Sunday LinkUp – 10December2023

CALL TO WORSHIP

 

OPENING PRAYER

 

OPENING COMMENTS

The RCL readings are Psalm 85:1-2,8-13 • Isaiah 40:1-11 • 2 Peter 3:8-15a • Mark 1:1-8

• The call to worship Psalm promises that God will accomplish the deliverance promised.
• Isaiah 40 lays the foundation for the good news of the Incarnation: “the glory of the Lord shall be revealed.”
• Peter writes to clarify God’s perspective on time in contrast to ours, emphasizing the patient assurance of Divine presence through the most difficult times.
• Our sermon text is from Mark’s gospel, which examines how waiting with patience for the Second Coming is possible based on the promises kept with the Incarnation.

 

OPENING SONGS     

 

 

 

SERMONETTE

From the TRANSCRIPT …

SERMON

P

Mark 1:1-8 (NRSVUE)

 

Mark 1:1-8  The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. ² As it is written in ^[a]the Prophets:

“Behold, I send My messenger before Your face,
Who will prepare Your way before You.”
³ “The voice of one crying in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord;
Make His paths straight.’ ”

⁴ John came baptizing in the wilderness and preaching a baptism of repentance ^[b]for the remission of sins. ⁵ Then all the land of Judea, and those from Jerusalem, went out to him and were all baptized by him in the Jordan River, confessing their sins.

⁶ Now John was clothed with camel’s hair and with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. ⁷ And he preached, saying, “There comes One after me who is mightier than I, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to stoop down and loose. ⁸ I indeed baptized you with water, but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

 

WHAT DOES THE PASSAGE MEAN?   WHAT CAN/SHOULD WE TAKE AWAY FROM IT?

 

Mark 1:1-8  The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.  2 As it is written in ^[a]the Prophets:  

4 John came baptizing in the wilderness and preaching a baptism of repentance ^[b] for the remission of sins.  5 Then all the land of Judea, and those from Jerusam, went out to him and were all baptized by him in the Jordan River, confessing their sins.   

From Barclay’s commentary …

John came announcing a baptism of repentance. The Jew was familiar with ritual washings. Lev.11-15 details them. “The Jew,” said Tertullian, “washes himself every day because every day he is defiled.” Symbolic washing and purifying was woven into the very fabric of Jewish ritual. A Gentile was necessarily unclean for he had never kept any part of the Jewish law. Therefore, when a Gentile became a proselyte, that is a convert to the Jewish faith, he had to undergo three things. First, he had to undergo circumcision, for that was the mark of the covenant people; second, sacrifice had to be made for him, for he stood in need of atonement and only blood could atone for sin; third, he had to undergo baptism, which symbolized his cleansing from all the pollution of his past life. Naturally, therefore, the baptism was not a mere sprinkling with water, but a bath in which his whole body was bathed.

The Jew knew baptism; but the amazing thing about John’s baptism was that he, a Jew, was asking Jews to submit to that which only a Gentile was supposed to need. John had made the tremendous discovery that to be a Jew in the racial sense was not to be a member of God’s chosen people; a Jew might be in exactly the same position as a Gentile; not the Jewish life, but the cleansed life belonged to God.

 

6 Now John was clothed with camel’s hair and with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey.  7 And he preached, saying, “There comes One after me who is mightier than I, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to stoop down and loose. 8 I indeed baptized you with water, but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”    

Footnotes

1. 1. Mark 1:2 NU Isaiah the prophet  
   2. Mark 1:4 Or because of forgiveness  

 

 

 

 

 

 

CLOSING SONG

 

CLOSING PRAYER

BENEDICTION

 

 

SHARING TIME

 

 

Mark continues to offer examples of Jesus’ “strong man” status by the early thematic organization of his gospel found in the first chapter:

• The Baptism of Jesus – Mark 1:9-11 – validating Jesus’ identity as the Son of God
• The Testing of Jesus – Mark 1:12-13 – summarizing Jesus’ victory over Satan’s testing
• The Calling of the First Disciples – Mark 1:16-20 – revealing the compelling call Jesus made
• Man with an Unclean Spirit – Mark 1:21-28 – showing Jesus’ authority over evil spirits
• Healing Many at Simon’s House – Mark 1:29-34 – showing Jesus’ authority over disease
• Preaching in Galilee – Mark 1:35-39 – reporting Jesus’ authority in proclaiming the good news
• Healing a Man with a Skin Disease – Mark 1:40-45 – showing Jesus’ authority over disease

Notice that the entire first chapter of Mark is devoted to establishing God’s intention to be present in our world and identifying Jesus as that presence, that strong deliverer.  This illustrates some of the stylistic elements that characterize apocalyptic literature in the Bible, but more importantly, “With the good news of Jesus Christ, God has already entered the struggle” that we face in living our human lives (Boston University Homiletics Professor, Rev. Dr David Schnasa Jacobsen).

