An Advent Voice Cries Out in the Wilderness—Lectionary Reflection for Advent 2B (Mark 1)
Mark 1:1-8 New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
1 The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ.
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 so John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5 And the whole Judean region 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 strap of his sandals. 8 I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
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When we
think of Advent, we tend to think in terms of the birth story of Jesus. That’s
something that the Gospel of Mark lacks. This Gospel jumps right to the
beginning of Jesus’ ministry. Mark begins his Gospel by setting up the ministry
of John the Baptizer, who serves as the forerunner of Jesus’ ministry. Mark
begins his message by announcing “the beginning of the good news of Jesus.”
Mark shows no interest in where Jesus hailed from. There is nothing in Mark
about parentage. Unlike Matthew and Luke Mark doesn’t offer us a genealogy. He
wants to dive right into the ministry of this Jesus the Christ.
Rather than begin with an origin
story, Mark starts by introducing us to the forerunner to the ministry of this
Jesus he wants to introduce us to. Mark begins with a passage from the prophet
we know as Second Isaiah, a prophet who addressed a people living in exile,
promising a way home. While Mark points us to the words of Isaiah 40:3, he uses
them to define and describe the ministry of the one we know as John the Baptist
(or better yet, John the Baptizer). This John the Baptizer serves as the forerunner
to the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit. This would be Jesus, who is the
Messiah of God. That is, Jesus is the anointed one who is called by God to deliver
the people from their bondage to sin.
So, as
noted above, Mark begins his version of the Jesus story by drawing on words
from Isaiah 40:3, which speaks of the voice that cries out in the wilderness to
prepare the way for the Lord. In addition to the reading from Isaiah 40, Mark
draws on words from Exodus 23:20 and Malachi 3:1. By doing this Mark sets the
story of Jesus Israel’s history. So, while these other passages are not
mentioned, they stand alongside the reading from Isaiah 40 to define the
ministry of John. William Placher writes “The three contexts of Malachi, Second
Isaiah, and Exodus 23 together, then, add up to a message that could be
summarized in the old phrase, ‘Be careful what you wish for.’ God is about to
do a great thing. Good news! But not the good news people expect or will find
comfortable” [Belief: Mark, p. 19]. That is true, what follows might not
be the kind of good news that people expect.
With
this reading the focus isn’t on Jesus but the forerunner to Jesus and his
ministry. The picture that Mark paints of this forerunner—John the Baptizer—is
one many will recognize. John is portrayed as living in the wilderness, dressed
in a camel hair garment, with a leather belt around his waist, and eating
locusts and honey. In other words, he’s not what you would call socially “respectable.”
Although he appears to us as someone akin to a street preacher with a sandwich
board yelling at people as they pass by, people go out to see him and get
baptized by him. That’s because he proclaimed a baptism of repentance and
forgiveness. Indeed, John understands his ministry (according to Mark) as
involving a rite of purification. It fits with what we read in Malachi 3, where
the prophet writes:
See, I am sending my messenger to
prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his
temple. The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight—indeed, he is coming,
says the Lord of hosts. 2 But who can
endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?
For he is like a refiner’s fire
and like washers’ soap; 3 he will sit as a refiner
and purifier of silver, and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine
them like gold and silver, until they present offerings to the Lord in
righteousness. (Malachi 3:1-3).
There is much about John and his ministry that is reflective
of the ministries of Israel’s prophets, especially Elijah, who like John wore a
leather belt and whose camel hair garment was reminiscent of Elijah’s depiction
of being hairy (2 Kings 1:8). As popular as John was with the populace, his
ministry was not definitive or final. It was preparatory. There would be
someone who comes after him, the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.
Regarding
the one who will come after John, the Baptizer makes it clear that not only
will this figure be more powerful, but John tells us that he would not be
worthy of bending down and untie his sandals. Nevertheless, though he baptizes
only with water and the one who follows will baptize with the Holy Spirit, it
will be John’s baptism that will initiate Jesus’ ministry. He might not be
worthy to untie Jesus’ sandals, but he is tasked with baptizing him. It was
while John baptized Jesus that the Spirit would descend on Jesus in the form of
a dove, and a voice from heaven declared Jesus to be God’s son, the Beloved (Mk.1:9-11).
The
reading from Mark 1 stops short of Jesus’ baptism, though it is worth
continuing to connect John’s preparatory ministry with the baptism of Jesus. It
is worth contemplating the nature of Jesus’ baptism since John’s baptism involved
repentance and the forgiveness of sins. The assumption of Christian theology
has been that Jesus was without sin (whether or not he was born of a virgin),
so why the baptism? It’s a question, but since Jesus’ baptism had to be
embarrassing to early Christians, as William Placher points out it’s unlikely
the early church invented the baptism— “So John and his baptism of Jesus seem
as historically well established as anything in the Gospels” [Belief: Mark,
p. 20].
With
the connection made between John and Jesus, we can ask the question of the
meaning of this story. What are its implications for our Advent observance? As I’ve
noted in this reflection and elsewhere, Advent serves as a season of reflection
and preparation. As the reading from Mark 13 that we read on the First Sunday
of Advent reminds us, Jesus us to stay awake because we never know when the
second advent will take place (Mk. 13:24-37). This particular story speaks of a
baptism of repentance and forgiveness. That suggests that this season serves as
a time for us to address the sins that mar our lives. We may not get baptized,
but surely repentance and forgiveness are part of the journey as we begin the
new liturgical year. Thus, the season invites us to undergo purification. While
Pentecost lies far in the future, the promise of the Holy Spirit is also an
important element of what it means to prepare for our encounter with Jesus.
This season
of Advent exists in an uneasy tension with the larger holiday season. Advent invites
us to take steps that involve forms of purification. As the prophet Malachi suggests, the one who is coming is “like a refiner’s fire and like washers’
soap; he will sit as a refiner and purifier of
silver, and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold
and silver, until they present offerings to the Lord in righteousness”
(Malachi 3:2-3). The holiday season we’ve entered into tends toward the jolly rather
than the somber. I for one enjoy the secular side of the season, so it would
seem that there is a need for balance. We take time during the season to look
inward, even as we spend time celebrating the season.
As we
ponder the meaning of John’s message, it is worth reflecting on Peter’s message
on the Day of Pentecost. On that day the Holy Spirit descended on the people,
even as the Spirit descended on Jesus, empowering Jesus’ followers to proclaim
the good news in a multitude of languages and dialects so that everyone might
hear the good news. The people asked what they must do to be saved, to
experience the healing presence of the Holy Spirit, and Peter declared that
what they needed to do was repent and be baptized and they would receive the forgiveness
of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38). The baptism in water that
John and Peter proclaimed brought with it forgiveness of sins, but that which
Peter proclaimed, which was rooted in Jesus’ ministry, also brought with it the
gift of the Holy Spirit.
As we pause during this Advent
season to look inward so we might discern areas that need attention, John
reminds us that we take this journey in the power of the Holy Spirit, who comes
to us through the ministrations of Jesus. Thus, we are born of water and the
Spirit, to draw on the imagery from Jesus’ discussion with Nicodemus (John 3:5).
Perhaps as we look at the gifts that are gathering under the tree, we can
envision the gifts of God’s Spirit so that we might fulfill our calling as ones
baptized with the Spirit.
So we sing:
On Jordan’s
bank the Baptist’s cry announces that the Lord is nigh;
Awake and
hearken, for he brings glad tidings of the King of kings!
Then cleansed
be every life from sin; make straight the way for God within,
And let us all
our hearts prepare for Christ to come and enter there.
—Charles Coffin,
1736; trans. John Chandler, 1837 alt.
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