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Mark Wheeler
Mark 1:1-15
“We Believe in the Son: Hope for Tomorrow”
Fourth Sunday of Advent, 12/20/2020
Lidgerwood Presbyterian Church
This is the Sunday of “hope.” Both our Call to Worship from Isaiah 40 and our Gospel reading come out of times when people needed hope for a new day. Isaiah is writing to a people in exile. The text in chapter 40 is part of what’s often thought of as “Second Isaiah” and has a much more comforting tone than the first set of chapters in Isaiah. It reminds me of what people have been saying about how shaming people into wearing masks just doesn’t work. No matter how defiant one is, we are still deep-down scared. We are sick and tired of the bad news but denying it doesn’t make it go away.
So comfort is where Isaiah goes. God is giving us hope for tomorrow. “Speak tenderly” – understand one another’s deep pain that comes out in strange ways that we ourselves don’t fully understand. When we begin to listen, we begin to understand, when we hear each other’s pain, we are motivated to do the right thing for each other.
Mark’s Gospel is the first to come out, and the shortest. He gets right to the action-packed narrative of Jesus’s transformative ministry. He has no time for birth narratives here. John the Baptist is the poet in Mark’s origin story of Christianity. Making paths for new life and making way for the baptizing of the Spirit is the key here. Make yourself ready because God is about to do something you didn’t expect.
We see Jesus out in the wilderness, “among the wild animals,” and angels take care of Him. Ahh … here is a note of hope. Can we see those who attend to us in so many ways as the angels of God’s presence never leaving us alone to the dangers of the world? And can we hear the call to be those angels, messengers of Good News, as well?
Open with “Light of the World”
Holy One, we thank You for the glimpses we catch of Your gift of untiring hope.
Even in the midst of fear, of challenge, of struggle – even when our view is obscured by clouds of doubt,
ignite the flame of hope within us … that we might glow with its brilliance from the inside out.
Help us face this “dark night of the soul” and embrace it as a womb of rebirth! Amen.
Let’s take a second to greet each other, and those in the room, look at the camera and say HI to your friends who are at home. Tell your loved ones, “May the Hope of Glory be with you.”
Welcome to this “gathering” in God’s name. We are assembled in NorthEast Spokane, WA, along with people from all over the world. We are very glad you are “here” with us.
For those who made it into the building this morning – thank you for wearing your masks and following the seating and walking protocols. We do this not to protect ourselves from others, but to protect others from ourselves. Because we love each other, we wear masks and keep distance to keep each other safe from this “invisible potential enemy”. COVID numbers are way up in our area – let’s not give them an opportunity to climb even higher. Our Elders are listening to CDC guidelines and deciding on what seems best practices for each others’ safety. We love you, and we want everyone to be and to stay well.
Be filled with God’s Holy Spirit presence and power, in your homes, through your phones and computers, in this building here, and in your lives. Feel free to laugh at our efforts … and pray with us … and hear and be transformed by God’s Word.
Listen now and join in as Gene Peden leads our reading of our Isaiah prophecy – and those at home, if you have Advent Candles, light three candles and keep them near you in this time of worship and prayer – as we light our Advent Wreath.
Our song of praise today sings of the hope of our Lord’s arrival! – Come thou Long-Expected Jesus – sung by Gene Peden.
Through the Written Word,
And endorsed by our spoken word,
May we know Your Living Word,
Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
In my mind, our Advent themes have grown with intensity – peace, love, joy, and today we commemorate the theme of hope! The noise does not necessarily get louder with each new theme, but the depth of emotion certainly might!
What a time this is! I know I have been preaching “hope” and “waiting” for several months now, let alone all Advent Season, and it may seem redundant to be closing this season of more thematic “waiting.” It is difficult to convince ourselves, much less others, that we should keep up hope and somehow find love, joy, and peace in this difficult time. My prayer is that you will tend gently to yourself, friends, and that you are surprised by the way the Holy Spirit “alights” in your hearts as you prepare for what this week holds.
