Over To You

December 06, 2020

Second Sunday Of Advent

The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

Not a normal Thanksgiving. Not for anyone around the country, whatever their politics or their approach to the pandemic. But despite the horrible pressures facing us all, I enjoyed some delightful downtime with my family, as we idly relaxed, ate, drank, read, and watched some movies over the holiday.

In its quiet way, it was going very nicely, and on the Friday evening, I grilled some rather lovely steak for us to have for dinner, which in a family as carnivorous as mine always produces a significant feel-good factor. The accompaniments were all on the dining table, and I sat down contentedly with my rib-eye glistening in front of me, and at that moment - that very moment - my phone rang.

Certain that it would be a spam call with some unwelcome scam or sales pitch, I glanced at the number on the display. It was my brother in England, calling me at 1am his time. My heart in my mouth, I answered the call… to hear some awful news about a very close family member, someone a few months younger than me, someone whom I had thought of as being in robust
health, someone whom I have known and loved literally from my earliest days.

On a business trip abroad, he’d been taken ill, rushed to a nearby ER, where they discovered a very significant tumor on a major organ. At first the news seemed so drastic that it wasn’t entirely clear to me if he would live for more than few hours, and that he might die alone on foreign soil. I’m pleased to say that he has made it back to England, but very grueling treatment now faces him, with a prognosis that is far from optimistic. But you will understand that when I finally got to sit down and look at the cooling rib-eye on my plate, my appetite had disappeared.

The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. But where’s it all going to end?

Here, in the richest and most powerful nation on the planet, economic recovery is stalling, with far fewer jobs created last month than most economists had expected. About 12 million people are likely to lose access to benefits by the end of this month. Shops, restaurants, and scores of other businesses in a wide range of fields struggle to survive, and thousands of people who, less than twelve months ago thought their lives were straight-forward and secure, face bankruptcy, homelessness and starvation.

Medically, despite the imminent roll out of powerful vaccines, COVID hospitalizations and deaths are at a record-high across the nation, causing the wise and softly spoken Dr. Fauci to comment a few days ago that the current state of the pandemic is, “The worst that we’ve had for the entire ten months - everyday it seems that we almost break a new record - we really are having a terrible time.”

The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. But where’s it all going to end?

It’s time for a change. Religion has lost its way. Civic leaders have lost their way. People need a new style of leadership, and a new mindset. The past needs to be set aside, and we need a change of heart and a whole new set of values. Let’s get back to basics. Or, as one of the prophets said (but let’s not get too fussed about exactly which one), it’s time to ‘Prepare the way of the Lord’.

It was a profoundly appealing message. If you like, this was a call to ‘make Israel great again,' and it was hugely popular. Unlike a more recent call to make America great again, this was an unusual call in that person delivering the message did not consider himself to be the star of the show. He did not point to himself, but to someone else: “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stop down and untie the thong of his sandals.” The message was infectious. Everyone, so it is reported, everyone was coming down to the Jordan river to confess their sins and make a fresh start, submitting themselves to John’s baptismal ministry that drowned out their past, and allowed them the much-needed chance of a change of heart and life-style.

But it doesn’t end well. John’s morals are too high, and his way of talking too plain-spoken, and he gets on the wrong side of Herod’s sister-in-law. You’ll recall that she’s the one with rather outrageous demands, who has John’s head served on a platter as the climax of a banquet thrown by a coward for a bunch of amoral friends, followers and family. John spoke of a very particular kind of Good News, but it didn’t go down so well. And John, John was one of the people who spoke particularly passionately about

The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. But where’s it all going to end?

This morning’s gospel is the ultimate cliff-hanger. The pilot of a revolutionary brand new TV series, that manages to be broadcast as a complete episode without even showing the main character once. The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God announces the person we’ve come to call Mark.

It’s an extraordinary announcement and an extraordinary beginning. And as we make our Advent journey in what the churches of the western world call ‘Year B’, we are going to be hearing all about the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, for this is the year we will be hearing Mark’s gospel play out week by week by week. This is the year we get to hear about what it means to dress up God as ‘action man’, and have him stride about in a frenzy of religious emotion, teaching and living out what Mark tells us is Good News. We’ve heard all about John the baptizer this morning, complete with the camel-hair and locusts. He knew there was Good News coming, but it didn’t end up so well for him. And in Chapter One, Verse Nine - in other words, the very next words of Mark’s gospel - we meet the real hero, when the evangelist tells us that, “In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee…” - and off we go with the Good News personified.

Off we through the Jordan River and into the wilderness. Off we go around the towns and villages dotted around that beautiful inland lake we call the Sea of Galilee. Off we go teaching and healing. Off we go, gathering followers and calling disciples, calming storms and walking on water. Off we go feeding great crowds in Jewish territory and in gentile territory. Off we go up a high mountain and down the Mount of Olives. Off we go to a triumphal entry… and to betrayal and arrest.

