My senior pastor, Ken Casey, delivered this sermon on December 7, 2008 at Gadsden First United Methodist Church. He always does a good job on his sermons--well-prepared and well-delivered--but this one particularly struck a chord with me. So I asked his permission to share it, and he graciously agreed. Enjoy! And let me know what you think.
A New World Is Dawning
Mark 1: 1-8
Every year on this Sunday of Advent he comes like an unwelcome guest- with his smelly camel skins and diet of locusts and wild honey. He is out of place in this season of festive parties and fattening food. He doesn't sing lively Christmas carols. His message is more mournful "Repent! Repent! Repent!”
Have you ever received a Christmas card with John the Baptist on the front of it? Drive by some homes with all the Christmas decorations. There on the well-lighted lawn are all the characters ever associated with Christmas. Rudolph the Red nosed reindeer is there along Santa Claus. Frosty the Snow Man is there. Mary and Joseph stand beside the manger, surrounded by plastic sheep, watched over by plastic shepherds. Angels are represented and there are the wise men. But there is no John the Baptist. He just seems to intrude into Christmas. Well, have you even seen a Christmas card with John the Baptist on it?
Let’s stop singing those slow, mournful Advent hymns and liven things up with some joyous Christmas carols. Let's get on with the celebration, let’s enjoy the poinsettias, light the candles, deck the halls with boughs of holly. We want to hear angels singing, a baby cooing, and we want to see the shepherds coming in from the fields, and wise men giving gifts.
The writer of Mark is convinced that if we don't stop by the Jordan and face John the Baptist, we will not know who the baby down in Bethlehem really is. We will go to Bethlehem, kneel piously before the infant, sing a few carols, unwrap a few gifts; and return to the routine -- unchanged.
Only by making a trip over to the Jordan, listening to the call to repentance and venturing out into the river between the past and the promised land will we be ready to visit the Babe in Bethlehem's manger.
John, the preparer of the way, knows who Jesus is – he really knows. He knows that he is not just another promising baby, another miracle worker, or teacher. John knows there is more to who Jesus is than meets the eye. If we don't listen to John, we will miss the divine presence, the unique implications of the birth in Bethlehem's stable.
John knows that the baby in Bethlehem's manger is the firstborn of a new creation. God, through the babe of Bethlehem, is bringing a new world. Going to Bethlehem is no sentimental journey to worship the past. It is no mere birthday celebration of a historic figure. It is the preparation for a new heaven and new earth that God is bringing. There is a new world dawning and the power and presence of God, the vision of God, are coming to us.
God is bringing a new world. It is a world without barriers. In the manger of Bethlehem the dividing walls are broken down, there is neither Jew nor Gentile, slave or free, male or female, but all are one. The new world that is dawning is a world in which all people are claimed as beloved children of God. No longer will worth and value and treatment be based upon lineage and pedigree, but on the one to whom we belong. The world that is coming will be a world in which justice and righteousness reign. The exalted will be brought low and the low will be exalted. Greatness will be in serving -- not being served. The last will be first and the first will go to the back of the line. Love will be at the center of all relationships; and the power of love will replace the love of power.
A new world is dawning. A new promised land is about to be entered. With a sense of urgency John calls us to enter the Jordan -- the barrier between the old world of slavery and sin and the new world of freedom and peace. There, we will be washed clean of the dust and dirt from our past.
John calls us to repent; to turn away from the old and toward the new God is creating down in Bethlehem. Only by being willing to turn away from the old and toward God's coming new world of grace and love and joy, are we ready to bow before Bethlehem's Babe, who is the incarnation of God's reign.
Repentance is the announcement for Christ's coming. Repentance, though, has gotten bad press. It is seen as negative, a beating our chest in grief and shame. For many of us, we think of giving up something: wealth, power, prestige, and privilege. But it is in anticipation of the new that is coming. Repentance can have the character of excited anticipation, the birth of a new child that brings joy, and a change in priorities and life-style, or with new possibilities that come with receiving an inheritance, or a new job that offers new challenges.
John's call to repentance gets very specific. He calls for us to adopt a new source of identity. Some who heard the call toward the new world assumed their place was secure because of their ancestors and history. They saw no need for repentance. You must turn away from labels and pedigrees as sources of identity. The babe in Bethlehem is your new source of identity.
New community is coming into being. It is a community in which other's needs become connected with ours. As John said, "Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise." A new ethic is coming into being -- no manipulation and coercion, no violence. All of this must be rejected. This One whom we pay homage in Bethlehem is calling into being a new community of justice, compassion, mercy and forgiveness. Those committed to anything else will either not recognize who Jesus is or they will outright reject him. If we don't go out into the Jordan with John, we could easily make Jesus into a champion of our life styles our greed, and our privileges.
Listening to John the Baptist, hopefully, will force us to accept that a new world is dawning in Jesus Christ. There is a new world dawning in which identity is based on the one to whom we belong. There is a new world dawning with justice and sharing with the poor, a world of grace and love.
Only by wading out into the Jordan and drowning our sins, our false identity, our injustice and selfishness, our commitment to violence, will we be recognized and worship the One who is coming in Bethlehem. Stopping by the Jordan to hear John the Baptizer, wading out into the river between the old and the new, and drowning our sins in the waters of repentance are all necessary if we are to know the identity of the One whose birth has taken place in Bethlehem.