In 12-days, the start of 2021, my fervent hope is that “the rest of the story” hindsight of this moment in history is that we were transformed in important ways in the midst of the groaning. One thing seems clear. We will never be the same. Nor perhaps should we be. So the question is … how do we hope for the transformation we cannot see nor perhaps even imagine at this moment? How do we hope in the grief and exhaustion during a season that has a lot of expectations of excitement?
We have invested our Advent Sundays in the opening chapters of the four Gospel stories – looking for the hoped-for Christmas birth-narratives: John, the last Gospel written, tells the whole story in one sentence (“The Word – which is with God and is God, the Word which created everything that is created – the Word became flesh and dwelt among us”); Matthew leads into the story of Jesus’s birth with his long genealogy from Abraham thru David and the exile to Joseph the husband of Mary the mother of Jesus; Luke doesn’t even get to the birthday of the Messiah until chapter 2, but he starts with the story of Jesus’s distant cousin’s upcoming birthday, and the impossible pregnancies of a woman well-past menopause and a young virgin girl.
Today we look at Mark’s opening chapter – and guess what – there is nothing about Bethlehem at all! But here’s a clue as to why: Matthew treats Jesus as the King of all kings (it is his Gospel that includes the “kings” from the east looking for the new-born King of the Jews); Luke thinks of Jesus as the Messiah for the whole world (his Gospel’s genealogy goes all the way back to Adam and Eve); John’s Gospel concentrates on Jesus’s divinity (was with God and was God, God sent His Son, etc). It is true that all four Gospels believe all those things about Jesus, but each one emphasizes different aspects of Jesus’s Messiahship!
Mark’s Gospel’s emphasis is on Jesus as the Servant of God who suffers for God’s people (Isaiah’s “suffering servant” prophecies – and I believe he does not include a genealogy like Matthew and Luke because Jesus is a Servant, He is THE Servant – and servants don’t get credit for their genealogies!)
Who here remembers the 1977 ABC 8-episode mini-series, Roots, about the genealogy of an African American to the life of a slave from West Africa sold in the US in the 1700s. Part of the gift of this series was how it revealed the family ties of people who had been thought of by whites as less than people (3/5 human!). Omoro, the father of the young boy later to be the beginning of this American slave-story, holds his newborn infant son to the heavens, Lion King style, and says, “Kunta Kinte, behold the only thing greater than yourself!”
So listen to how Mark begins his Gospel Account (and how he closes this opening section of his Account):
Listen here to the Word of God … Mark 1:1-15 …. —- [The screen will show this passage.]
1 1 The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God, 2 as it is written in Isaiah the prophet: (40:3)
“I will send my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way”—
3 “a voice of one calling in the wilderness,
‘Prepare the way for the Lord,
make straight paths for him.’”
4 And so John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5 The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River. 6 John wore clothing made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. 7 And this was his message: “After me comes the one more powerful than I, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. 8 I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
9 At that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10 Just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. 11 And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”
12 At once the Spirit sent him out into the wilderness, 13 and he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him.
14 After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. 15 “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”
The beginning of the Good News of God – Jesus is baptized by his mother’s cousin’s son – is sent by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness for 40 days and 40 nights (what does that remind you of?) – and after his baptizer is imprisoned Jesus goes to Galilee in the northern district of Israel proclaim the Good News of God: “The Kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe this Good News!”
What is the Good News of the Christmas story? The Kingdom of God has come near.
What are we supposed to do with this Good News? Repent and believe it!
How do we find hope when our small businesses are closing all around us? How do we discover peace when our politics fill the air with vitriol? Where do we experience love or joy when our loved ones are suffering, from COVID or from isolation or from both, and we can’t even give them a real hug?
Jesus says to repent – to turn our attitudes of complaint into attitudes of confident thanks, to turn our self-focused concerns into care for others around us, to turn away from my own cries of pain and fear to our God of comfort and confidence.
