Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church
11.00am, 7th December 2014 – Advent #2
Updated 2017 for Amersham 10th December 2017
11.00am, 7th December 2014 – Advent #2
Updated 2017 for Amersham 10th December 2017
Mark 1:1-8 The beginning of the good news of Jesus
Christ, the Son of God. 2 As
it is written in the prophet Isaiah, "See, I am sending my messenger ahead
of you, who will prepare your way; 3
the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight,'" 4
John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of
repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5
And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem
were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing
their sins. 6 Now John was
clothed with camel's hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate
locusts and wild honey. 7 He
proclaimed, "The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am
not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. 8 I have baptized you with water;
but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit."
Isaiah 40:1-11 Comfort, O comfort my people, says your
God. 2 Speak tenderly to
Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is
paid, that she has received from the LORD's hand double for all her sins. 3 A voice cries out: "In the
wilderness prepare the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway
for our God. 4 Every valley
shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground
shall become level, and the rough places a plain. 5 Then the glory of the LORD shall
be revealed, and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the LORD
has spoken." 6 A voice
says, "Cry out!" And I said, "What shall I cry?" All people
are grass, their constancy is like the flower of the field. 7 The grass withers, the flower
fades, when the breath of the LORD blows upon it; surely the people are
grass. 8 The grass withers,
the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand forever. 9 Get you up to a high mountain, O
Zion, herald of good tidings; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem,
herald of good tidings, lift it up, do not fear; say to the cities of Judah,
"Here is your God!" 10
See, the Lord GOD comes with might, and his arm rules for him; his reward is
with him, and his recompense before him.
11 He will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the
lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead the mother
sheep.
A Labour Party spin doctor infamously remarked,
on
the day of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001,
that
that day was a ‘very good day’ to bury ‘bad news’.[1]
Whilst she was, with some justification,
vilified
by the press at the time,
I think that in many ways her reaction to news
management in the wake of tragedy
was
the product of a far wider and longstanding culture of cynicism and opportunism
in
the world of news, media, spin, and propaganda.
The
question of ‘good news days’, and ‘bad news days’,
and indeed of ‘good news’ and ‘bad
news’
is
not a straightforward question
of the moral difference between
‘good’ and ‘bad’.
The
thing is, a ‘good-news’ story, is rarely a good ‘news-story’.
Stories of ‘good news’ are often
confined to the final item on the local news,
and typically take the
‘lost puppy found’ style.
It
is very rare for the headline news to be ‘good news’,
rather, the stories we want to hear
are stories of tragedy and trauma,
of wars and rumours of
wars,
stories of money, power,
and politics.
These
are the good ‘news-stories’,
and they are rarely ‘good news’.
On
the rare occasion that a headlining story is presented as ‘good news’,
the cynic in me is always looking beneath
the surface of the story
for the spin, the propaganda, the
vested interest.
Take
the news of a royal wedding,
or the announcement of the expectation
of yet another royal baby;
both topics which have dominated our
headlines in recent weeks.
Now
please don’t get me wrong, I’m happy for Harry and Meghan, I really am.
I’m happy too for William and Kate;
and the news of the
arrival next year of their third child
is, of course, a cause
for great joy for them and their family.
And
whilst the news of another human baby might be good news in and of itself,
as indeed are tidings of the safe
arrival of any child,
it
is only headline good news because
the father will one day be king,
and because of the power, wealth,
and privilege of the family
that the child will be born into.
And
so the birth of a child,
easily becomes a legitimation
narrative to reinforce
the ideology of inherited monarchy
and entrenched privilege.
And
in due course the Christening of that child,
by the head of the established
church,
will
in similarly reinforce the symbiotic relationship
between political power and
established religion.
And
it was ever thus.
In
the Roman world, the birth of a royal child
was trumpeted throughout the empire
as ‘good news’.
The
Roman propaganda machine would go into overdrive,
to eulogise the emperor as the
‘divine man’
and the birth of their child as the
birth of a god.
