Scripture Lesson: Mark 1:1-8

Sermon Transcript for December 7, 2008

By Pastor Bob Coleman

Did you know that “’Comfort, comfort my people,’ says your God” are part of the words that Handel used? “A voice of one calling in the desert: Prepare the way of the Lord. Make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God. Every valley shall be raised up and every mountain and hill made low. The rough ground shall become level and the rugged places a plain. And the glory of the Lord will be revealed and all mankind together will see it. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” These beautiful words set to music do not tell us the depth of the experience. Isaiah was speaking for God to people who had been taken out of their home life, exiled to a foreign country, were in terrible straits and situations. And you see it develop though all of Isaiah. But this is a beginning point of saying, “Do not lose heart, people. You will be comforted. There is a preparation being made. It is in the desert and is a highway for the Lord.” Mark was clear about that when he wrote those as the opening verses.

Now you know Mark, the Gospel, one of the earliest experienced, anticipated to be the earliest written that we have available, didn’t even pay one bit of attention to the birth of Jesus upon which we base Christmas. The primary understanding of that is it was not understood as important because it was the resurrection that was important. And so most of all the Gospels are spent talking about the last week of Jesus’ life, His death, and His resurrection and Mark not even mentioning it. It starts with Jesus being an adult experiencing and preparing for the experience of baptism. And to set the setting of John, the Baptist, who is a Nazarite prepared in the way of the Nazarite experience, as one who was to follow a different path than anyone else. And he is going about, as it says in Mark, Chapter 1, “The beginning of the Gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God. It is written in Isaiah, the prophet: I will send my messenger ahead of you who will prepare you a way. The voice of one calling in the desert: ‘Prepare the way for the Lord and make straight the paths for Him.’’ A quote from Isaiah. But moving on: “So John came baptizing in the desert region and preaching the baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. The whole Judean country side and all Jerusalem went out to him confessing their sins. They were baptized by him in the Jordan River. John wore clothing made of camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist. And he ate locust and wild honey.” That was a sign of the Nazarite. And this was his message, “After me will come one more important and more powerful than I. The thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I baptize you with water but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

And that’s the repentance preparation for Christmas. We need to know it is not just the babe born in the manger. There really is no more significance than any other baby being born as miraculous as that is, if we do not understand repentance as a part of that. Now it is spoken of in a variety of ways. And I’ll get all little bit more to repentance later. But I want to bring up something else that ties last week’s statement about revelation. The revelation of “end times” we call it. It means “a moment in the future”. Clearly put in a variety of ways in the Scripture that God will make all things new again—that’s what recreation is about. Not taking your boat out in the water or camping in the woods. To recreate is to make all things new.

And before I read to you II Peter, a companion Scripture for today, Peter’s Letter is considered an apocalyptic-type of letter. But do you remember the story that Andy used last week about Jimmy when Jimmy wanted to know the difference between one day in time? And it was a million years in that story. Where this is where it comes from. It starts in Verse 8, the 3rd chapter of II Peter: “But do not forget this one thing, dear friends, with the Lord a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years are like a day.” Remember a few weeks ago we were talking about “kairos” and “kronos”. God’s time is kairos that is beyond our comprehension and beyond the universe and the normal things of measurement. Kronos is our calendar of our time. So we see here the very setting is “Don’t get captured by trying to read God’s will and direction and plans in human interpretation such as a calendar.”

It moves on in Verse 9, “The Lord is not slow in keeping His promise as some understand slowness. He is patient with you not wanting anyone to perish but everyone to come to repentance.” Slow, patient, seeking to have no one perish but everyone come to repentance. So obviously repentance is very important. It’s important because it means in the context of being able to be a person who is in one tract of life seeing clearly something different and better and getting out of that tract and going in a different direction. In fact, the very definition of repentance in this way is repentance from sin is turning away from that which harms oneself or others or our relationship with God.

There are multiple pieces to help us support this in Scripture. Jesus Himself said in Luke 13, “But unless you repent you too will perish.” In Matthew 4, “From that time on Jesus began to preach ‘Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near.’” And Matthew 3:2: “You must change your hearts and minds for the Kingdom of Heaven has arrived.” And again, Jesus quoted in Mark 6, “So they went out and preached and the people should turn away from their sins.” These are all expressions that there has to be a change. We can come to Christmas and not change our basic thinking, our lifestyle, or even our attitude. And we will get a little bit of a boost from it but it will not be long lasting.