And Jesus says to believe this Good News of God’s ever-present Kingdom!
Tomorrow afternoon, at sunset, 4pm, we will hold our first-ever Blue Christmas service – a time to lament our losses, to grieve what we have been forced to give up, to mourn our multitude of missed opportunities – but also a time to discover within the depths of our faith God’s Kingdom presence in Peace which passes understanding, Love beyond the walls of lament, joy bouncing in among our s and anxieties, and especially hope for a renewed relationship with the One who offers us His Son for justice and reconciliation!
Mark’s gift to us with his lack-of-a-Christmas story is the gift of hope!
As we light the candles on our advent wreath, the four candles remind us that Jesus brings peace, love, joy, and hope into the world. It is true, “The whole world was lost in the darkness of sin, the Light of the world is Jesus!“
As we move into a time of prayer together – let me talk with our kids for a minute – all-y’all can listen in:
This Advent we’re going to learn a little sign-language – because that’s a beautiful way to bring light into the darkness of Beethoven’s deafness. This year is the 100th anniversary of the great song “This Little Light of Mine”. Let’s sing it quietly, and let’s add the sign language that goes with it:
Prayer Page –
Leader: We believe that we have looked the other way too many times AND
People: We believe that we are capable of facing reality and working for change.
We believe that our fear of difference has robbed us of compassion AND
We believe that we can look deeper and hold onto the things that we have in common.
We believe that our fear of doubt makes us stop asking tough questions AND
We believe that asking tough questions in the face of injustice is faithfulness.
We believe, even when we are discouraged.
We believe, that when we are discouraged,
raising our voices for justice will offer the world hope!
Believe, with a hopeful heart!
Believe, and shine your light!
Believe, because the song we sing is sung for all!
And now let the weak say, “I am strong;”
let the poor say, “I am rich
because of what our God has done for us.”
Believe!
And now – call out a name, a place, a people, a situation, you are lifting to the Lord in prayer …. “Have mercy on us, O Lord.” [Lord’s Prayer] Amen.
– Christmas Joy Offering & Pledge Cards and our Offering (4449 N Nevada St, Spokane, 99207 ; or click HERE) or text 833-976-1333, code “Lidgerwood”)
This Advent Season – while we all are suffering to some degree because of the COVID pandemic and all of the hoopla and restrictions that goes with it, our closing song is what is known as Christmas Carols of Resistance:
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote today’s Carol-of-Resistance-poem at Harvard University on Christmas Day in 1863 during the heart of the Civil War. His wife had died tragically in a fire and he had just found out that his son had been injured as a soldier for the Union. He heard the sound of Christmas-bells and began to write, spurred on by his sorrow at the state of humankind. Listen for the heart-ache and the hope in his words of failure and faith:
Expedition Song – I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day! …. led by Lilly Haeger singing (our suggestion is no congregational singing, but if you’re wearing your masks appropriately, who would know who is singing?).
Next Sunday, like we did today – please RSVP to us if you plan to attend so we can properly set up – and please CALL IN or email or text – so we can share with you what the plans will be – whether we will be allowed to continue to meet or not.
We close with this benediction: In this Advent Season of waiting know this …
We wait for justice but we do not wait to work for change;
We wait for restored health but we do not wait to work to heal;
We wait for wholeness but we do not wait to work at binding brokenness;
We wait for peace but we do not wait to work to eliminate hatred.
And so, my friends, like bells ringing out the news
that the sun still shines even on dark, cloudy days,
fill the night left in darkness with messages of hope.
Go into your lives humming the tunes that keep that hope alive in you
and that spur you on in your work of justice and reconciliation.
Raise your voices and repeat after me…
“We believe even when!”
“We believe even when!”
Amen!
Resources:
McFee, Marcia; Worship Design Studio; Advent 2020.
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