Printer Friendly VersionHave you been out to see the Christmas lights yet? It is time
for the annual excursion, when you pack the car with people on a chilly December
evening, and drive around to all the neighborhoods and parks made beautiful
by cities or neighborhood associations with lights, lights, and more lights,
in a variety of colors and hues. There are bright reds, blues, and greens;
beautiful, pastel pinks and yellows; and of course the brilliant elegance
of white. As you drive along, there are elves and carolers, Santa and his
reindeer, a snowman or two, and maybe a tin soldier. The decorations are eye-catching,
breath-taking, and often amusingly original. One house I saw recently was
decked out in red and white lights, with a gigantic “OU” shining
in the yard. I am not sure what that had to do with Christmas, but it sure
looked good!
Of course, you will eventually see a nativity scene. There will
be baby Jesus in a manger. Mary and Joseph will hover reverently over the
holy child. Shepherds, three wise men, and a menagerie of animals will give
fullness to this sacred reminder amidst all the glitter.
There is always one person missing. Correct me if I am wrong,
for I imagine that collectively we have seen a tremendous amount of Christmas
displays. So if you have found him somewhere, please let me know. But have
you ever seen John the Baptist in any of the nativity scenes? He would be
this hairy, unkempt, wild-looking guy wearing camel’s hair. There would
be a piece of locust caught between his teeth and dried honey in his beard.
Louder than any Santa says, “Ho, ho, ho,” you would hear the automated
voice of John the Baptist screaming, “The kingdom of heaven is near.”
Has anyone noticed a figure like that in any of the nativity scenes that are
traditional to our celebration of Christmas?
I love receiving Christmas cards. I especially like Christmas
cards with good Christian artwork on the cover. The lion with the lamb; the
three wise men and the message, “Wise Men Still Seek Him;” the
Madonna and child; or the star piercing the darkness over stable and manger;
all are beautiful depictions of the Christmas story. Again, I am positive
that as a group we have all perused thousands of Christmas cards like these.
Yet I do not recall ever receiving one with John the Baptist preaching in
the desert. Do you? I can picture it in my mind: a card front marred by the
dead, barren wilderness of Judea out by the Jordan River, with this animated,
prophetic figure as the focal point. But I have never read one that even closely
resembles such a scene. Have you?
No? There is a reason for that, of course. John the Baptist
is totally inappropriate for the way we celebrate Christmas. Christmas is
about the birth of Jesus as Matthew and Luke report that holy night many years
ago. Mary, Joseph, angels, manger, shepherds, wise men; a child is born unto
us. Glory to God in the highest! That is what Christmas is all about. Jesus
is the reason for the season. So we honor sweet, little Jesus boy, get warm
fuzzies, and hug our family members. What does John the Baptist have do with
Christmas?
For Mark, everything. Instead of Bethlehem and choirs of angels,
he begins the story of Jesus’ coming with a prophet blaring and baptizing
in the wilderness of Judea. In so doing, he adds a new figure to the good
news about the incarnation and coming of the Christ. It is John the Baptist.
Throughout the centuries the church has recognized Mark’s unique contribution
through its observance of Advent in preparation for the celebration of Christmas.
Advent means “coming.” Two thousand years ago, in
a place called Bethlehem, lying in a manger, God came to us in the weakness
of a baby. God entered our world, put on our shoes, and lived, breathed, and
walked among us. He taught, loved, died on a cross, and rose again. God came
to us; Advent.
God does not come only “once upon a time,” and then
the story is over, “happily ever after.” It is not something the
Lord did “one and done.” Nor is the coming of God a once, and
then only again at the end of time, reality. God continually comes to us.
Every moment of every day, whether we realize it or not, whether we sense
it or not, whether we can see or hear or touch Him or not, God comes to us.
The presence of God bombards our lives, sweeping over us like waves in the
ocean. “Amen?”
The Scriptures give us image upon image of the Lord as the One
who comes. Coming to humanity is a reflection of the very nature of God. His
nature is love, and love comes, love gives, love can’t do anything else.
God is constantly coming to us. Our hope, that makes all the shadows in our
lives and the world lose their bite, is that He comes; has come, is coming,
and will come again; Advent.
Now, you see John the Baptist is all about one coming. He is
the forerunner, the one who comes before another to prepare the way. So when
we celebrate not just a birth long ago, with all the nice, beautiful things
we associate with Christmas, but celebrate Christmas as the coming of the
Christ to us, John the Baptist becomes an appropriate figure for that celebration.
Thus Mark starts not with Zechariah and Elizabeth or Mary and Joseph, but
with John the Baptist. Mark declares to us, “Do you want to understand
the good news? Do you want to know what God is doing? Well, it starts right
here with John the Baptist.”