There
is an ancient inscription, which reads,
‘The birthday of the god was, for
the world,
the beginning of the joyful messages
which have gone forth
because of him.’
‘Glad
tidings of comfort and joy’, indeed.
The
birth of the emperor’s god-child was hailed as ‘good news’
because it ensured the perpetuation
of the royal dynasty.
And
so we come to the first verse of Mark’s gospel,
written to a culture familiar with
the carefully managed ‘good news’
of the emperor cult:
‘The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.’[2]
Here,
right at the beginning of the gospel, in the very first line of text,
we find Mark setting up a conflict
that will dominate everything that follows.
He
serves notice to his readers, from the offset,
that this story of Jesus will be one
which challenges
the apparatus of imperial
propagation.
Like
John’s gospel, Mark doesn’t offer us a ‘birth narrative’;
we have to turn to Matthew and Luke
for our singing shepherds, angelic
choirs, and visiting magi.
Rather,
he gives us a dramatic introduction
to the arrival of the son of God in
the course of human history.
Mark
presents the coming of Jesus as the advent of the ‘anointed’ leader,
who is confirmed by God himself,
and
who bursts onto the scene of history
proclaiming a ‘kingdom’ to challenge
the might
of the Roman Kingdom.
In
other words, Mark’s version of the advent of Jesus
is cast in such a way as to take
dead aim at Caesar,
and at the legitimating myths that
supported his power.
From
its very first line, Mark’s gospel is subversive.
‘Good
news’ in Roman times, as in our own time,
was usually news of victory on the
battlefield
as the imperial armies marched their
way across the known world,
giving
the gift of Roman Peace, the pax Romana,
to a world that had no choice but to
accept the gift,
or to pay the price for refusing to
comply.
In
direct contrast to this, the ‘good news’ with which Mark’s Gospel begins,
is a declaration of war upon the
very heart of the violent empire,
as Jesus does battle
with the political culture
of imperial domination.
We
live in a world that is addicted to news,
but as we have seen, ‘good news’
does not usually make good news.
A
good, or effective, news story,
is one that hooks the viewer or the
reader into wanting to know more.
News
of battles won, terror threats foiled, economic victories, and political
standoffs,
are the staple diet of our news
media.
And
they do for us what the Roman propaganda machine
did for the Roman plebeians:
They
sell us the narratives by which we then frame our lives,
and they invite us to rejoice in the
‘good news’ of their protectionism,
as it comes to us
through the secular deities of militarism and monarchy,
and the miracle of free
market economics.
And
it is to us, as it was to the world of the Romans,
that the Christ-child comes.
And
Mark would have us believe that he comes
in a way that subverts the good
parochial news stories of our time
with a transcendent message of ‘good
news’ for all time, and all people.
And
so Mark takes us on a journey from the world of global domination,
to the world of those who see
history from the other side.
He
invites us to step with him into the world of the under-dog,
the world of the dominated,
the world of the
refugee, the alienated, and the exiled.
And
so he invokes the prophet Isaiah,
and we hear a voice reading quotes
from the prophet of the Jewish exile.
Interestingly,
if you actually turn to Isaiah in the Old Testament, to find this quote,
it’s not there quite as Mark has it,
not
only because he was quoting from a Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures,
(whereas our modern Old Testament is
a translation of a tenth century Hebrew text);
but
also because the first half of the quote isn’t from Isaiah at all,
it’s from Exodus and Malachi (Exod.
23.20; Mal. 3.1).
The
second part of Mark’s quote is, however, from Isaiah,
and is found in our Old Testament
reading for today (Isa. 40.3).
As
an aside here, for a moment,
the fact that Mark can take three
quotes, from three different places,
and edit them together to form what
he presents
as a unified quotation
from Isaiah,
tells us a lot about the way in
which the early followers of Jesus
thought about their
scriptures.
Not
for them some restrictive doctrine of scriptural inerrancy,
or any idea that the text is
immutable
and universally applicable in all
times and all places.
Not
for them any statement of faith
that regards scripture as the sole
and absolute authority
in all matters of faith and
practice.
