Sunday, December 6, 2020

Second Sunday of Advent
Isaiah 40:1-11
Psalm 85
2 Peter 3:8-14
Mark 1:1-8

Show us your loving kindness, Yahweh. Grant us your salvation.

I like having cut flowers around the house. My husband and I went on an adventure last week to a cute little town about an hour from home. There’s a farm along the way that sells cut flowers and other plants. They had poinsettias for sale as well as pansies, herbs in pots and plenty of bulbs to plant. They also had cut marigolds and lilies to decorate the visitors’ fall tables. We purchased a couple unusual poinsettias and some of the lilies. I put them in a vase and we have been enjoying them since.

We kept cut flowers in our home almost all the time when we lived in England. The farmer’s markets ran year round and there was a market in a different town within easy driving distance every day of the week. The flowers for sale were extremely affordable, so I constantly had vases of flowers. If you’ve seen pictures of English country homes, you know that flowers are important to their landscaping. You might think that it is a creation of someone’s imagination, but the flowers are really everywhere, especially in the spring.

Flowers are such an important part of the English lifestyle that many English churches host floral festivals. They were planned for spring to welcome the warm weather and to bring the color of the country into the drab interiors of those ancient stone churches. They weren’t competitive; the floral designers were members or friends of the church and the event was used to fundraise so that they could take care of after-winter maintenance of their buildings.

I participated in one of these festivals. Though I’m not a professional, I enjoy doing more with flowers than just putting them into a vase. I’ve dabbled over the years with fun flowers and odd containers. I was excited about the challenge the floral festival offered. The theme for the festival was Pentecost and the displays were magnificent. Some reached incredibly high, others had sprays of flowers. Some people chose to fill their containers with red flowers, others white and yet others had a burst of many colors. I found an unusual pot stand made of wicker with three arms for holding plants. I put floral foam on trays that fit into each of the arms and found flowers with every color of the rainbow. I had the flowers spraying from the top to the bottom, about five feet high altogether. Along with all the other arrangements, it was a beautiful and very memorable experience.

My lilies are beginning to fade. That’s the problem with flower arranging: eventually the flowers die. We live in a world that is perishable. People come and go, grass turns brown in winter, turkeys get eaten until they are nothing but bones. Yet, God is steadfast. And that faithful and loving God reminds us constantly, in the creation and through our gifts, that He is gracious and merciful, always present in the midst of our lives.

Today’s Psalm is a community lament. It begins with words of praise and testimony. “God has done these things.” He restored their fortunes. He forgave. He withdrew His wrath. The first verses look to the past. They know that the cause of their suffering is their sin, but they ask for the restoration of their community to God. Then the psalm asks “How long?” They have been suffering for a long time. We can understand this phrase to mean “Enough is enough!” They are looking toward the future. The psalmist asks God to do again what He did in the past. Though their fortunes were restored, something has happened and they are struggling again.

As Christians we look back to the redemption at the cross but we continue to experience struggles. We are restored and forgiven, but we continue to sin. God's grace is for the past, present and future. We HAVE eternal life, we ARE forgiven. But we still need to be forgiven and we need to wait until we actually pass from this life to fully experience the eternal life that God has promised to all who believe.

Though they are suffering, the psalmist and the community know the mercy of God. There Hebrew word that is translated lovingkindness, steadfast love, mercy, or faithfulness, depending on the version of the translation. This word is “chesed” and it is a covenant love, the covenantal loyalty of God. He has made promises to His people and He will be faithful even when they are not. This word is found throughout the psalms, and the rest of the Old Testament, and it is in this psalm twice. The psalmist based the plea for salvation on God’s covenantal love and loyalty.

The covenants of God are two way streets. God calls us to live our faith in this world to glorify Him with our obedience to His Word. Yet, He knew from the beginning that we would fail. In today’s Psalm, we hear a message of God’s grace. The early church community understood this psalm to be the prayers of a people who have been saved but are waiting for salvation to be complete. We still live in this time of waiting today. That’s what Advent is all about. We know Christ has come. We know that Jesus was born in the manger at Christmas and that He died on the Cross and rose again at Easter. It is finished. But we still wait for everything to be complete.

Peter lived in that day when the people were hopeful for Christ’s return. They were expecting Him back at any moment. They were even beginning to doubt the words of Jesus because it seemed to be taking so long. They wondered where He might be and why He was late. There were, I’m sure, even some who were trying to find a way to hasten His coming. It has certainly been done throughout the past two thousand years. Prophets have tried to foretell the time and day when the Lord would come, and cults have built up around ideas and practices meant to spur God on to fulfilling His promises. Every generation since Peter’s day has waited for and tried to hasten the coming of the Lord.

