The Rev. Dr. John Tamilio III, Pastor
© 2020, Dr. Tamilio
The Gospel of Mark has no account of the Nativity, yet it opens, “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” Mark then goes straight into his account of Jesus’ baptism. That was the beginning of Jesus’ earthly ministry, indeed, but it is not the beginning of Jesus’ story. Even the Nativity isn’t the beginning of the story. John tells us that Jesus actually existed before the actual beginning of it all — when God created everything. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.” Luke’s account is all about the baby in the manger. Matthew’s account is shorter, but it includes the story of the Magi.
So, where are we supposed to begin? Why does Mark skip the Nativity? All good questions, but this is to miss the point of today’s readings and why they are so apropos for the Second Sunday of Advent.
Yes, “readings” plural: two of them — the one from Isaiah as well as the one from Mark. In the Gospel Lesson from Mark, we hear John the Baptist cry out, “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” This is a direct reference to Isaiah 40:3, in which the prophet exclaims, “A voice cries out: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.’” On one hand, Isaiah is claiming that the penalty that Jerusalem has paid for her sins is over. In fact, they have paid double the price for disobeying the terms of the covenant with God.
But there are other texts that Mark borrows from, which are not part of today’s lectionary readings. The first is Exodus 23:20, in which God tells the Israelites through Moses, “See, I am sending an angel ahead of you to guard you along the way and to bring you to the place I have prepared.” Flipping to the last book in the Old Testament, the minor prophet Malachi, we read in 3:1, “’I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,’ says the Lord Almighty.” You may know this verse from Handel’s Messiah. It appears early in this famous oratorio, as does the passage from Isaiah that we’ve been discussing. New Testament scholar Walter W. Wessel combines all four of these texts (Mark 1:3, Isaiah 40:3, Exodus 23:20, and Malachi 3:1) when he writes,
Mark brings together these [Old Testament] texts in a striking way. He probably found the Exodus text already combined with Malachi 3:1. It is God’s promise of a messenger ‘to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place I have prepared…i.e., through the wilderness to the Promised Land. Mark adds a third text to this matrix, Isaiah 40:3, which looks forward to the coming of another messenger ‘in the desert’ who will go before the people of God in a second Exodus to prepare for the revelation of God’s salvation in Christ.[1]
There’s a lot here: a lot of biblical scholarship and a lot of biblical references. Let’s break this down a bit. For whatever reason, God’s plan was to send a messenger, a herald if you like, to prepare the way for the coming of the Messiah. Knowing this story, we know who this messenger is: John the Baptist.
John is paving the way, preparing us for the coming of the Christ. When Jesus comes, everything changes. He ushers in the Kingdom of God, where the same marks that frame the season of Advent are the pillars of God’s realm: hope, peace, joy, and love. Today we focus on the mark of peace.
All three of the Abrahamic religions — Judaism, Christianity, and Islam — all three believe that the end of our existence on earth, the eschatological realm, is of a peaceable kingdom: one in which Isaiah gives us an amazing vision. For us, this is a vision of Christ’s return at the end of time. Enemies will be friends. We will “beat [our] swords into plowshares and [our] spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore” (Isaiah 2:4). Isaiah also describes this as a time in which “The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them” (Isaiah 11:6). We see that little child as Jesus: the One who lead all Creation to a time of peace.
Many people say, “This is all well and good, but it’s never going to happen.” Cynics see this as idealistic thinking. There will always be war and rumors of war. There will always be violence. Some people say such things as if such hopeful, peaceful thinking is terrible. I have a small sticker on my laptop that reads, “War in not the answer.” Someone (not from this church) someone took umbrage with this, as if to stand against war is somehow unpatriotic. I am patriotic. I love my country. That said, I love Jesus more. I take all that “turn the other cheek” and “love your enemy as you love yourself” stuff seriously. Therefore, I have little regard for the cynics who claim that peace will never occur or for those who argue that advocating for peace is anti-American.
We domesticate Jesus all the time. Basically, this means that we try to create God in our image. We twist the Scriptures to make it so Jesus agrees with us — that he supports our agenda. This is nothing more than a type of heresy. We need to conform to Christ, not the other way around. Maybe Advent is the best time to do this. As we commemorate Christ’s birth and await his return, maybe we should be asking ourselves, “How can we be more Christlike?”
Today, as we reflect on the theme of peace, we need to ask ourselves how we can be agents of Christ’s peace in the world. Of course, there are many ways, and it is not just about refraining from physical violence. Peace is about more than that. In fact, the Hebrew word for peace “shalom” has more to do with right relationships than anything else. Shalom is not just the absence of war. Shalom is a way of being and living in harmony with all people — with all creation, actually.
May this peace, the peace of Christ, settle gently and warmly upon our spirits and may it exude from every part of our being. It begins with us being firmly rooted in God and his Word. Bob Mumford writes, “Peace with God brings the peace of God. It is a peace that settles our nerves, fills our mind, floods our spirit and, in the midst of the uproar around us, gives us the assurance that everything is all right.” May this be our prayer today — and may it guide us through this season. Amen.
[1] Walter W. Wessel, “Luke” from The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, vol. 8 (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984), 619.