The First Presbyterian Church in Springfield
Sermon - December 4, 2011
Rev. Sarah A. Colwill
“Making Room for Jesus”
Isaiah 40:1-11
Mark 1:1-8
As any of you who have ever sat down to write know - whether that writing is a
college essay, a letter, a speech, a sermon, a school paper, an article, a book - sometimes
the hardest part is getting started. Ideas have been jotted down on scraps of paper and note
pads, illustrations swirl around in our heads, main points have been underlined and welldefined, highlights to include have been written down in a neatly numbered list. The
content has been carefully and thoughtfully decided upon - now all you need to do is get
started. And so, people stare at blank computer screens, rip out and crumple pieces of
paper from their notebooks, and take walks. Because the beginning is important. How
you begin sets the tone for the rest of the writing.
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was the age of wisdom, it was the
age of foolishness.” (Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities)
“Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent..”
(Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address)
“Call me Ishmael.” (Herman Melville, Moby Dick)
How you begin matters. The opening scene or paragraph or sentence has a big impact on
the rest of the piece. So it is interesting to read the beginning of The Gospel According to
Mark this morning and take note of where he begins.
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Mark starts with a bold description of what this writing is, “The beginning of the
good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God,” and then he proceeds into a proclamation by
John the baptizer. We don’t get the genealogy and angels and wise men found in
Matthew. We don’t get Mary’s warm accepting “Let it Be” when the angel tells her she is
pregnant like we have in Luke, with the pregnant women Mary and Elizabeth, and their
subsequent little babies John and Jesus, shepherds comforted by angels telling them to go
and see. And we don’t have the poetic theology of John, using his opening paragraphs to
situate Jesus as the Word of God, the source of all life who was with God from the
beginning. No, here in Mark, we have the bold proclamation that Jesus is the Son of God
(the true boldness and audacity of this claim gets lost on us thousands of years later);
which is followed by John the baptizer, not coming with warm greetings, images of sweet
infants, or peaceful nights - but coming with an urgency that the fulfillment of the words
of their beloved prophet Isaiah were at hand. The Lord is coming! It is time! Prepare the
way! Make his paths straight!
These were familiar words to these Jews, and while we might interpret some strange
man wearing strange, smelly clothes shouting for repentance as some confused zealot who
should be ignored, the people from Judea actually went. We are told that people from the
whole Judean countryside and all the people from Jerusalem were going out to him, and
were baptized by him, confessing their sins. They knew the words of Isaiah, that they
needed to prepare. If God is coming, as the prophets always said God would - then they
needed to prepare. In order for the glory of the Lord to be revealed, they needed to make a
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straight highway in the desert, lift up the valleys, and level out the ground. They needed to
prepare themselves to meet this Lord and Savior promised to them from long ago. Now is
the time to make room for Jesus.
Advent and Christmas have become secular holidays - a friend of mine refers to this
as “Capitalistmas.” It’s a time for retail stores to make money; a time for vacation from
school and work; a time for giving presents to each other; a time for donating to charity; a
time for being with family. And whether or not that bothers you is up to you - it actually
doesn’t bother me. I have friends who aren’t practicing Christians and they stick up
Christmas trees like the rest of us and open presents on Christmas morning. What this
means, however, is that we each have to be willing to stand in opposition to our culture
this time of year and prepare for Christmas as Christians.
On the front page of the Inquirer this past week was an announcement that the King
of Prussia Mall was going to expand. During this retail happiness called Advent, it was a
well-timed reflection on what preparing for Christmas means to many of our neighbors.
The stores are preparing with merchandize and decorations. The city streets are preparing
with Christmas lights on lampposts and fake snow in the windows. Offices hold
Christmas parties and cookie exchanges. Network television stations are playing the
favorites - Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer, Home Alone, Shrek the Halls, Elf, It’s a
Wonderful Life - all cute stories with the same miserably wrong message that Christmas is
all about family.
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But our Scripture reading in Mark breaks us free from all of these secular
preparations, strips us bare of the cute angels and warm singing, ignores any need for
decorating, partying, or baking, and tells us that we need to make room for Jesus. We
need to prepare ourselves to meet this man Jesus - not the sweet infant boy, but the very
Son of God who will come to baptize with the Holy Spirit. He is on his way, and the time
has come to prepare ourselves to meet him.
And so John calls us, into the wilderness, to confess our sins. Where our culture
tells us to escape the pains of the world and ignore our problems for the month of
December - just spend money, eat rich foods, drink good wine, and be merry, John calls us
right into those places we are tempted to escape. He tells us to leave the busyness of life
behind, come out to the wilderness and confess your sins. First from the prophet Isaiah,
and here again in the Gospel According to Mark, the voice that calls is in the wilderness.
So we are heading into the wilderness this Advent season. We are called to resist the
distractions of the secular season and turn to the work of Advent that requires us to look at
our fears and worries, our doubts and insecurities, our incompleteness and emptiness.
Because this is where God is coming to meet us - God is not coming into some perfect
world where nobody has any problems, but into our wilderness where we experience doubt
and guilt and pain and regret.
I once received a wedding invitation from a friend of Jonathan’s that listed all the
normal invitation stuff - date, time, who was getting married - and then at the bottom it
said “smart casual attire”. I was good to go until I read that line. I knew how to dress for a
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wedding - but now I’m doubting my instincts, because these people obviously don’t think I
know how to dress for a wedding or they wouldn’t have put that there. I have no idea what
smart casual means, so this has all become somewhat confusing for me. I wasn’t really
sure how to prepare. We are preparing ourselves all the time - for different occasions and
events; to go to school, to go to work, to meet new people, to help at a charity, to attend a
festive party. We think about what impression our clothes will make on others - are we
too dressed up? Not enough? Do these clothes this say I’m not taking this seriously
enough? Will this suit make me look like I’m too stiff and uptight?
So how does this man from the wilderness wearing camel’s hair (stinky and
probably not that flattering) and a leather belt advise us? He tells us that to prepare to
meet Jesus, we need to come into the wilderness and confess. Bare our souls in a way that
is vulnerable and risky and share our deepest regrets and worst moments. This isn’t some
meeting with God where we’ll bring our best made-up face with our sharpest clothes, lying
about how great we’re doing and how happy we are.
This is our time to acknowledge the pain in our own lives, the hurts that remain after
years of attempts at healing, the loneliness that we feel even when in a room full of people
who love us. This is our time to confess that we have more moments of weakness than
strength, we’ve hurt each other out of self-protection, we’ve ignore the needs of others
because we’ve been too needy ourselves, we keep others at bay because we’ve been hurt
before and won’t risk being hurt again.
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(Invitation to the Table)
We have come here this morning to prepare ourselves - to accept John’s invitation to
engage the wilderness and confess our shortcomings. And the table is set before us to do
just that. Christ’s table is set before us so we can remember that God comes to us - God
comes - not to the frivolity of busyness or to the decorating over the pains of the world;
God comes - not to the façade of well- presented appearances and forced smiles. But God
comes - to us - in the wilderness, with the bread of life and the cup of salvation. God
comes to us in our wilderness, our souls stripped bare of any shield or protection or
defenses. God comes to us and fill us with mercy and presence, with healing and peace.
So I invite each of you to join us at this table that has been prepared for you. This is
Christ’s table that has been set before us, and it is he who invites each of you to come and
be filled. Come and be filled with the bread of life and the cup of salvation.