Mark introduces John the Baptist and the coming of Jesus Christ
with a statement about beginnings. This is “the beginning of the gospel
(good news) about Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” Does the concept of
“beginning” ring a bell with you? The Scriptures talk about “beginnings”
in a variety of places; none more prominent than Genesis 1:1, “In the
beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” God spoke and there
was light; waved His hand and put the sun, moon, and stars in place; blew
the sea back and created dry land; and sculpted the living creatures into
existence. In the beginning, God created, and it was good.
Now it is the beginning, all over again. This is the beginning
of good news, about a whole new creation God is creating for you and for me.
It is not a creation that involves sand and sea. It is not a creation that
requires billions of tons of gas burning up in the sky or the right mixture
of oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide to sustain life. This new creation
doesn’t birth another universe. It births a Kingdom and new lives.
God is creating salvation, a restoration of everything sin has
stolen from us and broken in us, a remaking of who we are. He is creating
an opportunity for healing, forgiveness, and freedom. The Lord is making a
road for those far away to become sons and daughters. He is unleashing grace
that can redeem everything sin destroyed, making all things new.
This new creation is all wrapped up in this person called Jesus,
the Christ, the promised one. Christ is the one the prophets foretold and
about whom they kept saying, “God is up to something.” This is
the one through whom God changes everything. How we think about God changes.
No one has seen the Father, but God has made himself known in Christ (John
1:18). In Christ, God shows himself to be love, a love that heals, and forgives,
and sets the captives free! How we think about salvation changes. God doesn’t
just deliver and give victory over warriors like Goliath, but over the monstrosity
of sin that has towered over us for so long, leaving us trembling in its shadow!
All this and more; the new creation of God springs forth in the person of
Jesus. In Him all the promises of God—everything God has ever communicated
to a prophet, everything He has ever planted into the heart of a spiritual
leader—all the promises of God are “Yes!” Not maybe, not
possibly; God’s new creation is “Yes,” in Christ Jesus,
the Son of God.
In verses 9-11 we read that Jesus comes to John the Baptist
to be baptized. As He is baptized, there is a bodily indication that the Spirit
falls upon Jesus, descending on Him like a dove. Then a voice is heard from
heaven, saying, “You are my son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”
This is God’s chosen one! This is the very expression
of God bringing His salvation to humanity. Jesus is God’s mighty right
hand stretched out to make all things new. So much so that John the Baptist
will say, “After me will come one more powerful than I, the thongs of
whose sandals I am not worthy to untie . . . he will baptize you with the
Holy Spirit.”
A quick reading of Old Testament prophecy lets us know how awesome
this saving and transforming gift of the Holy Spirit is. God often directed
His people, showed them the way, or spoke to them through spiritual leaders,
wanting Israel to pay attention and follow where He would lead. As the Lord
would do that, there would be a few souls who would stand up and say, “Oh,
I’m going to follow God.” People like Joshua, who would say, “As
for me and my household, we will serve the Lord” (Joshua 24:15). In
contrast, the witness of the Old Testament portrays the majority of folks
saying, “Yeah, I’ll serve God,” while they served Baal as
well; or, “I’ll serve God,” and bring a blemished sacrifice;
or “I’ll serve God,” and rebel against His law and sin against
Him.
Needless to say, this was a problem. The prophets began to describe
the problem as a heart condition. The human heart is like a stone tablet,
chiseled with an iron tool and etched with a diamond point into the contours
of sin (Jeremiah 17:1). Israel blew it, humanity blows it, we blow it time
and time again, because sin is deeply written into the nature of who we have
become. We cannot get away from it, we cannot stop it, and we cannot change
it.
The prophets, however, didn’t leave humanity to languish
in despair over that piece of news. They offered a message of hope: “I
will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from
you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit
in you and move you to follow my laws” (Ezekiel 26:26-27). “I
will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts” (Jeremiah
31:33).
The prophets picture a day when the Lord will send his Holy
Spirit, and through the Holy Spirit reach into the beings of humanity and
grab that heart of stone etched with the diamond stylus of sin, and rip it
out! Then through the power of the Spirit, the Lord will give a new heart
of flesh. Upon that beautiful heart of flesh, God will write a new thing,
not with sin’s diamond stylus, but with His love. He will write His
very character upon the hearts of human beings, so we may be His people, and
He may be our God.
John declares, “This one coming will baptize you with
the Holy Spirit. He is the fulfillment of the prophetic message of hope. He
is God’s salvation enacted. He will literally change you from the inside
out! And He is coming! Jesus is coming to create a new beginning in human
hearts . . . a kingdom of God in this world.”
