Advent 2, Year B
Isaiah 40:1-11; 2 Peter 3:8-15a; Mark 1:1-8
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I.
The church has made a good deal of changes in the past fifty years. I often wonder to what effect.
For instance, how many churches redecorated their sanctuaries, removing elaborate stone reredos and pulling the altar out so it could be turned around to “face the people.”
Quite a few.
The living memory of when these changes were made is starting to fade. You might not even think about it, except when you come across an old photograph.
Likewise, with the prayer book. We moved from the 1928 to the 1979, from Morning Prayer most Sundays to Holy Communion. Some churches use Rite 2 for most of the year, but switch to Rite 1 during Advent and Lent.
But again, I ask, to what effect?
In speaking with parishioners over the years, not one has told me about that great day in the life of the parish when we “moved the altar” or “switched to the ‘79.”
Instead, they are more likely to tell me how much they enjoy coffee hour, or how their children served as acolytes.
In other words, they seem indifferent to the “big changes” often foisted on them by clergy wanting to “make their mark.”
II.
Today’s gospel reading from Mark is about making a change with lasting effect.
Mark 1:4 reads:
“John appeared, baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”
Repentance is the foundational act in the life of a Christian.
It is the first change that needs to be made, and, if done with a sincere heart, will set up a cascading effect of change in the lives believers and appear in the histories of the churches they attend.
In light of something as weighty as repentance of one’s sins I am hard pressed to see how moving the altar or changing the prayer book compares.
I suspect, however, that it is easier to rearrange the church furnishings and to upend the timeworn rituals of worship than it is to admit that you are a sinner, in need of God’s forgiveness, or that we, as a church, have taken a wrong turn.
Sincere repentance requires honesty. Superficial changes do not force us to be honest with ourselves and each other.
III.
I have to admit that I am somewhat of a student of the changes made in the church these past decades. I’ve studied their causes and observed their effects. Mostly, I’ve been critical of them. I’ve even pledged to try to undo the worst of them.
Repentance certainly means to recognize that one has made a wrong turn, to stop heading in the wrong direction, and start back to the fork in the road where things started to go wrong.
C.S. Lewis wrote:
“We all want progress, but if you’re on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.”
In that sense, count me a progressive!
However, our repentance is often short-lived. That’s one reason why our prayerbook has us confessing every week, or twice a day if you pray the Daily Office.
It’s short-lived because we don’t see the results we want to see. That’s one reason repentance has to be sincere and not superficial. Superficial repentance gives up when it doesn’t get quick results.
Put a day or two’s worth of back-breaking effort in and you can turn that stone altar around. Take an afternoon and you can swap out one set of prayerbooks or hymnals for another.
But I think every church that’s done that — and it is most — never saw the results they wanted.
Has anyone joined the church just because the altar faces a particular direction? (People have certainly left.)
If we thought that all the outward changes the church has made in the past 50 years were going to revitalize and grow it, then I think the joke is on us.
If we get discouraged when we make superficial changes to the church, how much more discouraged do we get when God asks us to make the deep, heart-rending changes?
IV.
Yet we shouldn’t be discouraged.
We shouldn’t be discouraged because John’s “baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” is the one change that actually gets results, and, moreover, its success is not dependent on us.
The baptism of repentance is the work of God.
Mark’s Gospel and Isaiah’s prophecy are charged with the excitement that God is on the move.
From Isaiah:
“A voice cries:
In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord;
make straight in the desert a highway for our God.”
Which Mark then picks up:
“John appeared, baptizing in the wilderness… And all the country of Judea and all Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.”
Not only is God on the move, but so are His people. They are done making superficial changes to their lives and their churches, and are finally about the serious business of “confessing their sins.”
And if that is not enough, John the Baptist tantalizes them, exciting their anticipation, saying that:
“After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
Here, finally, is Good News!
Peter writes:
“Do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.”
Here, at last, is that day: not when we finally get up and decide to do something superficial in our lives, or to our church buildings, but when God comes down and rips that old heart of stone from the tomb that was our dead flesh and baptizes us — breathing His own Spirit into new hearts — hearts that yearn only for Him just as they beat only because of Him.
V.
Once God makes this change to our hearts we go back to waiting.
Peter continues:
“The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.”
Part of the mystery of the time that we are living in — the time between the first and second coming of Jesus Christ — is that some of us get this heart transplant before others.
The timing of conversion, of repentance and baptism, is a matter between each individual soul and God.
It’s not for the Church to rush it. It’s not for a preacher to force it.
God is not late or early. God is always on time. (After all, He created time.)
What we are called to do during this waiting period is to, as Peter tells us, “be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace.”
The call to holiness is ever present in the life of a Christian and with holiness comes the promise of peace.
Are you not at peace? Examine your life. What sins have you committed that you have not confessed?
What dark alley have you turned down and now find yourself in the company of rats and stepping in filth?
Turn around!
That light you see from the far off streetlamp is the light of the Gospel calling you back to Jesus.
Holiness! Without spot or blemish! This is how you need to be found when Christ comes.
Read and re-read the Ten Commandments. The prayer-book conveniently prints them before the Communion service.
Do you take the Lord’s name in vain? Do you curse? Do you miss church? Do you worship anyone or anything other than God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit?
Do you steal? Do you have sex outside of marriage?
Have you neglected your family?
Have you murdered, including the unborn, as well as those whom you “murder” with the hate that you have in your heart?
Have you wanted what is not yours because it has not pleased God to give it to you?
If yes, then turn around!
Be holy. Be without spot or blemish.
Use this season of advent — a season that lasts the whole span of your natural life (or until Jesus returns) — use it well.
Use it as the Lord intends it to be used, “that all should reach repentance.”
Use it before He comes again, like a thief, to rob you of all to which you cling and that does not belong in (because it can never be a part of) the kingdom of God.
Jesus tells us in Revelation 22:14-15:
“Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates. Outside are the dogs and sorcerers and the sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.”
John announces this second Sunday of Advent that now is the time to wash our robes and to let God’s Spirit make the changes that need to be made in our lives and to our churches. Amen.
Questions for reflection and discussion:
1. What is the problem with making big, if only superficial changes, to the church?
2. Repentance is the ____________ act in the life of a Christian.
3. Explain why it is easier to make superficial changes than to admit you are a sinner.
4. Repentance is the hallmark of a true ____________.
5. Explain the difference between sincere and superficial repentance.
6. God asks us to make the____________, ____________ changes.
7. John’s “baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” gets results because its ____________ is not dependent on us.
8. God’s people show that they are on the move when they get serious about confessing their ____________.”
9. Explain what happens when we are baptized with the Holy Spirit.
10. After we are baptized with the Holy Spirit we go back to ____________.
11. What are we to do during this time of waiting?
12. What can do you if you are not at peace?
Parents and Grandparents, you are responsible to apply God’s Word to your children’s lives. Here is some help. Young Children – draw a picture about something you hear during the sermon. Explain your picture(s) to your parents or the minister after church. Older Children – Do one or both of the following: 1) Count how many times the word repent (or repentance) is mentioned. 2) Discuss with your parents why it can be hard to own up to something you should not have done.
(1) they leave no lasting change in people’s lives; (2) foundational; (3) superficial changes do not force us to be honest with ourselves and each other; (4) progressive; (5) superficial repentance gives up when it doesn’t get quick results; (6) deep, heart rending; (7) success; (8) sins; (9) God gives us a new heart that yearns and beats for Him; (10) waiting; (11) we are to grow in holiness; (12) examine your life by asking, “What sins have I committed that I have not confessed?”
No More Wreckovating