 

Mark 1:1-8  

The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.  2 As it is written in ^[a]the Prophets:

“Behold, I send My messenger before Your face, Who will prepare Your way before You.”  
3 “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; Make His paths straight.’ ”  

4 John came baptizing in the wilderness and preaching a baptism of repentance ^[b]for the remission of sins.  5 Then all the land of Judea, and those from Jerusalem, went out to him and were all baptized by him in the Jordan River, confessing their sins.  

6 Now John was clothed with camel’s hair and with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey.  

7 And he preached, saying, “There comes One after me who is mightier than I, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to stoop down and loose.  8 I indeed baptized you with water, but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”  

 

Truth Telling

Mark isn’t pulling any punches when it comes to telling the truth about the Incarnation. He begins by quoting Isaiah 40:3, but Barclay’s Commentary points out that similar wording can be found in Malachi 3:1, and in that context, its connotation is threatening due to the priests failing to fulfill their duties during the prophet Malachi’s time.  Their temple service was without joy or standards, and the “messenger” would purify the temple worship before the Christ returned.  Mark’s throwback to the prophets, stating that this was “the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ” (v. 1), illustrates how the Incarnation was “destined before the foundation of the world” (1 Peter 1:20).

John the Baptist was known as a truth-teller, forcing people to see what they would rather not see, and he was God’s messenger sent ahead of Jesus, who also spoke hard truths. For example, John told an audience well-familiar with the ritual washings that were part of the Jewish law that they were unclean. One can assume that this message would not be welcomed with open arms by those who prided themselves in keeping the finest details of the law.  This was the sin that Jesus entered: “the powers that perpetuate sin, the nations that nurture sin, and the structures that situate sin as justifiable” (Lewis, “A Truth-Telling Advent”). Not only did Jesus enter our humanness and the sins associated with that, but also our institutions and cultural stories that enable sin and hide the truth of God’s love for all human beings.

The truth-telling relationship and parallels between John’s story and Jesus’ story should be noted.  Both began their ministries in the wilderness with the focus of proclaiming God’s restoration.  But true to the apocalyptic nature of Mark, John proclaimed Jesus’ supremacy, humbly offering that he was “not worthy to stoop down and untie the strap of his sandals.” (v. 7), and then Jesus asked John to baptize him anyway (Mark 1:9).  Though John was not “worthy,” Jesus still wanted him to participate in moving the Good News forward.  It works the same way with us if we make ourselves aware and available.

• Outside Expectations

In contrast to beginning his gospel with a factual genealogy (like Matthew) or a compelling story about conceptions and births (like Luke), Mark begins somewhere outside our expectations for a good, heartwarming Christmas story. He offers no frills but shows how God has been bringing about the Incarnation – God with Us – and talking about it since the time of the Old Testament prophets. In this manner, Mark tells us that we can look at this “good news of great joy” (Luke 2:10) as a series of promises made and kept by God. It gives us fuel to imagine the Second Coming could also be fulfilled outside our expectations as well.

Mark relies on disrupting our human expectations about how John the Baptist, Jesus, and even the Father should behave. John the Baptist, with his clothing of camel hair and his meals of locusts and honey, was outside the expectations of the Jews of his day. Jesus also did not meet the expectations of his culture. He had a humble beginning, and as an adult, he chose to spend his time with those deemed worthless by Jewish culture, such as children, women, the poor, and the sick. Mark’s gospel helps us to rethink our expectations for God, the Second Coming, and our interactions with others: “God’s good news of grace announces God’s presence on the fringe, God’s love that goes beyond the boundaries of where we thought God was supposed to be, and God’s promise that there is no place on earth God will not go or be for us” (Lewis, “Beginnings and Endings”).  It’s this out-of-the-box approach conveyed by Mark that makes patiently waiting for the Second Coming possible. We can’t imagine the good God intends for us.

The examination of Jesus our deliverer, truth telling, and outside expectations helps us approach the second week of Advent thoughtfully. Mark 1:1-8 holds up an accounting of promises made and kept by the Incarnation. The fulfillment of those promises with the Incarnation did not always make people feel comfortable, and sometimes their realization took place outside the typical boundaries people expected. The constant assurance of Jesus our deliverer, though, helps us imagine the reality of the Second Coming while we wait and celebrate the gift of the Incarnation now.

