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I speak in the name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

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Amen.

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Please be seated.

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So on this second Sunday in Advent, on this second Sunday in our new church year, we finally

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get to start at the beginning of the story.

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On the first Sunday of Advent, we actually start at the end with the reminder that God

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will come again, the promises of God to come and be with us once more at the end of all

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things because after all, what better time is there to talk about the second coming of

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Christ than at His first?

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But the second Sunday of Advent then serves as a reminder that God is constantly faithful

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to us even if we are not constantly faithful to God.

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God has promised from the moment of the fall and the Garden of Eden that God would continue

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to work with us, to love us, to lift us up and call us out of our brokenness and continue

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redeeming us and the world around us.

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The beginning of Mark's Gospel is very much unlike the other three.

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Mark's Gospel sets us right down in the story.

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There is no birth narrative.

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There is no history.

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There is very little context.

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There's no genealogy of Jesus tying him to the house of David.

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There's no poetic scripture passages tying Jesus to God's beginningless and endless

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reign.

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There's no shepherd.

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There are no wise men.

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There are no angels.

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Not even a mention of Joseph's gentle but unshakable faith in God, not even an account

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of Mary's wondrous and inspiring courage in saying yes to God.

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In Mark, in the First Evangelist, our first Gospel, we have the first attempt to write

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down what before then had only been spread by word of mouth.

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Mark just skips all of the beginning and starts with Jesus' ministry.

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But make no mistake that Mark's Gospel is as poignant as it is short.

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It is an absolutely packed 16 chapters.

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Mark makes everything that he writes mean something.

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The opening sentence of Mark is relatively short, just like the rest of his Gospel,

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but it is brimming with key theological and narrative ingredients.

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His first words, the beginning, harken back to Genesis and the cleus, the reader into

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the fact that something new is happening.

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Just as God moved over the earth in the beginning of time and the beginning of creation, God

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even now with the birth of Jesus and with the astounding events of his life is bringing

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new things into existence.

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In this story, God is bringing new grace, new hope, new love, new mercy into the world

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to a wayward people still searching for our way home.

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Mark is writing at a time of war, which will sound familiar to all of us.

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The temple, the center of Jewish life and first century Jerusalem has been destroyed

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by the Roman government.

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People are afraid.

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They're afraid for their livelihoods, for their safety, for their loved ones, for their

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own lives.

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Home remains a constant force, a danger against which the people are powerless.

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Their homes, their cities, their communities, even their places of worship are not safe.

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War and violence are persistent threats in the background, the lens through which the

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people are living their lives.

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And it is into this dark time that Mark has the audacity to write this story down and to

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call it good news, to call it gospel.

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Finally, Mark's concluding sentence, his opening sentence concludes with a fantastic claim that

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he will spend the rest of his gospel proving that Jesus Christ is the anointed one, the

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long awaited and long promised Messiah coming to redeem the world.

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And that's all just the first sentence.

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Mark's gospel is a mastery of storytelling.

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It is compelling.

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It drives the reader deeper and deeper into the text, into a greater understanding of

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who Jesus is.

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And we, like those first blessed readers, cannot come away from this book unchanged.

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Nothing Mark promises us can compare to the adventure that we embark on when we encounter

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the strange and fantastic events that Mark lays out in his short story.

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So Mark makes no mention of the birth of Jesus, Mark's gospel does give us good material for

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Advent in the story of John the Baptist.

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As is characteristic of Mark, John, a major prophet, an integral part of understanding

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who Jesus is.

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A prophet who has been prophesied for centuries only has seven verses to share his story.

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That's it.

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Seven short verses to share his life altering message of who Jesus is.

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John the Baptist will only reappear in chapter six of Mark's gospel with an account of his

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death.

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But in these short verses, Mark tells us that one who is great, John tells us that one who

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is greater than he is is coming into the world.

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Mark wastes no time in telling us that even though Jerusalem has been without a prophet

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for centuries, here is one now in John the Baptist, claiming that even greater things

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are happening, that God is drawing even nearer still to the people that God loves.

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John uses his ministry in his life to point past himself to the ministry and life of Jesus.

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John and his ministry of baptism and his teaching of repentance never allows the focus to slip

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from God to himself.

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But instead, John uses his gifts, his voice, his calling to help bring Jesus into better

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focus for the people he encounters.

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John's ministry, like all of ours, will pale in comparison to the one in whose name we

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minister.

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We, like John, are unworthy to call ourselves ministers in the same vein as Christ, and yet

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Christ calls us into this very ministry all the same.

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It is so very fitting that on today's, this Sunday, when John the Baptist's voice still

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rings in our ears all these years later, we have a baptism today.

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When John's prophecy and ministry of pointing to Jesus takes center stage, when we get a

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better picture of who we are supposed to be, what we take on when we say our own baptismal

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covenant is clear and takes a center picture today, and the day when we get to invite someone

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else to join us in our ministries.

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Through John, we understand Jesus better, but we also understand ourselves better.

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We are to be voices of love, voices of light in a dark world.

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We are to be tellers of God's nearness.

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We are to be voices crying out, declaring that even now God is always breaking into the

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world and creating new things.

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God is always breaking into our own lives, our own hearts and souls and making things

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new.

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Like John the Baptist, our lives and our actions, our stories, our whole selves should be spent

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pointing to Jesus and to the marvelous deeds that Jesus is doing even now.

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At our own baptism, this is the work that we promise to partake in.

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Christ is the ministry that we point to.

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Christ is the good news, the gospel that we are always invited to share.

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At each subsequent baptism that we will attend over the course of our lives, we have the

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joy of remembering our own promises and of celebrating with those who are choosing to

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live into these promises with us.

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On this second Sunday in Advent, we remember and celebrate the life and ministry of John

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the Baptist, the voice in the wilderness, daring us to acknowledge the closeness of

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God, reminding us that all of our ministries are supposed to be spent pointing past ourselves

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to Jesus as we work to share the joyous message of our salvation and to remind the world,

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the whole world of its status as beloved members of God's family.

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John reminds us to turn to God in all things and that this baptism and every baptism we

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will be fortunate enough to attend, we get the chance to say yes to God all over again.

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Amen.