Great Beginnings

Text: Mark 1:1-8

Lots of people were expecting Christ. No one was expecting Jesus.

Lots of people were hoping for a charismatic, powerful man descended from great king David to save the people of Israel. Lots of people were hoping for a wise and powerful prophet to free the people from their oppressors. Lots of people were hoping for a christ, which just means anointed one, a chosen ruler, to restore Israel’s greatness.

No one was expecting a couple of motley, lower class wanderers to be the tools of God’s hands. John and Jesus were nobodies. Almost below the lowest social rung, lower than subsistence farmers. Yet, especially in Mark’s Gospel, these two men appear out of nowhere and start shaking things up. I don’t know whether God works in mysterious ways, but I’m certain that God works in surprising ways. Jesus was a surprise to everybody, except evidently not to John.

The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the son of God. Typical Mark, who is always rushing into things without much ceremony. The sentence doesn’t even have a verb. He gets the facts out quick. This is a story about a man named Jesus, who was prophetic and messianic figure, and more, who has a special relationship with God. Though it is hard for us to think about these titles without putting them in upper case, for Mark and his first readers, they are names to distinguish this man, this particular Jesus, this particular figure.

Mark was an enthusiast. He invented a whole new way of writing. He invented the gospel, which is just an English way to translate the Greek word for “good news.” And the Greek word itself comes directly to us in the words evangelical (as in the Evangelical Lutheran Church) and evangelism. Mark was the first evangelist. The first gospel writer. The first to write this kind of story about someone. Mark invented this form so that he could say to the world: I have to tell you about this amazing guy who was full of surprises. I have to tell you this story. And so he does.

The beginning of the good news, Mark says. Unlike the other three Gospels, Mark tells us nothing at the start about Jesus. No birth story as in Matthew and Luke. No theological hymn, as in John. The beginning of the good news is not the beginning of Jesus himself but the beginning of his work, his ministry. What he does.

In the beginning you never know what’s going to happen. All you know about the beginning of things is that something is going to happen, but you don’t know what it is. Beginnings are the most uncertain times, since they are all about an unknown future. The beginning of something is the end of predictability, pattern, and comfort. No wonder beginnings make people nervous.

But it is worse than that. Because you don’t even know when something is a beginning until you see it having already begun. Beginnings are recognized by the disturbances they cause in our lives. We don’t realize that something new has begun until we are in the middle of those disturbances. You don’t realize you’re falling in love until you are in love. You don’t realize you’ve begun a new vocation until you are in the middle of it. We say: when I first met you, I didn’t realize you were going to be my life’s partner. Life is usually full of events that end up making no difference. People whom we meet who are maybe interesting but not captivating to us. Those events are not beginnings because nothing happens afterward. They are just events, common, frequent, and forgettable. Beginnings are places, seen in retrospect, where our lives are changed. Where they turn. The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ. A story in which, it turns out, something changed.

John was in the desert preaching repentance. The word repentance means to change direction. To turn or return. Repentance and beginnings are related in that way. Repentance is a good word for Advent, when we are supposed to be thinking about the direction in which we are going and whether it would be good to continue in that direction or whether we might rather change direction. That is hard to think about.

It is appropriate that John was in the desert. The desert is a good place to think about things like this. About change. Even the symbolic desert of our lives. First, the desert is deserted. It has fewer distractions that might seduce us away from our hard thoughts. And second, the desert is a rough place. A tough spot. The prospect of changing things is unattractive when things are going well. Long ago I worked for a large computer company that went under because things looked so good for so long. Maybe something similar is happening with the car companies today. Certainly, it happens in our own lives.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, our lives are full of times of change. When these seem to be good but maybe confusing times, we politely call them times of transition. When they seem to be distressing and uncomfortable, we say things are messed up. Two different views of the same thing, mostly. Something was once one way and will soon be another way, but we never know for sure what that other way will be. There is a lot of trust involved here, like it or not.

John the baptizer, Mark calls him. We usually call him John the baptist, but baptizer is better. It tells us what he was doing, rather than his title. John was preaching a baptism of repentance, it says. One way to interpret this was that John was telling us to change direction, so that God might be more inclined to come be with us. Another way to interpret this was that John was telling us to be receptive to God who was already trying to turn us. Or to put it another way: are we trying to get a message to God or trying to be quiet long enough so God can get a word in edgewise?

What John seems to be doing is preparing his listeners—and by extension, the world—to be open to Jesus who follows John. John is the opening act. John is softening the audience up for the main show. Getting them in a good frame of mind to hear, listen, enjoy, partake. And then Jesus walks onto the stage.

In this way, all baptisms are rites of repentance. We teach that they do not provide spell-like protection or detergent-like permanent cleansing. Instead, baptism is a beginning.

Today some of you will become members of this church by a celebration called the Affirmation of Baptism. That is the prescribed rite for new members. It is fitting that we use this rite because it is about beginnings and also about change. You will hear the promises made for you in baptism. And you will be asked if you intend to continue them. And after hearing them read, you will respond: I will, by God’s help and guidance. You will be saying by this that you are open to God in your lives.

Jesus baptizes with the Holy Spirt, says John the baptizer. The Holy Spirit is, it seems to me, God’s agent of surprise. It is the Spirit who guides us when we reach out our hands for help and step timidly forward into the unknown future. It is the Spirit who meets us when we begin to change direction and sometimes bumps us encouragingly when we stubbornly or fearfully don’t.

Thank God that the Spirit is with us in a life full of beginnings. That is good news.