Advent Energy

Text:  Mark 1:1-8

Theme:  “Advent Energy”

Second Sunday of Advent

December 7, 2014

FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

Denton, Texas

Rev. Paul R. Dunklau

+In the Name of Jesus+

The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah,[a] the Son of God,[b] 2 as it is written in Isaiah the prophet:

“I will send my messenger ahead of you,

who will prepare your way”[c]—

3

“a voice of one calling in the wilderness,

‘Prepare the way for the Lord,

make straight paths for him.’”[d]

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[e] water, but he will baptize you with[f] the Holy Spirit.”

On this day 73 years ago, as reports have it, 2,402 servicemen and women were killed; 1,247 were wounded. 57 civilians were killed and 34 wounded. 4 battleships sunk, 3 sustained damaged; 1 battleship grounded, 2 destroyers sunk, 1 destroyer damaged, 1 supply ship sunk, 3 cruisers damaged, 3 other ships damaged, 188 aircraft destroyed, 155 aircraft damaged.  President Roosevelt described it as a “day that will live in infamy.”  As one pundit put it, “73 years, and we here on earth still haven't learned to get along. Our ancestors would have expected more from us.”

Advent 2014 has had its share of protesting.  Spot it in the Big Apple, in the Windy City, and even in Dallas.  Reactions to grand jury decisions in police actions shootings have pushed the envelope of civility.  Ours is a restless, still racially tense, economically unstable, road-raging populace.  We watch the rapid “suburban-ization” of our own hometown of Denton and don’t exactly have a peaceful, easy feeling about it. But there is always Muzak in the Malls with Burl Ives enjoining us to have a “Holly Jolly Christmas” even as Elvis Presley, as is the case every year, never fails in having a “Blue Christmas” without you.

I’ll Be Home for Christmas.  This was one of the songs I played before announcements today. 

I’ll be home for Christmas; you can plan on me.

Please have snow and mistletoe and presents on the tree. 

Christmas Eve will find me where the lovelight gleams.

I’ll be home for Christmas if only in my dreams.

That was 1943, and thousands of servicemen and women, two years post-Pearl Harbor, would not spend Christmas at home.  If they did, it was only in their dreams and their memories of happier Christmases.

But still, Judy Garland could sing:

Through the years we all will be together if the fates allow.

Until then we’ll have to muddle through somehow.

So have yourself a Merry Little Christmas now. 

That was a year later in 1944.  She sang it in the motion picture, Meet Me in St. Louis.  The lyrics were not lost on a populace with sons and daughters at war.  Would the “fates allow” them to come home?  How would we all muddle through?

It takes energy for the living of such days, for the living of these days.  More of that energy, obviously, is needed in the seasons of Advent and Christmas. 

Yesterday’s observance, the Feast of St. Nicholas, gives us a taste of the energy.  Today’s Gospel, with John the Baptist front and center, provides a full meal of spiritual nutrition and a good jolt of Advent energy.  But first, consider St. Nicholas.

St. Nicholas – or Saint Nick, if you will – was the Christian bishop of Myra in present-day Turkey.  According to tradition, Nicholas’ parents died when he was young, leaving him with a large sum of money.  As the story goes, a family in his community was desperate; the father had lost all of his money and had been unable to find husbands for his three daughters. The daughters were in danger of being given over to prostitution when, one night Nicholas appeared at their home.  He tossed three bags of gold into the open window – thereby saving them from a terrible fate.  This tale could quite possibly illustrate his eventual connection to Christmas – and the gift-giving of Saint Nicholas, Saint Nick, Santa Claus For Nicholas, life wasn’t about getting; it was about giving.  As bishop, he is reported to have wrote:  “The giver of every good and perfect gift has called upon us to mimic God's own giving, by grace, through faith, and this is not of ourselves.”

When we look less to what we can get out of it and more to what we can put into it, we have a burst of Advent energy for the living of these days. 

There is more.  With the Gospel, there is always more.  “The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God,” says Mark.  (By the way, in this church year, two weeks old, readings from Mark’s Gospel – the shortest of the four – will predominate.)  All through the sixteen chapters, Jesus Christ goes around calling Himself the “Son of Man.”  Ironically, only the demons he cast out and a Roman centurion declare Him to be the “Son of God.”  Speaking of the centurion, he makes this confession as Jesus hangs dead on a cross. 

Getting back to Mark, he follows up his opening by swinging in to prophecy from Isaiah.  We heard it in our first reading.  What he’s about to tell us shows the fulfillment of that prophecy.  John the Baptist is that “…voice of one in the wilderness proclaiming:  ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; make straight paths for Him.’”

As Mark tells it, John was quite the character in terms of what he wore and what he ate.  More than that, he drew a crowd.  It says that “all the people of Jerusalem” came out to see him.  Why did they do that?  They had their religion already.  Could it be that something  -- or someone! – was missing? 

John didn’t offer a moral upgrade.  No gold stars for perfect Sunday School attendance!   Instead, it was a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of all those sins, those crumbled morals. 

There is yet more!  John the Baptist exclaims:  “After me comes the one more powerful than I, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie.  I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

Despite the camel hair clothing and locust and honey diet, there is something refreshingly modest about John the Baptist.  Even though He drew quite the crowd, pretty clearly He did not see Himself as the center of attention.  He was aware of his calling and was quite content in it.  He declared Himself unworthy,  and that was okay.  For he pointed to the One, the coming One, who was – and is! – worthy!  The mission of John the Baptist preceded the mission of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, just as the season of Advent precedes the season of Christmas.

From all of this there emerges Advent energy for the living of these days.  The energy is the gift of your faith in the God who became one of us on that first Christmas!  It is the energy – ala St. Nicholas – of being more concerned with giving than with getting.  It is the energy of John the Baptist -- content with his calling, refreshing in his modesty, unworthy in Himself – who reveled in the advent of his cousin and our brother, our Lord and Savior and Immanuel.  He alone, who the centurion confessed as “Son of God” as He hung lifeless on a cross, is worthy of our adoration.  For in Him, in His Gospel, in His Baptism, and in His table celebrated here today, we have Advent energy for all of our days.  And all of God’s people said…

Amen.