God Meets Us in the Wilderness
This is the sermon I preached at St. Mark and St..Timothy Lutheran churches on Sunday, 12/10/17. The text is Mark 1:1-8.
In Matthew and Luke, we have detailed stories of angels and
shepherds and magi and angry kings. John’s gospel is an entirely different
matter. But you have to love Mark’s version of things. He cuts right to the
chase. There is no birth story. His gospel is the good news of Jesus Christ,
the Son of God. The rest of the gospel explains how he can make that claim.
But the beginning of the good news is not the gospel or
anything else in the New Testament because the story of salvation and God’s
loving interaction with humanity began in Genesis “In the beginning;” in
creation.
Immediately after Mark’s introductory verse, he goes back
to the prophets of Israel and the promises God made through them. Mark cites
Isaiah, but what we have here a mash-up of Isaiah, Malachi and the author of
Exodus (Exodus 23:20; Malachi 3:1; Isaiah 40:3).
We
hear “the voice of one crying out in the wilderness” (v. 3). “The wilderness is
key to Israelite history. It was in the wilderness that God tested the people
and it was in the wilderness that they rebelled. It was in the wilderness that
God saved them again and again, and the wilderness was the crucible where they
become a nation. The wilderness was both a route to the Promised Land and a
place of exile. It was a place where people sinned and where they also repented
to restore their relationship with God” (Bob Cornwall).
Right away, Mark connects the good news with the Old
Testament prophecies of salvation, which traditionally come from the
wilderness. Moses, Elijah and David all had to flee to the wilderness. Jesus
will emerge from the wilderness to begin preaching good news and will return to
the wilderness several times.
Now we come to John, who is reminiscent of Elijah—wild and
wooly—a man who is at home in the wilderness, wearing strange clothes and
eating strange food. John’s ministry was a bridge between the prophets of the
Hebrew Scriptures and Jesus. God wanted to make it plain that our Lord, the
redeemer, was not disconnected from the God of the Old Covenant. He is the
fulfillment of those prophetic promises to the people of Israel.
John’s preaching and baptizing occurred in the wilderness,
which was a scary place. It was thought of as deserted (obviously!),
inhospitable, lacking food and water. It was the haunt of animals, demons and
death. However, it was also the place where Israel was faithful to God before
entering the Promised Land. It was a place of new beginnings.
John proclaimed the coming of Jesus and was his forerunner
in several ways. The wilderness would be important for both of their
ministries. Both will call people to repentance. Both will be betrayed and
arrested and killed because of God’s message.
God meets us in our wilderness. In Chautauqua County, we
don’t have any real wilderness, in the sense that they have in the Holy Land.
Where I lived in Bethlehem was wilderness, even though it was populated. I
could look out from my balcony and see the Judean Wilderness, which was
blindingly beige in the daylight; yet in late afternoon and early evening, it
took on a pinkish hue that was beautiful.
We do not have to be in a physical wilderness to experience
one. There are times when our lives are dry and we are bone tired. There are
all kinds of wildernesses we may go through.
As we wait in Advent, we wait in the wilderness for God to
hear our prayer and deliver us. High school seniors wait for their acceptance
letters from the colleges of their choice. A young lady may wait for a proposal
from her beloved. We wait for doctors’ reports of the tests we’ve been given.
Sometimes we wait and hope for a cure. All over the world today many are in the
wilderness. The people of Southern CA long for rain to help with the forest
fires. The peoples of the Holy Land long for peace and an end to the conflicts.
Parents of a drug addict cry out for their son or daughter’s deliverance.
Our wilderness is hard and we may be in it a short time or
a long time. Whatever the wilderness, God will meet us there, just as he met
the people of the Old Testament, those who heard John and all of us through the
death, burial and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.
We are not alone in our wildernesses. Jesus is with us,
holding us, comforting us and transforming our lives to be more like him. Our
wilderness can be like a crucible, purifying us.
That’s all well and good, but so what? John promises the
people that someone is coming after him who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.
That’s Jesus! Jesus is the one who immerses, submerges and overwhelms us with
his Spirit, with the presence of the living God.
Jesus
brings us through our wilderness. He is our food and drink; our companion;
everything that we need to get through the difficulties of this life and he
gives us a foretaste of the feast to come.
All
of Mark’s story is only a beginning. All of us are challenged to continue the
story of God breaking into our lives in our own way. God wants to prepare the
way in us.
God
doesn’t do this simply for our own benefit. How do we respond when we read or
hear the news from all over our world? The pictures of the forest fires in
Southern California have been incredible. To see people’s houses as mere shells
shakes me to the core. Do we just sit back thinking, “But by the grace of God…?”
Are we simply thankful that it’s happening to someone other than us?
The
other day I was talking on the phone with a woman who lives in Southern
California. From her office window she could see the various fires in her area.
I told her we would be praying for her and the people affected by the forest
fires. She asked that we would pray for rain. We can also give through Lutheran
Disaster Relief.
I
confess I am not always the most faithful at praying for people I don’t know—and
yet God knows them and cares about them, so shouldn’t we?
Because
of my years in Palestine, my heart goes out to the peoples of the Holy Land. I
am appalled as I see the streets of Bethlehem filled with violence. These are
places I used to walk with my kids! What can we do? We can pray. We can write
our politicians concerning decisions we deem as destructive to any possible
peace process. We can check out the ELCA’s site, “Peace, Not Walls.” We can
support our Christian brothers and sisters there in prayer. Did you know that
there are Arab Lutherans in the Holy Land? They are part of the Evangelical
Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land.
What
are we doing here, closer to home? The opportunities are abundant. The needs
are many. Maybe we feel like we are too busy to help out. If that’s so, then we
need to start saying “No” to some of our involvements and let God use us to be
God’s presence and to help others out of their wilderness.
What
about the people we see everyday at work and other places? Can we be as Christ
to them? Can we listen when they need to vent? Can we share the stories of what
God has done in our own lives? Can we be life-givers for them?
I
am not trying to heap guilt on any of us. Many of you are involved in multiple
ways to help others. I give thanks for each and every one of you. Keep it up.
Advent
is about waiting and the coming of God. We await Jesus’ coming as a baby born
in Bethlehem. We await his return as the glorious king. God will come and
fulfill all of God’s promises whether or not we do anything. We are called to
repent and believe the good news and to share it with others. Knowing God is on
the way, why wouldn’t we want to do these things?
Amen.
References
Martin Luther, The Large Catechism
Pheme Perkins, The New Interpreter’s
Bible, Vol. VIII, Mark
David Westphal, Advent Devotions
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