Call to Action: This week, reflect on how Jesus our deliverer has shown up in your life.  This could be something dramatic or it could be a simple knowing you had of God’s presence during a time when you needed it.  Next, think of an instance when God revealed a truth to you that you didn’t want to see or posed a truth that was outside your expectations and comfortable boundaries.  Offer thanksgiving for both if it seems right to you, and pray that you will be aware of the Holy Spirit’s work in your life, willing to hear and respond even when it’s difficult.

For Reference:
https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/second-sunday-of-advent-2/commentary-on-mark-11-8-3
https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/second-sunday-of-advent-2/commentary-on-mark-11-8
https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/second-sunday-of-advent-2/commentary-on-mark-11-8-4
https://www.workingpreacher.org/dear-working-preacher/a-truth-telling-advent
https://bibleportal.com/commentary/section/william-barclay/the-beginning-of-the-story-mark-11-4

 

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Small Group Discussion Questions

• Mark’s apocalyptic style dramatically highlights Jesus’ victory and sets him up as our strong deliverer. How does reading about Jesus as the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies about the Incarnation increase your faith and assurance of the Second Coming?
• By not conforming to cultural expectations, Jesus showed how God’s love for all people disregards boundaries and conventions. How does this support the idea that “God’s love …goes beyond the boundaries of where we thought God was supposed to be and God’s promise that there is no place on earth God will not go or be for us?” In other words, how did Jesus’ behavior show evidence of God’s devotion to humanity?
• Think of an example in your own life or in the Bible where the triune God or Jesus acted outside the expectations of the culture but firmly within the boundaries of love. Tell us about your example and how you see God’s love conveyed. What do you find meaningful about this example?

 

From Barclay’s commentary on Mark 1:1-8 …

THE BEGINNING OF THE STORY

Mark 1:1-4

This is the beginning of the story of how Jesus Christ, the Son of God, brought the good news to men. There is a passage in Isaiah the prophet like this–“Lo! I send my messenger before you and he will prepare your road for you. He will be like a voice crying in the wilderness, `Get ready the road of the Lord. Make straight the path by which he will come’.” This came true when John the Baptizer emerged in the wilderness, announcing a baptism which was the sign of a repentance through which a man might find forgiveness for his sins.

Mark starts the story of Jesus a long way back. It did not begin with Jesus’ birth; it did not even begin with John the Baptizer in the wilderness; it began with the dreams of the prophets long ago; that is to say, it began long, long ago in the mind of God.

The Stoics were strong believers in the ordered plan of God. “The things of God,” said Marcus Aurelius, “are fun of foresight. All things flow from heaven.” There are things we may well learn here.

(i) It has been said that “the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts,” and so are the thoughts of God. God is characteristically a God who is working his purposes out. History is not a random kaleidoscope of disconnected events; it is a process directed by the God who sees the end in the beginning.

(ii) We are within that process, and because of that we can either help or hinder it. In one sense it is as great an honour to help in some great process as it is a privilege to see the ultimate goal. Life would be very different if, instead of yearning for some distant and at present unattainable goal, we did all that we could to bring that goal nearer.

“In youth, because I could not be a singer, I did not even try to write a song; I set no little trees along the roadside, Because I knew their growth would take so long.

But now from wisdom that the years have brought me, I know that it may be a blessed thing To plant a tree for someone else to water, Or make a song for someone else to sing.”

The goal will never be reached unless there are those who labour to make it possible.

The prophetic quotation which Mark uses is suggestive.

I send my messenger before you and he will prepare your road for you. This is from Mal.3:1. In its original context it is a threat. In Malachi’s day the priests were failing in their duty. The offerings were blemished and shoddy second-bests; the service of the temple was a weariness to them. The messenger was to cleanse and purify the worship of the temple before the Anointed One of God emerged upon the earth. So then the coming of Christ was a purification of life. And the world needed that purification. Seneca called Rome “a cesspool of iniquity.” Juvenal spoke of her “as the filthy sewer into which flowed the abominable dregs of every Syrian and Achaean stream.” Wherever Christianity comes it brings purification.