Repentance requires a change of view of our minds and of our hearts to see things the way God sees them, to act in the way God calls us to act. It really is a life-changing experience to repent. God simply asks if we are going in this direction, and it is a harmful way to ourselves, a harmful way to someone else or a breakdown in our relationship to God, God is simply saying through Jesus Christ, turn and go the way you should be going, to turn around, to go the opposite direction, to go the way toward God not away from God.

Luke, in the Book of Acts, says it very clearly in Chapter 2, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” Revelation and repentance go together. God is revealed in these passages. God is revealed in the birth of Jesus Christ for the purpose that all of creation would repent and change the direction, the destructive direction and go in the way of God’s grace, love, forgiveness, and salvation so that we might become agents of God’s Kingdom here on earth.

Hell is an interesting place. Well, not in the sense of interest like going and looking at a book of stories and fables. It’s a frightening aspect. And I don’t want to steer you away from some of the expressions that are in Scripture, but to help you to understand the power of repentance, you have to know what it is that you will gain if you do not repent. I really don’t care for the hard core fire and brimstone. I think it’s a much more damaging image of hell and I will describe it in this way. It’s that you get a chance to live forever in a darkened room where you sense no one else’s presence, you feel no sense of caring or loving from anyone else, and you see the events of your life, particularly the times when you caused harm to yourself or to someone else, or you stayed away and ran the opposite direction from God, just repeating again and again on a screen that is projected before you forever and ever. To me that would be more troubling. It would be like living in a nightmare.

I had a dream the other night and I have no idea what the meaning is other than that I was experiencing some sense of dementia and Alzheimer’s. What an experience to have! I don’t know if it’s true; I don’t think I’m there yet. If I forget your name, it’s not Alzheimer’s; I just don’t remember your name. But in this dream it was that sense of being lost. I’m somewhere but I don’t know where I am and I don’t know how to get to someplace I don’t know about. Now you may have had loved ones who have gone through that and you’ve seen it happen first hand and you know how frightening that must be.

And maybe that was a precursor for this message today. For it seems to me that we have lived too often separate from the truth of the matter and it has kept us from living the truth of the matter. What stops us from recognizing that Jesus’ Kingdom is here on earth is that we believe in something in the future yet to happen. Yes, there will be a time when God recreates everything anew. “And a new heaven and a new earth,” as it says in Revelations and that which is here as we know it will be destroyed by fire or some other way. It will be made new in God’s way and truth. And that will happen! Folks, for 2000 years people have been expecting it. And every time we say, “Well Jesus is near,” it may well take us off the course of what it means to live with Christ presently, to live in the Kingdom. Another way to put it is when we make the statement that “Jesus is coming soon,” we need to couch it in very personal terms. For the first time that Jesus returns is when we accept His love, grace, and forgiveness in our hearts. That’s the return of Jesus. For Jesus said, “I will come to be with you and I will provide the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, to show you the way of life and truth.” I will be with you until the end of time, Jesus promises, not in the physical sense but in a return to ourselves and our hearts.

And then there will be a time when Jesus comes in the recreation of the world to take all of the world in to His heart, into His presence. Yes! But until that moment, it’s going to happen a second time when we physically die because that will be the end of this road and the opportunity for us to rest until that end time. It’s a powerful image when we think about it. And I’m not one to hold up the fear factor when it comes to repentance. I would rather see you move toward and change your heart because you see the great love of Christ and the great power of God’s grace and forgiveness and salvation. Although, if you need to be scared to death to stay away from the wrong style of living, then indeed take that route.

I believe, ultimately, for us to live in the Kingdom of Heaven here on earth we must live with the grace and the forgiveness and the peace that only God can provide because it is what we help to give in return as a gift to others. It’s called reconciliation and we’ll look more at that in two more weeks. But until that time, let us think about repentance again in this way. To heed John’s call to repent and turn away from the old ways, the old harmful ways, the ways that harm ourselves, others, and that destroy and break our relationship with God that we need to accept the love, grace and forgiveness of God in our hearts. That’s what our baptism means initially and that’s what it means to remember our baptism gravely and often. And third that we are to live a life of doing all the good that we can to all of the people that we can in all the ways that we can. Or the three simple rules that Pastor Andy and I shared with you a series earlier—Do know harm, do good, and stay in love with God.

Go ahead and shop, go ahead and sing Christmas carols, go ahead and get together with family, share with friends, bring that kind of cheer along, but prepare your hearts and minds for Christmas in the most foundational way possible. Turn away from that which is destructive and turn towards that which is the most creative, loving power in the universe—God Almighty as we know through Jesus Christ.

Let us join for a moment of silence. “May we be fully prepared for Christmas by opening our hearts to you, turning away and going the direction that you call us. In the name of Christ we pray, Amen.”