"Waiting in Hope" given 12/10/2017

 Mark begins his Gospel by boldly proclaiming, "Good News about Jesus Christ." But immediately after that opening fanfare, we meet, not Jesus, but his cousin, John the Baptizer. In fact, all of the Gospels begin their stories of Jesus by first telling the reader about John.

It's as if they were trying to say "You can't hear Jesus unless you first hear John". It's as if they were trying to say, "In order to comprehend Jesus' message in full, you need to put it in context." Jesus' words had antecedents. The Bible doesn't say so, but Jesus might easily have spent some time sitting at John's feet. Jesus might easily have learned how to preach the Good News by hearing John speak it before him.

John burst onto the scene, creating new excitement and drawing the people of Judah and Jerusalem out to the banks of the river Jordan. John preached to them the message of repentance, calling upon them to confess their sins and receive baptism and forgiveness.

John is the beginning, the forerunner, the introduction if you will, to the Good News. It is he who prepares Israel for the one to come, who he admits will be mightier than he. And the Gospel accounts make it clear that John's popularity and influence had a direct impact on the political and religious leaders of the land, as well as on the common people.

How can we account for that? Some of it may have been simple curiosity--a taste for the novel and the bizarre. The Baptizer was indeed like some crazy prophet out of the Old Testament. He came from nowhere, from out of the wilderness. His hair was uncombed, he wore uncured animal skins for clothes, his nails and beard were untrimmed, and worst of all , his body probably smelled of grime and sweat and honey and the insects that made up his diet.

But when he preached, it was like the prophet Elijah had returned. He spoke the plain, unvarnished truth. It could not have been particularly comfortable, or easy to hear. But it was the truth. John's sermons brought a message of sin, of the need for immediate response, of impending doom. And he did not spare the religious authorities, or the prosperous merchants, or even the royal court from his condemnation.

"Repent you sinners! Turn your lives around, you corrupt politicians! Prepare the way of the Lord, before it's too late! The ax is laid to the root of the tree! You priests and Pharisees call yourselves children of Abraham. Phooey! Abraham can get better descendants from the stones on the ground than from you. I baptize you with water, but there is one coming who will baptize you with fire. His winnowing fork is in hand to clean out the threshing floor, to gather the wheat into his granary and sweep the chaff into the fire!"

And this is the message that the Gospels call "good news"! Scripture accounts tell us that the people flocked to hear John! They trotted out into the wilderness to hear this strange preacher. And when they arrived, he confronted them with an ax, stones, a winnowing fork, and fire. Why would anyone go very far-- much less out into the desert to hear that?

Why? Because the ax, the winnowing fork, children from stones, the refiners fire, are all images of change! Weird old John had a simple message. It was a message that everyone wanted to hear, yet nobody wanted to hear. "Prepare the way of the Lord. Make a highway in the wilderness!" Repent!" The Baptizer's message to them, and to us was, "You can change!"

That's what "repentance" means-- turn around-- change. That's why Herod had John killed. Those at the very top of the heap never really want change--they're perfectly happy with the status quo.

Perhaps you've heard the story of the 100 year old man. A reporter came from the paper to interview him and get a picture.

"Grandpa, you've seen a lot of changes in your day, haven't you?"

“Yep! And I been agin’ every durned one of ‘em!”

Some people always feel they have an investment in the way things are. But the multitudes-- the common people who came opt to hear John did not. And the majority of us today-- even though we may be part of the status quo-- are not always totally content with it.

It's a rare person who's totally happy with every dimension of their life. If pressed, we all would admit that we'd like to be better people, or enjoy more fulfilling relationships, or feel closer to God, or just simply lead better lives. So, if we're prepared to believe in it, the possibility of change can sound like good news to us.

Most counselors and therapists assume that people rarely change in significant ways. Oh, with enough work, some troubled folks learn to cope. But fundamental, immediate, drastic personality change is rare. The wise counselor aims instead for slow progress, minor changes in behavior, gradual growth.

And most of us, I think accept that idea. We content ourselves with "one day at a time", or "day by day, I'm getting better and better". And all things considered, we figure that's pretty good. Pick up the paper, turn on the news and what do we see? The same old sad, tragic stories. Change? "Maybe a little, but Naw! People never really basically change."

And yet, occasionally, every once in a while, there will be a voice. A word, an image, a call, a moment sent from God will grab us by the ears or turn us on our heads and radically re-orient us. Very, very occasionally our lives get turned around, and we begin to live in new directions.

The ax cuts a straight path through the wilderness of our lives. From nothing but stones dipped into the muddy water of the Jordan, children are born. The chaff of sin and self is burned away so that good wheat is left. Dirty, ugly lumps of ore are refined and refined and refined, until nothing but pure gold is left.

Before there can be change, there must be the possibility, the promise of change. That was what John preached. "Prepare the way!" He spoke to the religious establishment, to the cultured and the refined, to the common people, the soldiers, the sinners. He announced the advent of God. He proclaimed the possibility change. And that is good news.

In the disastrous world in which he lived, John dared to preach hope-- the possibility of change to both those caught in, and those who were the cause of all the disaster! In a nation occupied by foreign armies, John preached fairness and mercy to the soldiers, and forbearance and hope to the occupied. In a land under the heel of repressive religious leaders, John preached the coming of God's Reign of mercy and justice. To a people trapped in poverty and oppression, John preached charity and integrity.

He told them they were not bound by the evil ways of the world in which they lived. He taught them of the power within to change their lives the power among them to change their world, and the power beyond them lending strength to persevere, to overcome, to transcend and transform their world. The Baptizer offered them hope and promised them life--life lived in a new direction, lived if new ways-- new life. "Prepare the way!"

Granted, change can also be scary. Bad as things can be, often something inside us wants to hold back, not believe in possibility. Something inside us fears to face the unfamiliar. Something inside us would rather live with the insecurity and discomfort we know, than risk what we don't know. Something inside us says, "Maybe a little, but Naw! People never really basically change."

I recall the story of the young pastor on his first hospital call. Frankly, his parishioner didn't look to be doing too well. She lay there in the hospital bed, hooked up to the IVs and the oxygen, gasping for every breath.

"Would you like me to pray for you?" He asked. She nodded yes. "What would you like me to pray?"

"Pray that God will heal me, and restore me to perfect health." The pastor gulped and prayed something along the lines of, "Dear God, if it be thy will, send a miracle and restore this sister to health. However, let us accept thy will, so that whether she receives her health or not, she will rest secure, knowing you are still close to her."

Immediately, the old lady's eyes flashed open. She sat up, pulled the IVs out, threw back the covers and jumped out of bed. She stretched her arms, turned to the astonished preacher and announced,

"I feel better. I think that God has healed me!" With that, she turned on her heels and walked out of the room and down the hall to the nurse’s station, wearing her hospital gown and shouting out at the top of her lungs,

"Hallelujah! It's a miracle! I'm healed!"

The startled young preacher didn't say a word. He picked up his coat, staggered out, went down the stairs, out the front door of the hospital and into the parking lot. He got into his car, and looked up.

"Don't you ever do that to me again!"

Are we really ready for God to enter our lives and change us? We must believe. We must hope. We must keep our hearts and lives open to all the possibility that surrounds us. We must be prepared.