I’m sure most of us are tired of hearing about the end times. After all, we’ve had so many texts dealing with eschatological issues over the past month or so and it is not a subject we like to dwell upon. It doesn’t help that so many have judged that we are in those end times, with all the struggles we’ve faced this year. We are tired of the doom and we want to live for today. We look forward to heaven, but we do not want to make the end times the entire focus of our faith. Yet, Peter’s message was not really about what is to come, but about what we are to do while we wait. Some are so anxious for the coming of the Lord that they will do whatever is necessary to make it happen in this time and place. After all, it has already been two thousand years. Isn’t it time?

But we learn from Peter that a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like a day for God. What has taken forever for us has only been a moment for God. The time has not yet come because everything is not yet ready. God is patient because not everyone for whom the promise has been given has yet heard it. There is great hope in this message: God does not want any to perish. He is patient and longsuffering. Christ will not come until all is ready. We may not want to wait, but our waiting is God’s mercy.

In this passage, written for the believers, Peter says that God is, “longsuffering to you-ward.” There is work for us to do, and God is giving us the time. Those who have yet to hear the Good News of Jesus Christ are out there in the world, walking in darkness. We are the light, sent to give hope and peace to all whom God has chosen. God is patient, not for those who haven’t heard, but for us. He is waiting until we do what we have been called to do. God’s patience is our salvation. He is waiting until we have accomplished all He has commanded us to do. It might happen in this generation, but it might not happen for another thousand years. After all, a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years is like a day to God. He will fulfill His promises in His time according to His word. We will experience true peace when God says it is time.

When we think of the concept of peace, especially in our world today, we think of peace between nations. Wikipedia says, “Peace is a state of harmony characterized by the lack of violent conflict. Commonly understood as the absence of hostility, peace also suggests the existence of healthy or newly healed interpersonal or international relationships, prosperity in matters of social or economic welfare, the establishment of equality, and a working political order that serves the true interests of all. In international relations, peacetime is not only the absence of war or conflict, but also the presence of cultural and economic understanding and unity. There is also a sense of tolerance in international relations for the realization of true peace.”

The Latin word from which we get the word peace means “freedom from civil disorder,” so there is some justification for our thinking of peace in these terms. Christmas has become a time to cry out for peace on earth; now more than ever people want to live without fear, with hope and joy. It is hard to be happy when your world is literally exploding around you.

I want to focus on one particular part of the Wikipedia definition, however. “Peace also suggests the existence of healthy or newly healed interpersonal relationships.” That is more appropriate to the text for this Sunday and for the preparation of Advent. Christ came to restore us to our Father and to one another, to overcome the darkness and sin that has created conflict between people. This can be pursued on a large scale as is done through international treaties, but the cry for peace for most people is a desire for something more personal. We are looking for peace in our own lives, in our hearts. Of course we want peace on earth, but true peace begins inwardly.

The first verse of today’s Gospel passage does not sound like a sentence. It appears to be a title, “The Beginning of the Gospel (Good News) of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” When Mark says, “the beginning,” he is not referring to the beginning of his story; he is simply telling us that his story tells the beginning of something much bigger. The story of Jesus is not something that can be limited to a few pages in a book, it is a story that began two thousand years ago and continues today. The story as we hear it in Mark and in the rest of the New Testament did not end with the last word written. It continues today and will continue into the future, as long as it is God’s will. It will only end on that great Day of the Lord for which we wait, preparing as we’ve been encouraged over the past few weeks.

Mark himself did not write anything beyond the Gospel, but he was telling us from the beginning that there was more. Last week we heard Jesus speak at the end of His ministry, and this week we get to see the beginning. Last week we saw Jesus telling those of faith to stay awake, to keep watch, to be ready. This week we learn the beginning of the story.

Mark does not begin with a nativity narrative. He doesn’t tell us what happened at the stable or with Jesus as a child. He does not tell us about wise men or shepherds or angels. Mark begins with John the Baptist. Isaiah wrote that there would be a prophet preparing the way of the Lord, pointing the people toward the One for whom they were waiting. That prophet was John the Baptist. He came from the wilderness to preach repentance and to call the people to be baptized for the forgiveness of sins. That story continues into today. We still call people to baptism, but we have been given a greater gift than John, because Jesus Christ baptizes with more than just water. What John started, Jesus completed and made even more real because now the Holy Spirit brings a lasting, eternal forgiveness. John was cleansing the people to make them ready for the Lord. The Lord now makes the people His forever and ever.

