2nd Sunday of Advent
Mark 1:1-8
The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. As it is written in the prophet Isaiah, “See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way; the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,’”
John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 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. Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. 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. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
Peas on Earth
I don’t know how many of you have ever been to a Cost Plus World Market, but I worked at one when I was in college. Cost Plus is an interesting store. It has baskets, and furniture, and “exotic” décor from Africa and Asia, but it also has wine, and cookies, and preserves, a lot of specialty items that you might not find at a typical grocery store like Safeway. Christmastime at Cost Plus is a little intense. The whole store is transformed into this sugary, sparkling wonderland of ornaments, and candy, and toys. One year, we got this ornament that was a little globe, and it had these four little round green beads across the top. Each of the beads was wearing a tiny Santa hat, and they had this long flag that said “Peas on Earth”. I remember how excited I was when I saw it; it was funny and adorable and I had to have it, so I bought one and it’s gone up on the family Christmas tree every year since then.
The pun “peas on Earth” only works because we all know with the phrase “peace on Earth.” In order for a pun to work, we have to be able to figure out what it’s referring to, otherwise it’s just confusing or gibberish, instead of clever and funny. Every year, during Advent and Christmas, we hear that phrase “peace on Earth”, because Christmas is when we remember the birth of Jesus, the Prince of Peace.
A quick look at the news will show you that the world is not at peace at the moment. As much as we wish for peace on Earth and anticipate the coming of the Prince of Peace, the reality right now is hard to take in. How do we reconcile God’s promise of peace, when it seems like there is so little peace to be had? Where do we see peace in the world today?
The gospel of Mark is the shortest of the four gospels. Like the gospel of John, Mark does not have a birth narrative for Jesus. Mark doesn’t start with where Jesus comes from; it simply drops us right in the middle of the story, as John is telling everyone, “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. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
The Mark narrative moves quickly. In a few short sentences, Jesus is baptized, tempted by Satan for forty days in the desert, begins his ministry, and calls his first disciples. It’s not until the text begins to describe his work of teaching and healing, that things begin to slow down. There are full paragraphs about Jesus cleansing a leper, and answering his followers’ questions.
On this second Sunday of Advent, Peace Sunday, as we await the coming Christ, the urgency of Mark’s gospel tells us that we need to act, now. We need to be prepared, now. How are we living our lives? What are we doing to bring peace to the world?
In the same way that Mark’s narrative ignores where Jesus came from, it also doesn’t tell us where John came from, or why we should listen to him. Why were these people coming to John? What made them trust him? The author does much to compare the figure of John the Baptist to the prophet Elijah, one of the most prominent figures in the history of Israel, from his camel-hair clothing and leather belt, to the honey and locusts that he ate.
But, beyond this connection to Elijah, John was offering something through baptism that they needed as a community: a way to return to their roots, a way to repent for their sins, a way to rededicate themselves to God. As much as Advent is the focus of the coming of Jesus and what that means, John’s actions here show that it’s also the season for return, repentance, and rededication
There are so many things that we need to do to prepare for the holidays: travel plans, food prep, gift-buying, not to mention all of the causes clamoring for our attention. There’s the war in the middle east, people suffering from natural disasters, people in our own backyard struggling to make it through just one more day.
John’s call to baptism is a call back to our roots as a congregation. Our mission is to nurture our congregation and the wider community with acts of love and a vision of God’s image in all things.
John’s call to baptism is a call to repentance. No one is perfect; we all need forgiveness in our lives so that we don’t get trapped in the past, unable to move forward as we repeat our mistakes over and over again. We need the peace of Christ to settle on our hearts, to heal us, and let us know that it’s okay to let go of past wrongs, to learn and grow from them so that we don’t do them again. So that we can build healthy relationships and a strong community.
John’s call to baptism is a call to rededication. To promise that we will remember where we came from, and that we will forgive others and ourselves. And, that we will work to bring the peace of God into our present day.
During Advent and Christmas, we often think about Christmas past: old-fashioned values and old-fashioned traditions, our memories of all the Christmases that came before. But, I think wrapped up in all of that nostalgia is a sense of the future. The reality that is almost, but not yet. It’s the very essence of Advent, a time of wishes and dreams. A time of hope. We long for peace. We wish for it and hope for it. And, at Christmas, we are reminded of why we have that hope. We anticipate God coming into our midst, and maybe without even being conscious of it, we begin to wonder about what it means for the Good News of “God with us” to be incarnated in Jesus, for God to be here with us in a human physical form. We are expecting a miracle of Peace. We expect it because God promised it, and we know that God keeps promises.
But, as we wait for that peace to become a reality, as we wait for Jesus to come again, we have to remember that God has given us the ability to create peace in the world. It exists between friends and family. We see it every time someone reaches out to help a stranger in need. It happens when countries welcome refugees into their borders, helping them to make a new home. As siblings in Christ, we have to do more than wait for peace. We have to make it. We have to foster it when we see it. We have to protect it, and lift it up for everyone to see. We have to notice and celebrate the beauty of the peace that already exists among us, because that’s how peace spreads. Because, that is the in-breaking of the realm of God into our world today. God sends us peace and hope every day in all different shapes and sizes. It’s proof that God is with us.
We can’t bring the fullness of God’s promise of peace into being on our own, we need God’s help for that. But, we can certainly get the ball rolling. We have to remember that sometimes, we are the miracle that God is sending. You are the hope for the world. So, be the peacemakers and the instruments of God’s blessing, and bring the gift of God’s peace with you wherever you go. Amen.
~ Rev. Charles Wei
