Mark 1:1 - 8
The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah, as it is written in Isaiah the prophet:
“I will send my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way”—
“a voice of one calling in the wilderness,
‘Prepare the way for the Lord,
make straight paths for him.’”
And so John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River. John wore clothing made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. And this was his message: “After me comes the one more powerful than I, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
According to Mark's Gospel, the beginning of the Good News about Jesus Christ is not Jesus, but John.
John lived into the words of Isaiah that a messenger would come to "prepare the way" for God's anointed. I have the sense -- slightly tongue-in-cheek, I'll admit -- that John came to do the dirty work, to talk about sin and repentance and confession in order for Jesus-meek-and-mild to come in love and healing.
I don't totally believe that, yet, I do affirm how difficult it can be to talk about sin and repentance and confession. I've never been able to do that well, to preach to others about their sinfulness without coming to a stark realization of my own. I sense that many of us are like that.
To be sure, I've been around some folks in my history who LOVE to talk about sin, who've found it energizing to blast other people for their "badness." Frankly, their eagerness to talk about sin and to make people feel bad in order to feel good seemed more than a little perverted to me.
Yet, confession and the intentional openness needed to receive forgiveness stand as the bedrock spiritual practices of any honest and growing life.
I find it so easy to be self-deceived, to not see myself as I truly am. I live in a cloud of illusion that I am either worse or better than I truly am. In confession, I simply say, "God, this is who I am. . . ." I tell the truth about myself. I present myself just as I am, in both my gifts and my fault, in my strengths and my weaknesses.
With God there is no need to clean up, dress up, or pretty up as I would to meet the Queen. I simply come just as I am. And I speak just who I am to God. In the coming and the speaking, an honesty arises that opens me to mercy, the generosity of God.
John didn't have to be a compelling preacher or a convicting speaker in order to get a response in the desert. He somehow had to convince the people to be honest about themselves in preparing for the anointed one.
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