December 4, 2011 – Isaiah 40:1-11; Mark 1:1-8
Isaiah 40:1-11; Mark 1:1-8
Just the Beginning
Second Sunday of Advent – December 4, 2011
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
The beginning of the good news of Jesus the Messiah, son of God.
“The good news of Jesus.” “Of” is a tricky word in English. And it is in Greek too.
This is how Mark’s Gospel begins, so presumably its important: but what does it mean?
Does it mean the good news Jesus speaks? Or does it mean the good news that is Jesus?
Does it means the good news Jesus proclaims? Or the good news Jesus embodies?
The world, as we know, is divided into two kinds of people:
Those who get a kick out of grammar and those who hate it.
For those of you who get a kick out of it, the question is:
Are we dealing with a subjective genitive or objective genitive?
In Greek, as in English, you can’t tell. You have to figure it out.
As I see your eyes beginning to glaze over, here’s an example for you.
There’s this children’s medical clinic on Portage not far from where I live.
It claims to specialize in “diseases of children.”
Now, the question you have as a parent is this:
Does the sign refer to diseases as something that children have (subjective genitive)?
Or does the sign refer to something that children are:
that children are themselves diseases, that childhood is a disease (objective genitive) that,
you know, they just have to grow out of?
The question for us this morning is important: what is the good news? The gospel?
Is it something proclaimed (subjective genitive)? Or something embodied (objective genitive)?
Mark probably wants us to understand it both ways.
Certainly, it is good news that God’s love and concern for this world is being fully embodied in
a particular person in a particular place: in Jesus of Nazareth.
But it’s also good news to proclaim that God is doing something, is on the move,
is working to restore people’s lives from illness and hunger and addictive and
sinfulness and meaninglessness and death: in other words, the proclaiming that
God’s reign is breaking into this world is also in itself good news.
The good news, the gospel, is both embodied and proclaimed.
It’s important to get our heads around this at the beginning of Mark’s Gospel,
at the beginning of this church year when we’ll read through all of Mark’s Gospel,
or else we won’t really get where he’s coming from and
we’ll miss the point of everything he wrote.
It’s good to wrestle with this question today: what is the good news, or in Latin, “gospel,”
or in Greek “evangelion”: evangel?
On the Christian Century website, the editors have had a great thing recently as
they have asked leading Christian thinkers to state the gospel, the good news,
In seven words or less. This is helpful. Here’s a little sampling:
Divinely persistent, God really loves us. (Donald Shriver)
In Christ, God’s “yes” defeats our “no.” (Beverly Gaventa)
Here’s one to get us thinking from poet and teacher Scott Cairns:
Christ’s humanity occasions our divinity.
In other words, the good news is that God becomes human so that we can become godly.
He adds, According to both Irenaus and Athanasios, God became like us so that we might become like God. . . . The consensus of the church fathers and mothers is that the purpose of Christ’s coming is to endow us with life, divine life.
(All at http://www.christiancentury.org/category/keywords/whats-gospel-seven-words)
Mark writes about a beginning of this good news in Jesus.
In Mark, John proclaims this new beginning, a new beginning that is embodied in Jesus.
John proclaims that in Jesus God is beginning to do something long promised by
Isaiah this morning: God is finally coming, making a way into this world by
valleys being lifted up and mountains being made low.
The good news happens when
God lifts up low things and levels big high things, Isaiah proclaimed,
And its beginning to happen in Jesus, says John.
I met a guy from the Vineyard Church in North Winnipeg a few weeks ago who
told me about a ministry that his congregation started called “Flatlanders Inn.”
Strange name. He said the ministry was named for the verse we read in Isaiah this morning:
Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low.
It’s a ministry to the vulnerable of the North End with 32 beds.
It provides a safe living space for shelter and healing and spiritual growth,
especially for those who at risk of homelessness.
The guy explained the name further: As for valleys being lifted up, we believe that everyone has gifts to share, but that sometimes the gifts of the vulnerable have been buried and need to be lifted up. At Flatlanders Inn we ask our guests not only what they need, but what they can give to the community. This is a way of lifting up their God-given gifts. Then, too, we recognize that there are things that get in the way of relationships, mountains and hills that have to be taken down, especially things like attitudes and inequalities.