That happens to be capable of factual demonstration. Bruce Barton tells how the first important journalistic assignment that fell to him was to write a series of articles designed to expose Billy Sunday, the evangelist. Three towns were chosen. “I talked to the merchants,” Bruce Barton writes, “and they told me that during the meetings and afterward people walked up to the counter and paid bills which were so old that they had long since been written off the books.” He went to visit the president of the chamber of commerce of a town that Billy Sunday had visited three years before. “I am not a member of any church,” he said. “I never attend but I’ll tell you one thing. If it was proposed now to bring Billy Sunday to this town, and if we knew as much about the results of his work in advance as we do now, and if the churches would not raise the necessary funds to bring him, I could raise the money in half a day from men who never go to church. He took eleven thousand dollars out of here, but a circus comes here and takes out that amount in one day and leaves nothing. He left a different moral atmosphere.” The exposure that Bruce Barton meant to write became a tribute to the cleansing power of the Christian message.

When Billy Graham preached in Shreveport, Louisiana, liquor sales dropped by 40 per cent and the sale of Bibles increased 300 per cent. During a mission in Seattle, amongst the results there is stated quite simply, “Several impending divorce actions were cancelled.” In Greensboro, North Carolina, the report was that “the entire social structure of the city was affected.”

One of the great stories of what Christianity can do came out of the mutiny on the Bounty. The mutineers were put ashore on Pitcairn Island. There were nine mutineers, six native men, ten native women and a girl, fifteen years old. One of them succeeded in making crude alcohol. A terrible situation ensued. They all died except Alexander Smith. Smith chanced upon a Bible. He read it and he made up his mind to build up a state with the natives of that island based directly on the Bible. It was twenty years before an American sloop called at the island. They found a completely Christian community. There was no gaol because there was no crime. There was no hospital because there was no disease. There was no asylum because there was no insanity. There was no illiteracy; and nowhere in the world was human life and property so safe. Christianity had cleansed that society.

Where Christ is allowed to come the antiseptic of the Christian faith cleanses the moral poison of society and leaves it pure and clean.

John came announcing a baptism of repentance. The Jew was familiar with ritual washings. Lev.11-15 details them. “The Jew,” said Tertullian, “washes himself every day because every day he is defiled.” Symbolic washing and purifying was woven into the very fabric of Jewish ritual. A Gentile was necessarily unclean for he had never kept any part of the Jewish law. Therefore, when a Gentile became a proselyte, that is a convert to the Jewish faith, he had to undergo three things. First, he had to undergo circumcision, for that was the mark of the covenant people; second, sacrifice had to be made for him, for he stood in need of atonement and only blood could atone for sin; third, he had to undergo baptism, which symbolized his cleansing from all the pollution of his past life. Naturally, therefore, the baptism was not a mere sprinkling with water, but a bath in which his whole body was bathed.

The Jew knew baptism; but the amazing thing about John’s baptism was that he, a Jew, was asking Jews to submit to that which only a Gentile was supposed to need. John had made the tremendous discovery that to be a Jew in the racial sense was not to be a member of God’s chosen people; a Jew might be in exactly the same position as a Gentile; not the Jewish life, but the cleansed life belonged to God.

The baptism was accompanied by confession. In any return to God confession must be made to three different people.

(i) A man must make confession to himself. It is a part of human nature that we shut our eyes to what we do not wish to see, and above all to our own sins. Someone tells of a man’s first step to grace. As he was shaving one morning he looked at his face in the mirror and suddenly said, “You dirty, little rat!” And from that day he began to be a changed man.

No doubt when the prodigal son left home he thought himself a fine and adventurous character. Before he took his first step back home he had to take a good look at himself and say, “I will get up and go home and say that I am an utter rotter.” (Lk.15:17-18.)

There is no one in all the world harder to face than ourselves; and the first step to repentance and to a right relationship to God is to admit our sin to ourselves.

(ii) A man must make confession to those whom he has wronged. It will not be much use saying to God that we are sorry until we say we are sorry to those whom we have hurt and grieved. The human barriers have to be removed before the divine barriers can go. In the East African Church, a husband and wife were members of a group. One of them came and made confession that there was a quarrel at home. The minister at once said, “You should not have come and confessed that quarrel just now; you should have made it up and then come and confessed it.”

It can often be the case that confession to God is easier than confession to men. But there can be no forgiveness without humiliation.

(iii) A man must make confession to God. The end of pride is the beginning of forgiveness. It is when a man says, “I have sinned,” that God gets the chance to say, “I forgive.” It is not the man who desires to meet God on equal terms who will discover forgiveness, but the man who kneels in humble contrition and whispers through his shame, “God be merciful to me a sinner.”