Rather,
Mark, and the other Gospel writers,
regarded the Hebrew Scriptures as
holy stories,
that explored how and why God was at
work in the world,
drawing people to
himself
and reshaping human
history away from oppression and towards liberation.
For
them, scripture was more of an inspiration,
than it was itself inspired.
It
was there to engage with, to hear from, and to argue with,
not to settle arguments and close
down conversation!
Anyway,
the way in which Mark edits these three quotes together is significant,
because it tells us a lot about his
subversive intent.
I
don’t know if you’ve noticed it, but the word ‘redaction’
is suddenly in fashion at the
moment.
Just
in case you’ve missed this, it means, ‘to edit for publication’,
and it’s a word that Biblical
Scholars are very familiar with
as
we look at the ways the gospel writers edited their source material together,
in order to bring their different
versions of the Jesus story into being.
So
the scholarly discipline of ‘redaction criticism’, as it is known, looks at the
motives
for why things have been edited
together in certain ways.
However,
the word ‘redaction’ has come into more popular use
through the way in which government
departments have responded
to
requests made under the Freedom of Information Act,
where documents are released, but in
so-called ‘redacted’ form,
with section obliterated
where that particular content
is deemed unsuitable for
public consumption.
The
association with concealed statistics and government cover up
has lent the word an air of mystery
and intrigue;
it speaks of the
mystique of subversion.
Which
is exactly where Mark is taking us
in his redaction of Exodus, Malachi,
and Isaiah.
The
Exodus reference, and its equivalent passage in Malachi,
are combined and translated by Mark
to read:
‘See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way.’
And here, Mark takes us into the world of the
Jewish slaves in Egypt,
making
their journey through the wilderness of Sinai
on
their way to the promised land.
The messenger who goes ahead through the
wilderness
is
heralding the way for the people of God to make their own journey of
liberation;
the Lord himself blazes the trail.
This is a story of emancipation, of freedom
from slavery.
And
as such it is an inherently revolutionary story.
For any empire dependent on the enslavement of
humans,
the
release of those slaves from bondage
is
an act of treason against the system that requires their servitude.
Whether it’s the Egyptians of the time of the
exodus,
or
the Romans of the time of Mark’s gospel,
or
the American plantation owners of a byegone century,
or
those who currently serve in the sweatshops and brothels of our own time,
held
in economic slavery to the empire of global capital
that
dominates our own world.
The release of slaves is an act of subversion.
What
Mark leaves open for interpretation, though,
is who the messenger of freedom is
in the context of his gospel.
Is
it John the Baptist, heralding the arrival of Jesus?
Or is the messenger Jesus himself,
preparing the way for
those who will follow him?
Or is the messenger none other than
God,
sending the gospel
writer to proclaim to readers down the centuries
the good news of the
advent of Jesus.
The
answer to this conundrum may well be that all three are intended,
because the advent of God is not a
once-for-all event,
fixed in time and space.
The God who comes to us in the
infant Jesus,
a sign of hope in a
world of oppression and darkness,
is the same God who comes to us in
the adult Jesus,
opening before all of
humanity a way of being,
that is not dominated by
death and enthralled by empire.
And this is yet again the same God
who comes to us by the
Spirit of Christ,
as the
stories of Good News that we encounter
through the
pages of the gospel
inspire new ways of
engaging our humanity before God.
Sometimes,
the coming of God into the world
is full of ambiguity and uncertainty,
because
this is the God who comes in the wilderness,
to those who are lost,
offering
a way through the desert to the new world of love and acceptance
that he is bringing into being.
And
so Mark introduces us to John the Baptist,
the herald in the wilderness,
living a marginal existence,
surviving on locusts and honey.
John
is found in the place where the exodus people fled
as they left their slavery in Egypt.
He
is found in the place where Jesus faces his own temptations,
the place where Elijah sought
sanctuary when hunted by the political authorities,
the place of solitude,
loneliness, and liminality.
And
it is from this peripheral place
that the challenge to the centre
emerges.
