Wild and Wooly John the Baptist
This is the sermon I preached (yes, I'm finally over COVID and I'm back!) on Sunday, Dec. 10 at St. Timothy Lutheran Church . The text is Mark 1:1-8. It is impossible not 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. The good news doesn't start with 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;" 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 t