The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. As it is written in the prophet Isaiah, “See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way; the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.’ ”John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And 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. Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. He proclaimed, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
A
nice married couple, we’ll call Bruce and Carol Davidson, were sitting down to
their usual morning cup of coffee, listening to the weather report coming over
the radio. "There will be 2 to 4 inches of snow today, and a snow
emergency has been declared," the weather report said. "You must park
your cars on the odd numbered side of the streets." Bruce says "Jeez,
okay," and gets up from his warm coffee, bundles up and moves the car. The
next day they're sitting down with their morning cups of coffee and the weather
forecast declares "There will be 4 to 6 inches of snow today, and a snow
emergency has been declared. Now you must park your cars on the even numbered
side of the streets. Again, Bruce says "Jeez, okay," and gets up from
his coffee. Two days later, again they're sitting down with their cups of
coffee and the weather forecast says, "There will be 6 to 9 inches of snow
today, and a snow emergency has been declared. You must park your cars on the -"
Just then the power goes out and Bruce doesn't get the rest of the
instructions. He turns to Carol and says "Jeez, what am I going to do now?"
Carol replies "Aw, Bruce, why don't you just leave the car in the garage
today?"
So,
as you can guess, our worship theme this morning is all about Snow. Now unless
you are under the age of 16, or don’t have your driver’s license, Snow is
hazardous to your health this time of year. I really don’t like the snow. Oh,
yeah, it’s all nice and fluffy looking as it first begins to fall to the
ground. It does bring some warm images of Christmases past to mind…and it
wouldn’t really be much of a holiday season without at least one or two inches
of the stuff lying around. But if you are really honest with yourself, doesn’t all
the frozen wet stuff just bother you after the first couple days following the
first snowfall…especially when it begins to turn black with soot and dirt from
the passing cars. Let’s face it; does snow really have a purpose at all?
Well,
I went to the internet and posed that exact question. What came up from my
search was a bit astonishing! Scientifically, here were the answers: Snow is a
type of precipitation in the form of crystalline water ice, consisting of a
multitude of snowflakes that fall from clouds. We know that precipitation is a
major component of the hydrologic cycle, and is responsible for depositing most
of the fresh water on the planet. Now apart from the obvious role of
precipitation in our ecosystem, snow serves as an insulating blanket, lessening
to some extent the extremes of temperature fluctuation to which the soil is
subjected. But it also brings about a rapid cooling of the overlying atmosphere,
which gives rise to polar air masses that drive the ocean currents like a
global conveyor belt. In short, snow plays a dominant part in the climate of
many of the Earth’s regions. 
Besides
the ecological benefits of snow, we can understand it to also have spiritual
effects. It can be viewed as one of God's instruments for assisting us in the
maintenance of our spiritual growth. In dreams, liquid water represents our
conscious life experiences – whereas snow is made of frozen water particles. It
symbolizes stagnancy, or unchanging life experiences. When there is no change
in life, the same experiences are repeated. Have you ever had the same
experience over and over, and just couldn’t understand why the same scenario
seemed to be constantly played out? It might be the same kind of relationship
within your family, or with your supervisor at a job. It could be with your
kids’ teachers at school, or with a waiter at a restaurant. Whatever the
situation, having the same kind of life experience is not just a coincidence,
but is an opportunity for reflection and spiritual growth.
Let’s
unpack that a little bit more. For instance, in our text today we have a really
interesting character that opens Mark’s gospel. John the Baptist is preparing
people for Christ’s coming by calling them to repentance and baptism. He was
warning them about what, and who was to come. And what was coming was no picnic
for the Jews under Roman occupation. He was a preacher who had no qualms
telling people the truth. He showed up wearing clothing of camel's hair with a
leather belt around his waist and chomping grasshoppers dipped in wild honey.
Everybody knew what that meant. In the popular Judaism of Jesus' day, there was
this expectation that on the day God started to make things right for the poor
and dispossessed - Elijah would reappear. Of all the prophets of 
It would have been something
like Abe Lincoln showing up during the march on Selma, Alabama in the 1960s; or
Gandhi walking in front of tanks in Beijing, China during the massacres on
Tiananmen Square in 1989; or Martin Luther King addressing congress about the
rights of immigrants, same-sex couples, and unemployed Americans suffering in
this decade of economic imbalances. John the Baptist wasn't just a popular
prophet. He represented the very spirit of 
"Repent
for the kingdom of heaven has come near" he warned them, reminding his
listeners of that time in the future when everything that stood in opposition
to goodness and justice would be swept away once and for all. He was announcing
that the reign of God was drawing near and that it would be "game
over" for all who worshipped loveless power. "Repent," John
pounded from his wilderness pulpit. But he didn't mean simply feeling sorry for
cheating on your income taxes, but demanded a reorientation of your entire life.
He called everyone to be baptized into a new orientation of life experience, to
defrost the old way of thinking and thaw out frozen attitudes of self
absorption and indulgence.It seems that this holiday season has brought out the worst in some people. On the day after Thanksgiving this past year, Black Friday they call it, the lines out front of retail stores began forming the night before. On TV we saw stampedes recorded on security cameras in Wal*Marts across the nation as people rushed to buy their $198 42 inch LCD televisions. A woman in Los Angeles even pepper-sprayed a crowd of folks that was in her way, injuring over 30 other shoppers.
Our incessant need for more and blinding greed keeps our hearts and minds “snowed in” from responding to our true mission as God’s children. That mission is to be a people of faith that consider the needs of others before ourselves. And like John the Baptist we are not simply preaching "self-help,” but are reorienting people to the necessity of change in response to the reality of a new set of circumstances. A new world is breaking in, one which would not tolerate injustice, oppression, deceit, greed and fear. It is time to re-define one's life, to re-align one's ethical stance in keeping with such a new order. "The kingdom of heaven is drawing near."
And
that is why John speaks so sternly, so sarcastically to the religious
conservatives and liberals who showed up to hear him preach; for that is who
the Pharisees and Sadducees represented. It wasn't enough to trust the old
patterns of thinking, the frozen-in-stone rules, the predictable rituals - no
matter how honored or revered. It didn't matter whether you were Democrat or
Republican, fundamentalist or liberal, pedigreed or newcomer. It was deeds that
counted not talk; action not reputation. And why was it so important for John
that people get their act together in a hurry? Well, here, of course, was the
main point of his message. Because John believed that what he was doing was
just a preview of coming attractions. 
The
Bible is very clear about this. It says that a day will come when God will
bring an end to things as we have known it, which means an end to climbing over
each other for a bigger piece of the cake, an end to exercising power over
others simply because you can, an end to the importance of being famous, an end
to the obscenity of fabulous wealth living alongside abject poverty - an end to
all of that. And the one who will end it will be Christ, of all people. The one
who is coming to judge us most fully is the one who loves us the most fully. He
will burn away all this chaff that makes us less than human and the world far
less human than it is - precisely because he loves us. That is what we are
getting ready for - those of us who call ourselves Christ's people and who long
for the birth of such a love!
And
where will this Christ be born? You guessed it…in the stable of our hearts.
Christ comes to us bathed in a new consciousness. He melts the frozen thoughts
of our conditioned life experiences with the warm light of awareness. Snow is
the water of our baptism, thawed out from frozen attitudes and frigid fears of
change. It may seem like a hazard at first, but it can renew our understanding
of communion with each other – and that’s what the Christ mass is all about,
right? Amen!(Excerpts from Barry J. Robinson’s sermon “A Preview of Coming Attractions” for
No comments:
Post a Comment