First of six sermons leading to Christmas 2020 preached at St Luke’s Maylands 29th November 2020
Christmas is coming and we want to get ready. We want our Christmas to be authentic—not just an excuse for another party. We should pray that people will tire of the super-superficiality of our holiday-culture and yearn for the real thing. But if we want our Christmas to be meaningful, we must think about its meaning. To do that we must go back to the future.
I am calling this series of talks Back to the Future because the meaning of the future is to be found in the past. In a world without God, things just happen: the “creation” of the world, its development, the emergence of human beings, our history—these things are random. There is no way of telling what the future will be. But with God—God who created and formed the universe and intended human beings, and has overseen our history, is creating the coming new world—well, he has made known enough of the future as is good for us to know. To know the future we must go back to the past, back to when he spoke, back to when he put in motion things that are driving the world to its final destination.
On this first Sunday of the Church’s year we are looking at Mark’s introduction to his account of what happened when Jesus appeared in Galilee some 2000 years ago. It is an account of what for him happened in the very recent past—30 years back when he was a young man. His account is brief—too brief to tell us about Jesus’ birth and years of growing up. He begins the story with the appearance of a prophet in Judaea. His name was John, and he soon earned the nickname, “The Baptist”, because he challenged people to come down into the river and wash away their sins. His baptism was symbolic; he was the forerunner of someone more important than he, whom he called “the Coming One.” Those who accepted John’s baptism were reassured of forgiveness and life when the Coming One was revealed and of brought the real thing: forgiveness, and the Holy Spirit, for those who abandoned their sins, and a fiery judgement for the rest. People took him seriously. You might say he was a sensation—so much so that the local prince thought he might stir a rebellion and had him arrested and imprisoned. He even made it into the history of the times because local opinion had it that Prince Herod’s defeat in a war with Arabia was God judging him for the way he treated John.
One day Jesus came down to the Jordan River to where John was preaching to the crowds and came forward to be baptized. This is a puzzle which Mark does not comment on. It was what happened next that had his attention. As Jesus came up out of the water he saw the sky split apart. A dove descended onto him (and didn’t leave). A voice from heaven said, “You are my Son, the Beloved One; I have chosen you.” This is Mark’s account of what Jesus saw. John also saw something, but Mark’s interest was Jesus.
To learn what it meant we need to go back to the opening line of Mark’s Gospel. “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” Any Jew of that day would hear these words as “The beginning of the announcement of the coming of Jesus the King-Messiah.” Messiah was the title they gave to the king whom God’s prophets promised would one day come and rescue the Jews from all their troubles. Mark is telling us that Jesus is he, the “Coming One” John spoke about, who would forgive, and baptize with the Holy Spirit, and bring about the great separation of the righteous from the wicked.
We should pause here to consider what this meant, and what it means. From the beginning Israel had a problem with leadership. Saul, you remember, started good but being king soon went to his head and he turned out bad. David was the ideal king, but he too was flawed, and the end of his reign was disturbed by his sons’ attempted power grabs. Solomon had great promise, but later on became an oppressor of his people; by the end of his reign rebellion and civil war were brewing which would erupt in the reign of his successors. Many of the later kings were bad. None succeeded in their goal of bringing peace, prosperity and righteousness. We cannot say that things have improved much in the modern world. Many have a vision for a better world and think if only they were the leader things could be good; few succeed. We might say that one of the world’s great problems is the problem of leadership.
The task of Israel’s king was to represent God and protect his people: to be a shepherd. He was to promote true worship and keep them safe from enemies, but also to defend the weak against the strong and protect them from predators within. Many of the kings connived with the corruption of the aristocratic class and joined in the plundering of the poor. The King-Messiah—the one God promised would one day come—would establish God’s law, and rescue the people from outside enemies and from each other. He would represent God truly, because he would be anointed with his Spirit. This kingdom of God would then spread its protection over the whole world. Israel’s king would be King of kings, and Lord of lords.