The
voice of the one proclaiming the advent of the good news of the coming of Jesus
is heard echoing from the hills.
If
earthly power takes the centre ground,
whether that be Rome, Jerusalem, or
Westminster;
the
prophetic voice of challenge comes from the margins.
Mark’s
gospel deliberately sets up a spatial tension
between two places that are
symbolically and archetypically opposite.
The
disparity between the margin and the centre,
between the wilderness and the
temple,
is
something that Mark’s gospel returns to time and again.
According
to the dominant Jewish nationalistic ideology of salvation history,
Jerusalem was considered the hub
to which all nations would one day
come.
Mark
turns this on its head;
and far from beginning his story of
good news with a triumphal march on Zion,
rather,
he tells of crowds fleeing to the margins,
to be baptised with the baptism of
repentance.
Mark
is setting the scene for the conflict
that will only resolve itself at the
crucifixion,
as
the new kingdom of Jesus comes from the margins,
to challenge the powers that dominate
the centre.
The
priestly and scribal establishment of the temple,
whose social power was derived
from systems of
religiously legitimates social control,
finds itself in the same category as
the emperor of Rome:
such
power is deemed illegitimate by the coming Christ.
And
the good news of the coming of Jesus
is that all expressions of
illegitimate power,
whether secular, sacred,
or some fusion of the two,
are called to account by the voice
of repentance from the wilderness.
And
so John the Baptist calls people to repentance,
he invites them to confess the sin
of their complicity
in the idolatrous powers
of Rome and Jerusalem,
and he baptises them in the Jordan
as they, like the exodus people of old,
pass through the waters
of the river
as they make their journey from the
old world to the new,
as they complete their
pilgrimage
from
enslavement to the powers that be
to freedom
in the new kingdom
that
they are being called to bring into being.
The
water-baptism of John, the baptism of repentance,
heralds the baptism offered by
Jesus,
who
will, says John, baptise with the Holy Spirit.
If
the baptism of water in the wilderness sets up a challenge
to the dominant powers in the world,
the
baptism of the Holy Spirit
inaugurates a confrontation on a
spiritual level
with the underlying forces of
idolatry
that give rise to earthly
expressions of centralised authority.
There
is no darkness so dark
as that which lurks in the human
soul,
and
we have such endless capacity to wreak havoc in creation.
The
baptism of the Holy Spirit
shines the light of the Spirit of
Christ
into the darkest places
of our souls and imaginings,
bringing to the light all that would
otherwise eat away at our humanity,
destroying us one day at
a time until all that is left
are the false gods of
our own devising.
Baptism
is not simply about being sorry to God
for all the wrong things we have
done.
It
is about opening ourselves to the transformative power of the Spirit of Christ
that takes us away from the centre,
away from our dreams of
power and our fantasies of success,
into the wilderness where dreams are
transformed
and fantasies redeemed.
It
is only as we are baptised to be a marginal people
that we find we can effect true
change in the world.
The
challenge here, at the beginning of Mark’s gospel, is clear:
It asks us to consider in what way
we will regard
the coming of Jesus to
the world as good news?
If
we see the coming of Jesus as the advent of power,
to transform society from the centre
by forceful application
of Christian values,
then we side with Rome and
Jerusalem,
not with John the
Baptist.
If,
however, we hear the one who comes to us,
calling us to the wilderness to
repent of our sins,
calling us to baptism of water and
the Holy Spirit,
then
we hear the voice of the one crying in the desert.
Next
week, in our evening service,
we will be having a service of
baptism,
as
we bear witness to the transformative work of Christ,
in the life of one of his followers.
But
the waters of Baptism speak to all of us,
maybe reminding us of the promises
we ourselves have made in years long past,
maybe challenging us to consider
baptism for ourselves,
but
above all, calling us to the margins,
calling us to the wilderness, to the
land beyond the Jordan,
calling us to repentance of our
worshipping of other gods,
and calling us to receive afresh the
baptism of the Holy Spirit,
who opens within us the
stream of living water
which leads to eternal
life.
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