This morning we hear again the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. But where’s it all going to end?

Well the man we like to call Mark has a strange way of talking about Good News. But perhaps it is a realistic one. Because there are times when it can be pretty damn hard to find any good news. The people of ancient Israel and Judah had known how that felt, and just about anyone who’s lived for more than a few years gets to feel like that, because bad news can be pretty all-consuming at times. I was reminded of that again in a personal way as I was enjoying the last hours of the Thanksgiving holiday, and we see it all around us in the medical and economic effects of this pandemic. And Mark - well, Mark knew how to tell a pretty powerful tale of what ends up appearing to be fairly seriously bad news.

John ends up imprisoned and executed despite the apparent initial success of his mission and ministry. And the one to whom he points - the one who is meant to be the personification of anything and everything to do with Good News - the one who comes from Nazareth of Galilee straight into the waters of the Jordan. This one only doubles down on the bad news, as Mark goes to unique lengths to demonstrate…

Jesus’ teaching is constantly misunderstood - even by his immediate followers, who really should know better. Go look at chapter eight, when Jesus is almost speechless with disbelief at how dumb they are, crying out, “Do you not yet understand?” And they aren’t just dumb. The disciples are cowards of the worst kind. They desert him and flee, after falling asleep and failing to show him any support in what is literally the darkest moment of his life. The one he appoints to be their ringleader goes one better than that, and point-blank denies that he even knows him - not once, but three times over. And the very next day, he dies an agonizing death designed for common criminals, his last words being a cry of abandonment not just by his human circle, but even by God.

The opening of the gospel that we have just read announces so grandly: The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. But where’s it all going to end?

In disaster, that’s where. In a horrific, graphic death. And even then, even when the worst seems to have happened, Mark’s sense of Good News still seems to be utterly and totally contrary. Go read his younger siblings Matthew, or Luke, or John - they’ll tell you wonderful stories about Easter. Amazing, restorative stories about Jesus risen from the tomb - a Jesus who speaks with and empowers his disciples in small groups and large, shares food with them, and clothes them with power from on high. But that’s way too much good news for Mark. With Mark, all we get is the strange phenomenon of a young man in an empty tomb, whose missional instructions are completely ignored. For the women with whom he shares his words “went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” Where was that going to end…? Mark’s gospel, which we are privileged to have challenge us anew this morning - Mark’s gospel teaches three very important things today. The first is about power.

For Mark’s Good News shows us the true nature of real power and real success - by which I mean God’s power. To quote Archbishop Rowan Williams, “Divine power is so different from human that it can be fully present in utter desolation and failure and still live and work and be what it is. No one in the depth of pain or chaos is alone, and no sinful rebellion can quench the freedom of God to reconcile and forgive.”

That is why Mark’s news, despite all that seems to go wrong, that is why Mark’s news truly is Good News.

The second thing we should learn from Mark is that not everything written in the Bible is literally and obviously true. You can see that even in what we heard just now - go look for that opening prophecy in the writings we call Isaiah! Only half of it is there - the other half comes from Malachi. Sloppy work, Mark! If that was an exercise in a CPS school, it certainly wouldn’t get an A grade!

But that little inaccuracy is as nothing compared to the great tub-thumping lie I just quoted from the end of Mark’s gospel. Again, to quote Archbishop Williams: “The women clearly did say something because this Gospel has been written. It did turn out to be possible to find words for what they thought they would never be able to talk about. So if you…are baffled, dismayed and silenced by the mystery of the cross and resurrection,” says Professor Williams, “don’t despair.”

And he could so easily add that if you are baffled, dismayed and silenced by the horrors through which we live, personally and collectively, in this age or any age - if you find yourselves struck to the very core by a cancer or a COVID diagnosis, or by death or destruction of any and every kind, “don’t despair. Words were found, lives have been lived in faith: that’s why this book is here, St Mark says, because somebody found it possible to talk about this.”

And that leads quickly and neatly to the third and final take-home from today’s gospel - which is that for Mark, the story isn’t over. That’s why the question I’ve been asking so constantly this morning is so important. That’s why when we hear the opening of this extraordinary gospel, we have to ask, “where will it all end?”

Because the one redeeming fact about the shocking scene of the women fleeing in terror from the empty tomb and saying nothing to anyone - the one saving grace of this apparent bad news and final failure that Mark recounts, is that this final sentence does not - as it were - end with a period. There’s no actual punctuation in the entire Greek New Testament, so there wouldn’t be a period anyway. But the grammatical construction with which Mark’s word ends is the equivalent of him putting dot dot dot at the end of his final statement. And what that really means is that today, we hear this beloved evangelist saying to us, “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” But, if you listen closely, he’s also saying, “Over to you…”