Mark 1:1-8

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

That sounds so simple, straightforward and clear, doesn’t it?  If you just pick up your Bible and read it, there’s nothing shocking here.  Nothing surprising.  It even sounds kind of innocent.

But how would you hear it if I were to tell you that this simple opening sentence is, in fact, one of the most subversive and seditious sentences ever written?  What does it sound like when you learn that this simple opening sentence, “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God,” is a shot across the bow of the Roman Empire, that it subversively twists the empire’s own language of dominance to launch an ongoing insurgence against both Rome and the temple establishment?  How innocent does it sound when you learn that, in fact, the entire Gospel of Mark, which was written during the dangerous and dark days of the Jewish uprising against Rome, that it was written to be a manifesto to guide the followers of Jesus in nonviolent revolution.

The emperor Augustus was fond of calling himself, Divi filius, son of a God, and subsequent emperors held onto the title.  It was stamped on Rome’s coins so no one would forget.  So to call Jesus the Son of God was to usurp the emperor’s title.

Christos, Christ, literally means ‘the anointed one.’  It was the Greek version of messiah.  Rome’s emperors were anointed when they were raised to the rank of princeps, so the emperor was sometimes referred to as “the anointed one.”  In Jewish lore it was believed that Messiah, the Anointed One, would throw off Rome’s oppressive rule and lead Israel to a new era of independence.  So to call Jesus Christos was yet another treasonous claim in this subversive opening statement.

Even the term “good news” was appropriated from the empire.  The Greek word, euangelion, which we sometimes translate as gospel, was a word that was particularly important  to the cult of the divine emperor.  When an heir to the throne was born it was announced as “good news,” euangelion.  When he came of age another euangelion proclaimed the “good news” throughout the empire, and his eventual accession to the throne would be declared as “good news” in every corner of the empire.  But the euangelion, the “good news” which people heard most often was the “good news” announcement of military victory.  In the first century Roman world, euangelion, “good news,” had become a synonym for victory.

The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ the Son of God.  The beginning of the victory of Jesus, the Anointed One, the Son of God.  When you begin to understand the social and political implications these words had as Mark was writing them, probably somewhere in Galilee while the Jewish uprising against Rome was nearing its disastrous climax, they lose their “once-upon-a-time” innocence and begin to sound more like a defiant declaration of resistance.  Which is exactly what they are.

So, the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is a declaration that the revolution is under way.  It is an announcement that, in Jesus, God is challenging all the coercive forces that oppress and distort our God-beloved lives in this God-beloved world. 

This is the good news of Jesus.  

But Mark, the writer telling us this story, doesn’t start with Jesus.  He reminds us that the story started before Jesus.  Long before Jesus.  He reminds us that Advent, before it was a season in the Church calendar, was a long season of history, centuries of waiting for Emmanuel to come.  He reminds us that during that long Advent of history God would speak through the prophets from time to time to remind the people that the covenant and promises that God had made with Abraham and Sarah and with Moses and with David had not been forgotten.  The prophets would remind them that God was with them in their times of trouble, and the day was coming when God would be with them more powerfully and personally and concretely than they dared to imagine.  

Mark reminds us that “the beginning of the good news of Jesus, the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God”—that this story had its real beginning long before Jesus arrived.  “As it is written in the prophet Isaiah,” he writes, to remind us that even though Jesus is the title character of his story, he’s really not entering the stage until the second act.  The stage has to be set.  The way has to be prepared.

Even the announcement has to be announced. To give the prophetic voice extra weight, Mark gives Isaiah a preamble from Malachi and simply refers to them both as Isaiah because who said it is not as important as what is being said:

“See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,

                  who will prepare your way;” – that’s Malachi–

         “the voice of one crying out in the wilderness:

                  ‘Prepare the way of the Lord,

                  make his paths straight” –that’s Isaiah.

But it isn’t Jesus whom the prophets are announcing.  Not yet anyway.  Not here.

First, there is one last prophet we need to hear from: John, the Baptizer, dressed like Elijah and living off the land out in the wilderness where he can listen to God without distractions.  John the Baptizer who wants to be sure we’re ready, really ready for Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God.  So he prepares the way by “proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” and announcing—wait for it—that someone even more powerful is coming. 