I was pretty impressed listening to this: here was good news not only being proclaimed,
but embodied . . . at the same time.
Kinda like Jesus.
Maybe another way of saying this is that in Jesus, God began to walk the talk in a new and
very significant way: that is good news.
In Jesus, God bodily, personally loves us: feeds us, forgives us, embraces us, weeps with us,
heals us, advocates for us, dies for us and with us, raises us to new life.
But this good news: this is just the beginning.
Now there’s one more thing you need to know about this first sentence in Mark’s Gospel:
it’s not a complete sentence:
The beginning of the good news of Jesus the Messiah, son of God..
I know, I know: more grammar? But I think it’s important.
I don’t think it’s just that Mark, you know, missed that day at school when they talked about
writing in complete sentences: he’s making a point.
His sentence is, in itself, just a beginning: it’s incomplete.
The good news can’t be completed or stopped with a period.
See, Mark’s point I think is that that first sentence is not only the beginning of the good news.
John’s proclamation is not only the beginning of the good news.
The first half of Mark’s Gospel where Jesus teaches and heals and feeds and forgives is not
only the beginning of the good news.
In a way – the whole of Mark’s Gospel is actually just the beginning of
the Good News of what God is doing.
Do ya’ll remember a sermon I preached about 3 and half years ago? Of course you do. . . .
It was on Easter Sunday, and we read the very last sentences of Mark’s Gospel that day.
The women went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.
Okay: it’s weird. It’s a strange enough ending for a Gospel as it is,
except that in Greek, it’s another incomplete sentence!
This is what Mark actually writes at the very end of the Gospel for the big finish:
Nothing they said to anyone, afraid they were for . . .
See I think his point is that the story is not over with the end of his Gospel.
It is “to be continued. . .”
Mark’s Gospel is itself just the beginning of something.
In a way, The Beginning of the Good News of Jesus the Messiah is simply
the title of a Gospel that is just that: a beginning of a story that is not over,
a story that is continued through the followers of Jesus . . . through you.
The rabbis of old had a saying: All beginnings are difficult. All beginnings are difficult.
Well, we know that. You forget this when you get older because you stop trying new things.
When I took up the bass guitar at the age of 39 or whatever, it was hard,
hard learning something new.
Jesus knows this: it’s hard to begin this thing God has entrusted him with: it’s a lot of work,
it requires sacrifice, it requires generosity, love will entail dying on a cross.
All beginnings are hard.
I spoke with a guy my age this week who realized a few years ago that the work he was in
was suffocating him, was meaningless to him, was not using his god-given gifts to
really help and care for the people around him, even though it paid well.
It was not what God was calling him to do: God was calling him to a new beginning.
So he made a new beginning.
At the age of 39, he quit his job, went to school, and now, finally, is working with people,
helping people, and is feeling like he’s doing the thing God intended him to do.
But it was hard. Going back to school. Going through uncertainty. Being willing to risk.
All beginnings are hard.
Beginning Flatlanders Inn was hard you can be sure of that.
Our new members are making a new beginning today: and you know, it’s hard.
Hard to find your place in this story of God that is continuing to unfold at FLC.
I’m inviting you all to make it easier for them by helping them find their place in this story.
God knows all beginnings are hard. But in Jesus, beginnings are full of promise.
A new beginning is possible for you. A new beginning is possible for us.
Because everything Jesus said and did and embodies?
that was just the beginning of some very good news for the world.
That was just the beginning of a story that is now continued in and embodied by you.
You are the continuation of the good news of God’s great love for this world.
In the way you treat one another, in the way you respect one another,
in your hospitality to strangers, in your mission and outreach work in this congregation,
in your workplaces, and in your homes:
you are the continuation of God’s beginning in Jesus the Messiah.
For the good news really is that God became like us so we could become like God:
loving, strong and wise: we truly are Christ’s body on earth now.
I’m done proclaiming this good news to you now: in a few minutes it will be embodied for you
in Holy Communion: even our worship is both proclaimed – the Word part of the service
– and embodied – the Meal part of the service.
So may we both proclaim the good news of God’s love for the world;
and embody the good news of God’s love for the world. And together let us say, “Amen.
Pastor Michael Kurtz
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