St. Mark 1:1-8
Divine Service
 

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

Back in the 1950’s corduroy slacks were very much in fashion.  My mother would buy them for me, and then get so frustrated when I refused to wear them.  I found them scratchy and uncomfortable!!  But corduroy is a very comfortable cloth when compared to the camelhair cloth that John the Baptizer wore.  And John’s diet!  Wild honey may be sweet, but there is incredible danger in retrieving it.  And even though certain of the locusts are considered a delicacy in Africa and the Middle East, who would want a steady diet of bugs?  Not what we normally consider comfort food!

Consider the opening words of our Gospel text – verse 1 of Mark.  The beginning of the GOOD NEWS!  That is what the word Gospel means – GOOD NEWS.  And the good new is about Jesus Christ.  Mark makes this point right up front – he is not pulling any punches about this.  The Good News is Jesus Christ, and he wants everyone to know it. 

Yet, Mark does not begin his recount of the life of Jesus by telling us about Jesus.  He quotes other prophets: some from Isaiah – our Old Testament lesson – and then he begins to talk about John the Baptizer, rather than giving us a birth account of Jesus as do Matthew and Luke.  And Mark calls his writing only the beginning of the Good News.  There is more to come.

Mark emphatically places John in a special position.  John is doing exactly what God wanted done.  He was preparing the way for the coming Messiah.  He is fulfilling part of the prophecy written in the Old Testament.  And Mark is helping us to search the scriptures to know that Jesus is the promised Christ.  He identifies a passage that shows the need of John the Baptizer before the promised Messiah could begin His ministry.

And so John came, baptizing in the desert region.  John did his ministry in the desert region.  Most scholars place John’s ministry on the east side of the Jordan River.  The Old Testament reference is a kind of pun – the reference to a desert could refer either to a real desert, or it could refer to a spiritual desert.  And both in the time of Isaiah and John the Baptizer, Israel could be considered a spiritual desert! 

The true belief in God had had significant changes from what God had intended.  The Pharisees and Sadducees had developed long, but different, rules on how to earn your way into heaven.  The sacrifices at the Temple were no longer done in gratitude to a bountiful and merciful God, but rather were done out of ritual necessity.  The rules had become the way to earn God’s favor, rather than relying on God.

How much like those ancient Israelites we are!  We, too, would love to earn our way into heaven.  We want those rules written down, so we can prove just how good we are.  And with all those rules, we can mark off just how much better we are than the other guy…why he messed up on rule number 287!!  One of those little joys that we have – we love to one-up the other guy – we seem to have the need to prove that we are better.  These were some of the sins that John was preaching against.  The sin that he finally got killed for preaching against was adultery – but that is another story! 

John came…preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  John was preaching 1 – a Baptism – 2 of repentance – 3 for the forgiveness of sins.  Quite a complex thing, this Baptism.  The ancient Jews were familiar with ritual washing – God had commanded cleanliness of them.  But that washing had nothing to do with repentance, let alone forgiveness; it was just washing!  John was preaching something new.  Repentance – turning from – changing your ways – these are what John was preaching that would have seemed new.

God still does expect repentance from His people, just as He did at the time of John the Baptizer.  He expects us to turn from our natural ways.  He expects us to reject the call of our sinful nature, and to change up those ways for the ways that God would have us go.  We have received one Baptism for the forgiveness of sins – most of us don’t remember it happening to us as infants – and a second Baptism is never necessary.  In that first Baptism, we received the forgiveness of sins that the Holy Ghost brings when he takes up residence in our hearts.

The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River.  John’s message must have been fairly powerful.  He attracted a fair amount of attention for someone who lived out in the desert, a full day or so hike from Jerusalem.  People came to John confessing their sins and being baptized.  This is the same thing we expect from an adult convert; a recognition of their inherent sinful nature, and the understanding of the promise of God to us. 

John’s call to confess – to repent – has never left the church.  This was the very thing that Peter said to the crowd of converts on that first Pentecost -- repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.  (Acts 2:38)  A Baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  That call still continues.  Each and every sermon in a true church will show us our sinful nature.  And each and every one will show us the grace of God in forgiving us our sins.

John was probably the most spectacular preacher of his age.  He put the modern televangelist to shame and yet, John wore clothing made of camel's hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey.  John did not show off his popularity.  He did not dress in the finest nor did he eat the prime cuts.  In fact, he dressed in the simplest and least expensive of clothes.  He ate what he could find, scavenging in the desert.  John was not preaching to draw attention to himself, so there was no reason for him to get fancy.  His goal was to prepare the way for another. 

Apparently John was comfortable in his role.  His message was simple: repent; confess; be baptized.  And none of this was to promote the ministry of John the Baptizer.  John was preaching a simple message: ‘after me will come one more powerful than I.’  It was not about John…It was not about his message…it was about Jesus – the Good News that Mark is talking about.

John was announcing the advent of the Messiah into the world.  John knew his worth – not his value on earth, but his value to God.  And yet he also knew that in Jesus, John’s worth was such that the thongs of [His] sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie.  John knew that he was not worthy of even the most menial task.  Even after spending all this time preparing for Jesus, still John knew that he was not worthy.

Nor are we worthy.  John was special in the life and ministry of Jesus, and he knew he was not worthy.  And yet, I am sure that most of us here would consider John the Baptizer more worthy of Jesus attention than ourselves.  He is St. John the Baptist!  Of course he is worthy of great honor and praise.  Yet John knew where he stood in comparison to Jesus.  He was not worthy.  He knew that even as he preached a Baptism of repentance that he, too, was born a sinner.  And no sinner is worthy of God’s notice.

Yet, God has noticed us.  He has graced us with the gift of faith.  We deserve nothing but God’s wrath, and He has given us His Son.  The very Son that John the Baptizer was preparing the way for; the Son whom we are preparing to celebrate the birth of; the Son who was born a babe of the Virgin Mary.  The same Son of God who came to earth, who journeyed to be baptized by John, and was ultimately crucified on Calvary.

Yet, this crucifixion was a part of God’s plan.  Not for His benefit, but for ours.  As Christ was on that cross, He bore all of our sins for us.  He took up all of the sins that we could never pay the penalty for, and paid that penalty – the penalty of death.  And even as he rose from the dead on that third day proclaiming victory over death, so shall we be called to life eternal. 

This is our comfort.  And we have put on comfortable clothes.  We have donned the robes that ‘have been made white in the blood of the Lamb.’ (Rev 7:14)  We received those very comfortable clothes in our baptism.  And we have the finest food to eat.  We dine on the foretaste of the feast to come here in our Communion.  This is but a hint of the feast we shall have when we dine with that Lamb, Jesus Christ, in the eternal feast in heaven.  This is the best comfort food that ever was or ever shall be, as it gives the comfort of the forgiveness of sins.  This is the more to come that we have from the ‘beginning of the good news.’

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.  Amen