Repentance.  It’s not something you would think would draw a big crowd.  But Mark tells us that “people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.”  He must have been some kind of preacher, that John.

Repentance.  In English it’s a plodding and ponderous word filled with regret and contrition.  Repentance is a stinging backside, bruised knees and hunched shoulders.  Personally, I would like to ban the word and replace it with the Greek word: Metanoia.  

Metanoia is climbing out of a dank hole into the sunlight.  Metanoia is being freed from the nasty habits that ruin your health and suck the life out of your wallet.  Metanoia is putting on new glasses with the right prescription and realizing that you had only been seeing a third of the details and half the colors in the world.  Metanoia  is shoes that fit right, have cushy insoles, perfect arch support, and take the cramp out of your lower back.  Metanoia is thinking new thoughts and behaving in new ways.  Metanoia is a change of mind, a change of heart, a change of life, a new direction.  

John came proclaiming a baptism of metanoia.  And to make sure the idea really stuck with people, he gave them an experience to go with it.  He dunked them in the river.  “There.  You were dry, now you’re wet.  You were going down the wrong road, now you’re on the right one.  You were dusty and crusty, now you’re clean.  You’re changed.  You’re new.  And just in time, too.  Because the One we’ve been waiting for is coming.  I’m just the warm-up band.  I dunked you in water.  He’s going to marinate you in the Holy Spirit.”

A voice cried out in the wilderness, “Prepare the way of the Lord!”

Or…

A voice cried out! “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord!”

There is no punctuation in the ancient languages.  So the translators try to make sense of it for us.  Is it a voice in the wilderness calling us to prepare?  Or is it a voice calling us to prepare a way in the wilderness?  Isaiah has it one way, Mark has it the other way.

Either way the message is clear: this is a time to prepare.

Sue Monk Kidd wrote about how one year during Advent she decided to visit a monastery for a day to help put herself in the right frame of mind for a meaningful Christmas.  As she passed one of the monks she greeted him with, “Merry Christmas.”  He replied, “May Christ be born in you.”  His words caught her off guard and she found that she had to sit with them for a long time.  As she pondered what the monk had said, she realized that Advent is a time of preparation and transformation.  A time of metanoia.  It is a time, she wrote, “of discovering our soul and letting Christ be born from the waiting heart.”

What kind of metanoia do you need to open the path for Christmas, to make way for Christ to be born anew in your waiting heart?   

Sometimes it feels like we are still wandering in the wilderness.  Which star do we follow to find our path through a wilderness of political and social friction?   What signs will guide us through a wilderness of violent rhetoric and violent acts?  How do we prepare the way forward when the world keeps erupting into war and no side is entirely innocent?  What language will reach the hearts and minds of those who find progress threatening so they choose to be obstructive or destructive? 

Sometimes it has seemed that the way of Christ, the way ahead is not clear.  Except for this: the way of Christ is the way of love.  Love God. And love our neighbors as ourselves. 

It’s hard to love our neighbors when political tensions and social issues divide us. It’s hard to stand together when so many things try to pull us apart.  

But this, too, is part of our Advent.  This is part of our wilderness where we hear the voice cry out, calling us to prepare the way of the Lord.  This wilderness of dysfunction is where we are called to prepare the way for Christ be born in the waiting heart.  This is where we are transformed.  This is our metanoia.

When we were all isolated during the pandemic, people often talked about what they would do “when things get back to normal.”  Maybe this Advent, this Prepare the Way of the Lord time, this metanoia time is a good time to ask ourselves what our new normal should look like. 

Maybe this would be a good time to sit down together and talk about what being apart taught us about being together.  Maybe this would be a good time to share our hopes and dreams and visions of what Christ is calling us to do to make life richer and fuller and more manageable for everybody.  Maybe this is a good time to make a new path through the wilderness, a time for collective metanoia, a time to discover all the little ways we can work together to make the kin-dom of God a reality on earth as it is in heaven.