Christmas at Mark's

Christmas at Mark’s

December 1, 2024
Mark 1:1-11

The beginning of the good news about Jesus Christ, God’s Son, happened just as it was written about in the prophecy of Isaiah:

Look, I am sending my messenger before you.
He will prepare your way,
a voice shouting in the wilderness:
        “Prepare the way for the Lord;
        make his paths straight.

Mark 1:1-3

_______________

Wait, what… how is this the beginning of the good news?  What’s going on here Mark?  Where’s the angel chorus, the miraculous birth, the shepherds in the field and the wise men from afar?  Where’s the manger and that “sweet little Jesus boy” we love to sing about this time of year?

The first time we see Jesus in Mark’s gospel is at his baptism, sometime around age 30.  As comedian Mark Lowery says, “God is in the house, isn’t somebody keeping a journal!” 

Christmas at Mark’s house must have been a little… well… non-existent.  If the four gospel writers were neighbors, it appears Mark would be the Scrooge of the crew… no tree, no lights, no presents, no cookies.  For 30 years Jesus has been walking around and Mark doesn’t even seem to know he was born until he shows up at the river where some strange prophet eating locusts and wearing camels hair is calling the people to repentance in preparation for the coming kingdom of God. 

What’s more, Mark’s is actually the earliest gospel account we have, likely dating to more than 30 years after Jesus’ death and at least 10 to 15 years before Matthew’s version of the story (25 to 30 years before Luke or John).  Could you imagine waiting that long for the next iPhone or Android upgrade?  The world was clearly a lot slower back then.

The bottom line is this, for roughly the first 85 years from the time of Jesus’s birth, there was no written account of the Christmas story at all.  Mark is the first that we know of to record anything about Jesus’ life and teachings and he starts recording only 3 years before the end.  It would seem he came a little late to the party.

On the other hand, birthdays were really not very significant in the ancient world.  Birth narratives in Rome were often more mythological accounts written much later to glorify the divine significance of a person’s life, especially someone like an emperor who they would have called the “son of God.”  But we’ll save that for another gospel.  For now, what in the world can we learn about Christmas from Mark?

The beginning of the good news, Mark declares, is not in a manger in Bethlehem, but in the preparation of people’s hearts for the Kingdom of God that was proclaimed centuries before by the prophet Isaiah.  It’s ironic that Mark, the shortest and most high-paced of all the gospels, is the one that looking back, actually calls us to slow down.  Of course his original audience would not have had the Christmas story in any form, but for us, it is a reminder not to rush too fast into Christmas.  First we must prepare our hearts and change our lives.  Christmas is not the beginning of the good news, it’s just one small part of the Kingdom of God breaking into our reality. 

Mark’s question is simply this… “Are you ready?”

Listen to the full sermon here

A Heartbroken God

---

A Heartbroken God
A God Who Weeps - Part 2
Sunday, September 11, 2022
Jeremiah 2:4-13

My people have committed two crimes:
They have forsaken me, the spring of living water.
And they have dug wells, broken wells that can’t hold water.

  Jeremiah 2:13 (NRSV)

Listen to this week’s sermon here:

____________________

“Look at all I’ve done for you… and this is how you respond?  This is how you treat me?”

Sometimes it’s hard to distinguish the voice of God from the voice of a parent trying to navigate the tumultuous years of a rebellious teenager. 

It’s easy to see the anger of God in passages like this, scolding Israel for their idolatry and disobedience, but perhaps the teenager analogy actually gives us some much needed perspective.  What if God is not simply exploding with anger and wrath against a sinful people?  What if God does not want to destroy Israel by sending them into exile?  What if despite all the horrible things they have done, God still loves them and wants the best for them?

Are there consequences for their choices?  Absolutely! Just like there are consequences for the unlicensed and underage teenager who takes off in his or her parent’s car at night for an unsupervised party where they drink far to much and end up totaling the car on the way home.  This may be a pretty extreme example that is hopefully more common in movies and TV shows than in real life, but the point is that even with such an extreme act of rebellion, the rightfully angry parent still does not wish harm on their misguided child.  They don’t wish their teenager had died in the accident.  Before they are angry, they are first relieved when nobody is hurt. 

What we see here in Jeremiah 2 is not the wrath of a God who is ready to wipe a rebellious people off the face of the earth, but the overwhelming heartbreak of a parent who has given their now adolescent child every possible opportunity only to find that the child would rather run away from home and throw away their lives on temporary pleasures that will never satisfy. 

Living on a friend’s couch might work out in the short term, but eventually the tearful parent peers into the child’s empty room with all the luxuries of home and wonders why this wasn’t good enough for them.  In the language of the Biblical prophets, the cry sounds something like this… “they have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and dug out cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns that can hold no water.”

Building cracked cisterns is Jeremiah’s way of saying, “why are you trying to do it yourself when God has already given you everything?”  Today we might ask the same question.  Why do we turn to politics, money, fame, weapons, walls, divisive speech and action, and even religion to “protect us” and make us feel secure, included, or even loved as if somehow God is not enough? 

What cracked cisterns have we built to sustain ourselves that continue to break God’s heart?