Admittedly, it is an evangelical understatement
to suggest that
he is not an especially attractive character.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
That assessment is confirmed by the fact
that probably none of you have a John the Baptist figure
as part of your lawn decorations \u2026
as he\u2019d repel the carolers and frighten the children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But he does so not because of his celebrated and bizarre costume,
or at least not only because of it.
Actually, it is more about his attitude than his attire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The disruptively honest Barbara Brown Taylor puts it this way: \u201cEverything I know about him makes me think However, as she continues, there is one big difference Why would somebody expend that kind of energy, Why take a chance on a crazy man In view of the eccentric, even unsavory nature of this prophet And straight-to-the-point-Mark, doesn\u2019t even cushion Rather, this literary pioneer matches John\u2019s abrupt entrance No elegant genealogy as in Matthew. One commentator bluntly remarked: On the other hand, if we chance a trek into the mystery, While easy to miss, Mark is actually in creation mode here, In narrating the creation of the world, the Genesis author The world is then described as formless and empty The morally formless and spiritual empty world for Mark And just as the creation in Genesis begins with a voice \u2013 It\u2019s more than a clich\u00e9 to suggest that the Advent season What happens, however, if we take Mark\u2019s lead, A number of years ago I read Jack Miles\u2019 audacious and Biblical scholars universally agree Known as Second Isaiah, it was written Now I know that brings you to the edge of your pew. As Miles contends, until this point in scripture, This is especially revealed in Second\u00a0Isaiah\u2019s unexpected\u00a0 The Lord God has never spoken of comfort before, While in some ways, the world might feel the prophetic duo of Second\u00a0Isaiah and John the Baptizer The Jewish mystic Abraham Heschel often told the story: I would contend that John the Baptist was the first of those twelve. As God\u2019s spirit brooded over the unformed earth,
I would have gone out of my way not to see him.
He sounds too much like those street evangelists
who wave their bibles at you and tell you
that you are going straight to hell
if you do not repent now.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
between your bible thumping street evangelist and John.
She writes:
\u201c<\/em>[S]elf-appointed prophets tend to plant themselves right in your way, so you have to cross to the other side of the street to avoid them.\u00a0\u00a0They get in your face and dare you to ignore them.<\/em>
[However, she continues], John planted himself in the middle of nowhere.\u00a0\u00a0He set up shop in the wilderness and anyone who wanted to hear what he had to say had to go to a lot of trouble to get there, borrowing the neighbor\u2019s donkey or setting out on foot with enough water for the journey, which led down lonely trails infested with bandits.\u201d<\/em>[i]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
especially if they lived in Jerusalem?
The Temple was there, with its Holy of Holies
crawling with priests and Levites and
filled with gift shops where you could buy turtle doves
or whatever else you needed for an important sacrifice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
who could only be reached
after a risky trek into the wilderness?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
it is fair to ask why Mark, in the first place,\u00a0
features him so prominently\u00a0
right at the start of his gospel …
actually right at the start of all the gospels
since Mark actually invented the genre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
John bulldozing his way into the gospel spotlight
with a gentle preamble or cautionary word.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
with an equally abrupt and quite unimaginative opening:
\u201cthe beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ the son of God.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
No friend-to-friend introduction as in Luke.
No hymning of the Word as in John.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cwhat a lame opening \u2026\u00a0
like he couldn\u2019t get any more creative than saying
\u2018this is the beginning?\u2019\u201d<\/em>
Is that really going to spark enough interest
for reading the rest of the tale?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
we might discover that Mark is not the inept scribe
that he might first appear to be,
and instead is a very astute theologian
and a gifted student of scripture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
mimicking key elements from the first\u00a0chapter of Genesis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
also begins with the obvious, announcing: \u201cin the beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
with the Spirit of God hovering over the deep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
is symbolized by that distant wilderness
where God\u2019s Spirit hovers over the unlikely prophet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
the voice of God saying let there be light \u2013
so Mark\u2019s proclamation of the creation of a new kingdom
also begins with a voice:
first that of the ancient diviner Isaiah
and then that of the newly minted truth teller John:
prophetic words preparing the way
for the Word made flesh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
is a time of waiting: temporal waiting for December 25th<\/sup>
and spiritual waiting for Christ\u2019s return at the end of time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
follow the crazy man into the wilderness,
and grasp Advent not as an interlude of waiting
but as a season of creation,
a sacred opportunity for a fresh genesis:
birthing new separations of light from darkness,
conceiving the formless and foreboding
as joyously remade into an arena of kinship
in which the vision of today\u2019s Psalm comes to pass
so that kindness and truth actually meet
and a world of justice embraces peace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pulitzer prize-winning book:\u00a0God: A Biography.<\/em>
While Miles does have Roman academic credentials,
alum status from Hebrew University in Jerusalem,
and a Ph.D. in Near Eastern languages from Harvard,
this publication is not so much theology as biography
in which Miles uses the Hebrew Scriptures
for writing about God as an historical character
continuously evolving, morphing, and developing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
that the passage we get from Isaiah today, chapter 40,
is actually one of many\u00a0\u201cin the beginning\u201d parts of the bible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
by a different prophet and at a different time,
distinctive from the first 39 chapters of this book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But, unlike some of my preaching there is actually a point here,
and it comes from Jack Miles who suggests
that, in this new beginning, this new Isaiah,
there is a fresh creation \u2026
but surprisingly it is not a creation\u00a0by<\/em>\u00a0God but\u00a0of<\/em>\u00a0God
who, for the first time,
reveals himself as a passionate lover of humanity.[ii]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe Lord God has never loved.
Love has never been predicated of him in the text
Either as an action or as a motive \u2026.
He has been wrathful, vengeful, remorseful \u2026 fiercely loyal \u2026
But these emotions fall well short of love.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201ccomfort language,\u201d which no one was quite prepared for,
but which George Frideric Handel capitalized upon
in his celebrated Oratorio the Messiah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
but apparently, in Second\u00a0Isaiah,
the Godhead has actually awoken to human pain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
like we are still at the beginning of it all \u2013
with the globe a formless and uninhabitable void
of chaos and war
of greed, prejudice and exclusion \u2013<\/p>\n\n\n\n
rejects that gloomy assessment-
as long as we take up the creative work,
engage in gospel comfort and care,
and recognize that this and every moment
in the life of a Christian is, as Mark so wisely noted:
\u201cThe Beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201c<\/em>[There once was a] small kingdom whose only industry was agriculture. Everyone was happy and had plenty to eat – until one year, it was discovered to everyone’s horror, that something terrible had gone wrong with that year’s crops, and anyone who ate them went insane. The kingdom was in an uproar. So the monarch hurriedly gathered all her wise counselors who proposed this solution: “All the people will eat the crazy-making crop, but 12 people will be set aside, who will only eat the old crop now in storage.\u00a0\u00a0The twelve will serve the very important function of reminding the rest of us that we are, indeed, crazy.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
He\u2019s not the crazy one \u2026 He just looks crazy to us \u2026\u00a0
because so many of us are eating the crazy-making crops:
the crops that keep us from conducting ourselves
in holiness and devotion, as our second reading stresses,
the crops that inhibit us from the genesis work of beginning again \u201cThe gospel according to Jesus Christ\u201d in our own lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
over the wilderness of ancient Israel,
she broods over our city, country, and mother earth as well,
searching for co-creators in shaping a just global village,
a peaceable kingdom,
and an unbreakable kinship
that binds us together in God\u2019s prophetic comfort,
God\u2019s tender care,
Through Christ our Lord.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n