2018-01-07 – Rev. Dr. Ryan Sato
God Alongside Us
Mark 1:1-11
Perhaps you’ve followed the intentionality to our preaching schedule, but all Fall, we’ve been living and moving and having our lives being inspired/animated by the stories of the Old Testament (First Testament). We do that because we have attempted over the past several years to let our September-June journeys be somewhat chronological. We attempt to be more thoughtful and sequential…we also are guided by the Christian calendar…and we have also tried to be chronological.
All that to say…once the season of Christmas started…we got to Jesus!
And the lectionary cycle (year B) will give us Jesus through the eyes and ears of the writer of Mark. Christian history doesn’t know for sure who Mark is…there’s theories (John Mark who travelled with Paul, or a ghost writer Mark who got this story mostly through Peter, or Naked Mark who ran away from the guards in the garden of gethsemane when Jesus was arrested), but there’s also a good chance that Mark was a country bumpkin…an outsider to the Jewish tradition and stories, who in the rural hills of Galilee became a disciple and quite a renowned disciple…and penned the first collection of stories of Jesus, approx. 65 CE…stories that Matthew and Luke would borrow from 5-10 years later, and stories that were told to the first generation of Christians as they watched Empire (Nero) tear them apart…as they endured suffering, hardship and persecution…and were told of this story of hope and salvation.
And for us, almost 2000 years later…2018, we get to tell and re-tell this story.
It’s a story of good news…for times where we wonder… “Is God still with us?” “Is God still at work in the world?”
Mark writes: “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ…”
He takes a page from the prophet Isaiah, written 700 years earlier…and he’s excited to share that this 7-century-old prophecy has come to being!
“The voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight!”
And Mark tells the story, of good news…
John the Baptizer appears…in the wilderness!
Proclaiming a BAPTISM of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
And people from the Judean countryside…and many from the city of Jerusalem come out to the wilderness to confess their sins and are baptized in the River Jordan.
It’s an amazing sight…people lined up at the river Jordan in a line as long as the eyes can see.
Junkyard John (as some called him), in 2nd-hand clothing made from camel hair, tattered leather belt pulled taut to the last belthole, and bits of locust legs and honey smeared on his grizzly-adams-esque beard.
“The Kingdom of God is near! Shape up! Turn your life around!
Clean up your life and get baptized now as a sign of what you’ve done.
And there is one amongst us, who I’ve heard is coming soon to these parts…
He is more powerful than I,
I’m not worthy to stoop down and untie his sandals,
He will baptize you…not with water, but with the Holy Spirit!”
— 3 weeks pass…John continues his wilderness ministry, living on a starvation diet, preaching and plunging…and then, Jesus enters the cue.
Mark doesn’t tell us what conversation transpired…but simply tells us:
In those days, Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan.
And just as Jesus was coming up out of the water (love it!),
Jesus saw the heavens torn apart (can we imagine this?),
And the Spirit descending like a dove on him.
And a voice came from heaven,
“You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I AM well pleased.”
* * * * *
This season of Epiphany that started yesterday is the season of the “great reveal.”
Epiphany is an opportunity for us…for 40 days, to pray for and pay attention to, a God who who reveals himself anew to us.
And on Baptism of Jesus Sunday, the “great reveal” is…JESUS!
The story of Mark tells us that God showed up as never before…in the person of Jesus…and as he came up/out of the water… ka-boom! The universe crackled and thundered…
Psalm 29 fireworks is going on here… “Glory of the Lord thunders”, “voice of the Lord breaks cedars,” “voice of the Lord flashes forth flames of fire”…
“the voice of the LORD shakes the wilderness!”
This ain’t “Jesus, Jesus, meek and mild”… “away in a manger no crying he makes.”
It’s boom! Crash! Ka-bam! Tumbling down and tearing apart Jesus.
Q: How do we live in the light of this “ripping & revealing” Lord?
Well… it might start with us paying attention to those things…or those seams…where God is ripping apart the heavens… or our rigid ways of understanding…. Or the “way we’ve always done it”… and revealing that something new and life-changing, life-renewing is being released.
And then there’s a so what to this…
>> We get to BE Epiphanies.
Our world needs more Epiphanies.
Not just ones we point to and marvel at.
Yes, God shows up in the wind, the trees and the waves.
But…our God is incarnational. A god who shows up in flesh and blood.
We’ve just celebrated Christmas…where God showed up in the coos and the cries of a baby.
And for 2000 years God has been seeking and choosing ways to show up in US.
We can be the Epiphanies of God… God’s light…God’s love…forgiveness and grace.
—and the good news…is that we are not alone.
We have each other…this community of faith.
But the better news…and more eternally supportive news is that God is alongside us.
I think back to John the Baptist in today’s story…working his hardest…doing his most earnest at what he thought was the right kind of work…and then seeing Jesus in the cue.
And I imagine his first response: “I’m not worthy.” (You’ve heard what I’ve been teaching right? I am not worthy to even stoop down and unbuckle your sandal…)
But after an encounter with Jesus, he finds the gumption and the courage to BE worthy,
to embrace his worthiness… to be the one who baptizes the son of God. (gulp…wow!)
And God’s words of affirmation, inspiration, encouragement resonate from Jesus to us.
Jesus stands alongside us and says:
“You…Jane, Jackie, Liam, Tom, Ryan, Evelyn…You are my daughter…. You are my son…
You are the Beloved…
With YOU I am well pleased.”
And let’s pray and listen for what God might be inviting us to as we seek to BE EPIPHANIES for others…
–tear apart boundaries that try to keep God from those whom God loves
–tear apart boundaries that inhibit others from hearing/receiving God’s grace
–tear apart boundaries erected to determine who are the insiders vs outsiders
–tear apart boundaries that keep our world from hearing that we are the beloved…
Lord, rend the heavens…
Lord, rend our hearts…
Let us see and love others as you see and love them.