The image in today’s Gospel lesson is harsh and almost frightening. John is a bizarre character. He lives in the wilderness, wears camel hair and eats locusts. This is not a man that we would necessarily follow. He does not portray a picture of peace. His message is rough; he told people they were sinners. He called them to repentance. He baptized but admitted that his baptism was nothing compared to the baptism that would come from God. This is not comforting. It is not pleasant. It is frightening and disconcerting.

Yet people flocked to this madman in the wilderness, longing to see the one who fulfilled the promise we hear in today’s Old Testament lesson. In that text, the message is not so frightening. It is not so unpleasant. God speaks comfort to His people and promises that they will be restored. Isaiah says, “Speak comfortably to Jerusalem; and call out to her that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received of Yahweh’s hand double for all her sins.” The warfare in this text is referring to the exile, the consequences of their sin against God. They served their sentence and were about to be set free to return home. This promise of restoration was especially significant to a people who were living under the oppressive hand of the Romans; they were looking forward to the day when the throne of David would be restored, when they could live again as a sovereign nation. They didn’t realize that God promised an even greater freedom and a peace that is beyond human understanding.

Isaiah writes, “All flesh is like grass, and all its glory is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades, because Yahweh’s breath blows on it. Surely the people are like grass. The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God stands forever.” Peace, true peace, will come when our flesh is destroyed by the breath of God, consumed by His fire and Spirit, and we are made new. This might seem frightening, but it is the hope of Christmas: that we will be transformed and restored to God. When God comes, when He rules, He will take care of us as a shepherd takes care of His flock. John’s message might seem rough and disconcerting, but it reflects the promise of Isaiah. God is coming, prepare the way. He is coming to do something spectacular, make your hearts ready.

Mark did his job: he told the story, a story he believed would go on long after he was gone, so that we can hear and believe. For Mark, one thing was especially important, and we find it in that title verse, “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” Mark wanted to make it clear who Jesus really is: He is the Son of God. The later Gospel writers included the stories of Jesus’ birth and childhood, establishing also Jesus’ humanity, but Mark insists on His divinity. Jesus isn’t just a prophet. He isn’t just a rabbi. He isn’t just a friend or savior. Jesus is God.

Many have suggested that Mark records Peter’s story. The disciples spent many hours together in the home of Mark’s mother (Acts 12:12) after Jesus ascended to heaven. This place was the same room where they ate the Last Supper with Jesus. Mark was younger than the disciples; he was a boy overhearing their conversations.

What do you do when you gather with family after the loss of someone you love? You tell stories, so did they. They shared memories. They wondered about the meaning of the signs and the miracles. They remembered everything Jesus taught them. They probably told the same stories over and over again. And Mark listened. He put them together so that they would not be forgotten. He ordered them in a way that made sense. Most of all, he laid down the facts as they were remembered by the disciples, particularly through the eyes of Peter. It began as an oral tale and was eventually written onto paper so that it would not be lost to time or to death.

Unfortunately, people were dying. Most of the Apostles and many others were martyred for their faith, but there were also many who were dying of old age. They were looking and waiting for the second coming of Christ and believed they would see it happen, but then they began to die. What would happen to the believers who did not make it to that great Day? They were worried, but they were also faithful, realizing the importance of passing the story on to the next generation. They knew God would keep His promises, even if it didn’t happen in their time. They put the stories to paper so that the next generation, and every generation following, would know it and would believe. We are the current generation meant to share the Gospel with the world.

The psalm ends on a confident note, with the psalmist including a powerful reflection on God’s covenant character: His love is without fail and He fulfills His promises. God is righteous and thus peace prevails. These all come together in an intimate embrace in the person of God. God prepares the way. God alone is the possessor and giver of salvation, righteousness, truth, mercy, peace. We are indeed unable to live up to the covenant, but God is more than able and has fulfilled it in Jesus Christ. Though we do turn to folly, God teaches us so that we will learn to rely on Him. Just like that community begging God for His grace, we still plead against His wrath and seek His grace.

It might seem like it has been too long, surely God would have completed His work by now! We worry like those in the early Church, especially when we see the world around us falling apart. “Come, Lord Jesus,” we cry. We wait, we watch, we hope, trusting that God’s Word is true. The grass will wither and people will die, but God’s patience means that there is still time for all those whom God calls to believe.

We can’t stand still while we wait; we have a job to do. Mark started the story that we are charged with continuing. There are people who need to see the light that shatters darkness and experience the life that has overcome death. It is up to us to share the Good News like John, but our message is even greater than his. God’s grace has won; the baptism we share is one of forgiveness and power. We live in the time between the fulfillment of God’s promises and the completion of them; this is a time of hope and expectation. So, let’s shine the light that is Christ in the world so that those for whom God is waiting might be saved.