THE HERALD OF THE KING

Mark 1:5-8

And the whole country of Judea went out to him, and so did all the people of Jerusalem, and they were baptized by him in the River Jordan, while they confessed their sins. John was clad in a garment of camel’s hair, and he had a leather girdle round his waist, and it was his custom to eat locusts and wild honey. The burden of his proclamation was, “The one who is stronger than I is coming after me. I am not fit to stoop down and to loosen the strap of his sandals. I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

It is clear that the ministry of John was mightily effective, for they flocked out to listen to him and to submit to his baptism. Why was it that John made an impact such as this upon his nation?

(i) He was a man who lived his message. Not only his words, but also his whole life was a protest. Three things about him marked the reality of his protest against contemporary life.

(a) There was the place in which he stayed–the wilderness. Between the centre of Judaea and the Dead Sea lies one of the most terrible deserts in the world. It is a limestone desert; it looks warped and twisted; it shimmers in the haze of the heat; the rock is hot and blistering and sounds hollow to the feet as if there was some vast furnace underneath; it moves out to the Dead Sea and then descends in dreadful and unscalable precipices down to the shore. In the Old Testament it is sometimes called Yeshiymown (HSN3452), which means The Devastation. John was no city-dweller. He was a man from the desert and from its solitudes and its desolations. He was a man who had given himself a chance to hear the voice of God.

(b) There were the clothes he wore a garment woven of camel’s hair and a leather belt about his waist. So did Elijah (2Kgs.1:8). To look at the man was to be reminded, not of the fashionable orators of the day, but of the ancient prophets who lived close to the great simplicities and avoided the soft and effeminate luxuries which kill the soul.

(c) There was the food he ate–locusts and wild honey. It so happens that both words are capable of two interpretations. The locusts may be the animals for the law allowed them to be eaten (Lev.11:22-23); but they may also be a kind of bean or nut, the carob, which was the food of the poorest of the poor. The honey may be the honey the wild bees make; or it may be a kind of sweet sap that distills from the bark of certain trees. it does not matter what the words precisely mean. In any event John’s diet was of the simplest.

So John emerged. People had to listen to a man like that. It was said of Carlyle that “he preached the gospel of silence in twenty volumes.” Many a man comes with a message which he himself denies. Many a man with a comfortable bank account preaches about not laying up treasures upon earth. Many a man extols the blessings of poverty from a comfortable home. But in the case of John, the man was the message, and because of that people listened.

(ii) His message was effective because he told people what in their heart of hearts they knew and brought them what in the depths of their souls they were waiting for.

(a) The Jews had a saying that “if Israel would only keep the law of God perfectly for one day the Kingdom of God would come.” When John summoned men to repentance he was confronting them with a decision that they knew in their heart of hearts they ought to make. Long ago Plato said that education did not consist in telling people new things; it consisted in extracting from their memories what they already knew. No message is so effective as that which speaks to a man’s own conscience, and that message becomes well-nigh irresistible when it is spoken by a man who obviously has the right to speak.

(b) The people of Israel were well aware that for three hundred years the voice of prophecy had been silent. They were waiting for some authentic word from God. And in John they heard it. In every walk of life the expert is recognizable. A famous violinist tells us that no sooner had Toscanini mounted the rostrum than the orchestra felt his authority flowing over them. We recognize at once a doctor who has real skill. We recognize at once a speaker who knows his subject. John had come from God and to hear him was to know it.

(iii) His message was effective because he was completely humble. His own verdict on himself was that he was not fit for the duty of a slave. Sandals were composed simply of leather soles fastened to the foot by straps passing through the toes. The roads were unsurfaced. In dry weather they were dust heaps; in wet weather rivers of mud. To remove the sandals was the work and office of a slave. John asked nothing for himself but everything for the Christ whom he proclaimed. The man’s obvious self-forgottenness, his patent yieldedness, his complete self-effacement, his utter lostness in his message compelled people to listen.

(iv) His message was effective because he pointed to something and someone beyond himself. He told men that his baptism drenched them in water, but one was coming who would drench them in the Holy Spirit; and while water could cleanse a man’s body, the Holy Spirit could cleanse his life and self and heart. Dr. G. J. Jeffrey had a favourite illustration. When he was making a telephone call through the operator and there was some delay, the operator would often say, “I’m trying to connect you.” Then, when the connection had been effected, the operator faded out and left him in direct contact with the person to whom he wished to speak.

John’s one aim was not to occupy the centre of the stage himself, but to try to connect men with the one who was greater and stronger than he; and men listened to him because he pointed, not to himself, but to the one whom all men need.