The words God spoke at his baptism were familiar to Jesus—to John too, if he heard them. They are words of Psalm 2 where God addresses the promised king: “You are my Son; today I have begotten you. Ask of me and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession.” What Mark says happened—the year was probably 27 or 28—is that God appointed Jesus to be the king of the world, not just then, but now and forever, and he gave him his Spirit to empower him for the task. We need to remind ourselves that at this point Jesus is just a small-town builder: no army, no money, no education, no great family, no powerful connections. What a thing!
Mark goes on to tell us that the Spirit now drove Jesus out into the wilderness to be tempted by the Devil. He does not elaborate much on this but indicates that what happened was similar to when God appointed Adam and Eve as king and queen of the world. Satan tempted them to distrust God, and they fell—big time. But not Jesus! He stood for God and pushed away the Devil’s evil suggestions.
And now we come to the climax of Mark’s prologue: “After John was arrested Jesus came into Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.’” Four times in this prologue Mark used this word “gospel”: What does it mean?
Gospels were common enough in the ancient world, and it is important to say that they had nothing to do with religion. This was political-speak. I say they were common, but not as common as sharing with your neighbour the news that you had won a prize in the lottery. No, a gospel was an important announcement, often of a political nature, that might require a horseman or a ship or a long-distance runner to carry it. You probably know the story of Marathon. Pheidippides ran 150 kilometers from Athens to Sparta to request their help to stand against the invading Persians. The Spartans were otherwise engaged and Pheidippides had to run back with the bad news. Incidentally, the ancient Israelites would have called that bad news “gospel”; the Greeks reserved the word for good news. Anyway, the Greeks stood alone at the pass of Thermopolae and won. Then, as the story goes, Pheidippides, the “day-runner”, ran from the plain of Marathon back to Athens—the distance of a modern marathon—with the news. As he entered Athens he cried out, “We’ve won!” That was his gospel. He should have received a great reward, because that’s what they did in those days, but after all that exertion, he fell down dead.
A prophet had told that when God forgave his people and returned to be their king again there would be a gospeller to announce it. When he did, everyone would know that the kingdom had arrived. You see, surprisingly, what brings a new government into power is often a simple announcement. In South Africa on April 27 1994 a new government led by Nelson Mandela replaced the ruling Nationalist government. It happened with a simple announcement; the ancients would call it a gospel. Of course, there were jets flying over to mark the occasion and the South African army standing by to enforce it, if anyone wanted to argue. But that is how things happen in our world. In the USA they are still waiting for such an announcement.
So, says Mark, Jesus announced the arrival of the government of God, and the other Gospels say the same. And that is where we scratch our heads and ask, “What is going on here?” For, there is an obvious problem.
A young Jewish man came to visit his rabbi in a city somewhere in Europe. “Rabbi, it is true. Jesus is the Messiah.” The story goes that the rabbi went over to the window and stared down into the street for a while. Then he turned back and said sadly, “No, it cannot be; nothing has changed.” And that is exactly the point. God promised to send a king who would change everything and drive all evil from his creation. But nothing appears to have happened.
Mark knows this, but he has a strange story to tell, of a man who did things only God could do, who had the power to change the world, who was so good that if he had made the world like himself, it would be a good world. And yet he died on a Roman cross. And yet, Mark does not tell this story like it was a tragedy, but like it was part and parcel of God’s plan to transform the world and make it good. And something has changed. A man has risen from the dead!
Has anything changed? That was the rabbi’s question and the question before all of us. Mark’s answer is yes: the kingdom of God is here. Jesus by his coming into the world, by his life and death and rising to life again, has set in motion the events of the end-time, which will conclude with his coming again and the promised new world.
Do we believe this? Most people do not. Most people back then did not believe. The conclusion of Mark’s prologue challenges us with Jesus’ words, “Repent, and believe in the gospel!” A new kingdom, a new king, and now he is calling for followers. Jesus is gathering men, women and children who will believe in him and join him as citizens of his kingdom. Each one of stands before this announcement and this challenge—invitation, if you like—to be part of the new world which is coming. In the next sermon we will look more closely at how Jesus saw his kingdom coming.