: Isaiah 40:1-11, Mark 1:1-8 Advent #2



: Isaiah 40:1-11, Mark 1:1-8 Advent #2

December 10, 2017

The Way We Were, Part 2

This Advent we are taking seriously the messages of hope, peace, love and joy in their original settings. The original settings have much to teach us, especially in today’s environment. To understand “the way we are,” it’s helpful to understand “the way we were.” Specifically how the Old Testament prophets influenced the New Testament hopes and dreams.

A couple of weeks ago I shared that I had put together a grant, a large one, that we make every year to the Baptist Healthcare Foundation. This is the massive fund that came from the sale of the Baptist Hospital in Atlanta. This grant helps fund our chaplaincy programs and it we provide a counseling service for Baptist pastors and their families.

Well this week I ran a document by the Baptist Foundation director, who is himself a trained and licensed marriage and family counselor. He’s a few years younger than me but we come from the same church generation and we were talking about worship services. He attends a church that has changed its “format” from traditional (like ours) to contemporary. It seems that it does not matter anymore if the sign out front says Baptist, Church of God, Wesleyan, or non-denominational the worship services all start out with at least, at least 30 minutes of singing, and not sit-down singing. Stand-up singing. I don’t know who wrote that rule but it’s 30 minutes of “manufactured enthusiasm” and in many places it’s the whole first hour. That’s “first” hour.

Anyway, this man has been around. He travels internationally and he was saying to me that what all of us know—most of the magnificent cathedrals everyone goes to see in France, Germany, Austria, Great Britain, Ireland, most of them are empty on Sunday mornings. The worship service, if there is one, is mostly empty. The places where most of our families once lived are now a “post-Christian, post-worship” world. . . It is the opinion of this director that we are just a generation or two behind Western Europe.

Western culture, in the opinion of some, is moving on to worship “other gods.” We can name some:

· The god of “economics” is big in America. The purpose of life is to become wealthy. A small percentage of people actually get there—some

by hard work; some by luck; some by “resourcefulness,” some by family inheritance. And there are many, many more who want to be there but just can’t make it.

I told you a while back about my cousin who lived, as far as we can tell, as a recluse. Since he worked as a night watchman in warehouse, he literally read all night. He knew literature. He knew pop culture. He knew history. One day, in his latter 50’s, he was one of those who mysteriously took his own life. In the next weeks as his brother, my other cousin, was cleaning out his apartment, he found it stacked with boxes & boxes of books, manuals, study guides—all about how to make a fortune. He spent literally a small fortune chasing the god of wealth.

· This is not a stewardship focus, but I have to say, some of the nicest people I know have assets. They are the ones who share and share significantly. However, it is also becoming clear that we have a generation of wealthy people who are amassing huge sums and are using their wealth to get more. One way is funding politicians, who have to constantly raise money. This is not new. What is new is the size of the wealth which begins to control the politicians. The word for this process is “oligarchy.” For generations Russia and Eastern Europe have been run by oligarchs, a few wealthy families who call the shots. For the first time in my lifetime, the term “oligarchy” is being used for the United States—government by and for the wealthy.

And you’re saying to me, “Tom, that’s politics. And that has nothing to do with our religious faith.” And the response to that is the prophet Isaiah. For the first 39 chapters the prophet is all over the Israelites worship of power. They worshipped money; they worshipped success. Deep in these pages are references to the wisdom of the wise dying, and discernment being hidden. Plans for the country were being made in secret. Alliances with foreign countries and their values were diluting Israel’s very core. The leadership of the country was selling out the country! Listen to Isaiah’s sarcasm:

Ha! You who hide a plan too deep for the LORD, whose deeds are in the dark, and who say, “Who sees us? Who knows us?” You turn things upside down! Shall the potter be regarded as the clay? Shall the thing made say of its maker, “He did not make me”; or the thing formed say of the one who formed it, “He has no understanding”? (29:15-16)

· And sure enough, the whole country got eaten alive, swallowed up by one of the super powers they were playing around with. They became refugees in a foreign land.

· In the reading for today the refugees get to walk out of captivity. For the first time in two generations, they are walking in the sunshine of freedom. They are forgiven, they are free. They are coming home, coming through the wilderness.

“Prepare the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. Then the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”

· They are coming out of the wilderness. And when they get back, they are going to the highest mountain and shouting NOT “Here is your wealth, here is your power” but instead, “Here is your God.” And the image is a shepherd feeding his flock, gathering the lambs in his arms, gently leading the mother sheep. (40:10-11)

Coming out of the Old Testament & the wilderness, that’s the way we were. Now, in the opening of Mark’s gospel, once again there are oligarchs in Israel. The faith of the temple is overshadowed by the politicians, the smell of old power contaminating every burnt offering, and Herod has his hand on the throat of Israel. Mark says the coming, the advent of Jesus Christ began not in the temple, not in the customary seats of power, but the coming of Jesus began. . . out in the wilderness.

Straight out of the Old Testament like the prophet Isaiah, John the Baptist is in the wilderness, standing with his feet in the mud. "Repent. Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,' "

· The struggle is coming. It’s going to be with Satan, the tempter, who wants us to worship, what else?—Money, power, prestige. Satan is going to focus on providing everything for us. Everything but God, to whom we really belong.

· The struggle is going to be with the Roman Empire—politics, politicians. Mostly men who are interested in . . . money, power, prestige.

So the call is to deal with the valleys, hills, crooked roads, rough places. They have to be made straight and level. This is Mark’s gospel about the coming of Jesus—notice that there is no angel, no Zachariah and Elizbeth. No Holy Spirit appearing, no annunciation. There is no Joseph, no Mary. No Bethlehem. No baby in the manger, no inn. There is nothing of the infancy narratives we so love at Christmas. It’s hard to imagine Christmas without any of this and in fact the church can’t do it.

But we can do it with Mark . . We can do it here in Advent. John the Baptist appears to confront everybody, everybody. “Wake up. What power are you serving? What powers are controlling your life—worry? Funding?

· We have a narcotic power loose in America. In parts of the country (both rich and impoverished) drugs are in absolute control. Every family has a connection with somebody who is living in addiction-hell.

· We have a bullying power loose & it’s not just with kids. It’s with adults. On May 12, 2011 Matt Peters finished writing a four-page letter to his wife, left it where she would eventually find it in his workshop, and went out that evening to his fields. He had been agitated, worried. When it got dark Jennie found the letter and called 911. A rescue crew went out to the pasture, found the truck along with Matt’s body.

Matt’s an American small farmer. The quiet crisis is that American farmers are killing themselves at twice the rate of American soldiers. According to the CDC, farmers, ranchers, farm laborers, timber and fishing people—people who produce the basics we consume--are the most likely of all people to take their own lives. There are many, many reasons but these are reasonable, good, hard-working people who often cannot afford to buy the food they produce, see a doctor, or take a day off. More and more their lives are controlled not just by the weather but by politicians, banks, and markets who do not care. Like the American Indians, they have been promised but get nothing. They don’t have pensions, health care, or benefits. And what they have is being slowly taken away.

John the Baptist shows up, out in the country. Living off the land, he’s got his eyesight adjusted. “If you see something, say something.”

“Just as Isaiah said, ‘The paths aren’t straight. How come?

‘Repent—speak up. Say something. Do something today that changes things.’ . . . THIS is the coming of the Lord.”

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