good news. He was God’s messenger sent out ahead of the advent of the Son of God. The Greek is instructive—Isaiah tells that God “apostles” his “angel” to prepare the way of the Lord. We hear this translated as “sending my messenger.” Do you see our calling here? All of us baptized into Jesus Christ are also to be “angels,” “messengers,” who are “apostled,” who are “sent out.” From beginning to end, our Gospel lection is about proclaiming the Gospel. Whatever else, that is what we are sent to do. First, though, repenting perhaps of our strange silence. But receiving pardon, being strengthened by the Bread of Life, we will be sent. Only this Lord’s Day, our sending is quite specific. We are sent to proclaim this good news of Christ. God has fulfilled those promises made to Isaiah and all Israel. The Virgin journeys to Bethlehem with Joseph. Soon, we will hear the angelic messengers singing “Gloria in excelsis.” And in the words of one Advent carol, we are being sent to “tell out, my soul, the greatness of the Lord.”*

Amen.

“Tell Out, My Soul,” Timothy Dudley Smith, 1961.