John was the one designated to prepare the way for the coming
of the Christ. Not that he had to make a way for God. God is about the business
of taking every mountain and making it low, seizing every valley and raising
it up. Wherever the road is rough—like Oklahoma roads with all their
pot holes—God makes level ground, smooth and plain. The Lord makes a
way for His salvation. John the Baptist is a part of that way. He is a prophesied,
designed-by-God means of getting the way ready. So here stands John the Baptist,
a voice of one calling in the desert, “Prepare the way for the Lord,
make straight paths for him.”
John is calling out to all who will hear, “The Lord is
coming. Let’s get ready. The Lord is on His way. He’s coming in
the fullness of His salvation. He’s coming in the form of the promised
Christ, the Son of God in whom all the promises of God are, “Yes!”
Everything that would be life for us, healing for us, restoration for us,
redemption and forgiveness for us, He is creating. The Holy Spirit that can
literally change us from the inside out, He is bringing. He is coming. Let’s
get ready to receive the gift of His coming.”
In order to receive the coming of Christ, John invites us to
get ready by coming out to the wilderness. That is the locale where John is
baptizing. That is arena in which he carries out his prophetic ministry. So
he invites us to get ready by journeying into the wilderness.
Wilderness is not simply a geographical concept in the Scriptures.
Wilderness represents an aspect of relationship. Wilderness is the place where
the people of God get back in touch with God. Deuteronomy 8:2-3 is the text
for this understanding,
“Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in
the desert these forty years, to humble you and test you . . . He humbled
you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with Manna, which neither
you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread
alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.”
The Lord takes His people into the wilderness so they may orient
their lives once more around His presence and mercy, revelation and law. The
Lord pushes His people toward the desert to unclench fingers and set prisoners
free. The Lord calls His people into the barrenness of wasteland, so worldly
distractions might fade into the rear view mirror. The promised land is good
and on the horizon, but cannot be experienced until we journey into the wilderness.
So John the Baptist calls us to get ready for the coming Christ by making
the trek out into the desert.
Brother and sister, if there has ever been a generation that
needs to hear and respond to John the Baptist’s call to the wilderness
it is ours, isn’t it? Diluted focus: we scurry here and there, conforming
to pressures, lacking the purpose to rise above the rat race. Deceived beliefs:
the media moguls have done it; convinced us abundant living can be measured
by how many presents are under the tree or how big the light display is outside
the window. Dangerous choices: we compromise with culture, inflict on ourselves
pathetic attempts at improvement, and chase after every voice that offers
us the promise of a better tomorrow. If we have any doubts about the diagnosis,
all we have to do is observe the way we celebrate Christmas these days, with
plenty of distractions, misplaced priorities, meaningless pursuits, and very
little Christ.
So John the Baptist invites us into the wilderness. If we are
going to receive Christ’s coming, we must be made ready by stepping
away from distractions and stepping out of the pace and pattern of Christmas
as it’s celebrated by our culture, and going out into the stripped-down
simplicity of the desert, where we learn again that we live not on bread but
on the word of the Lord; not on stuff, but on His presence.
The wilderness prepares us to be an alien people, different
from the world. A journey into the wilderness will change how we celebrate
Christmas. It will be a change for the better, but others may not understand
our decision to worship instead of party on Christmas Eve, or to choose simplicity
over pushing the limit in our planning and scheduling. To them, we might look
like some bug-eyed prophet, chewing on locust and honey. Christmas wouldn’t
be a box in which such changes would stay stored either. They would ripple
out into the way we lived all of life. We would become counter-cultural enigmas,
choosing the calm of His presence over scurry and noise, valuing relationships
over money, position or power, and taking the attitude of a servant over driving
to be in control. Christ is coming. John calls us into the wilderness to step
away from the temptation and distractions, and turn our focus on receiving
Him.
John the Baptist calls us into the wilderness to hear a message. It is a message
particularly suited to the wilderness. It is a message of repentance. No,
repentance is not typically what we think of when we think of Christmas. We
love to talk about hope and love and joy and peace. We tend to focus on exalted
concepts that make us feel good. Yet John the Baptist invites us into the
wilderness to consider a message of repentance. It is a message at the heart
of what it means to receive the coming Christ, who has come, and is coming,
and will come again. It is a message central to how we move from hopelessness
to hope. There can be no good news about Jesus Christ for us apart from the
message of repentance.
Repentance is one of those exalted religious words with has
a simple meaning. Repentance means we do an “about-face.” We turn
away and turn toward. We make a 180-degree change in direction.
When John the Baptist calls us to repentance, what are we turning
away from and turning toward? The writer of Hebrews gives us some help here.
Hebrews 12:1-2 tells us to “throw off everything that hinders and the
sin that so easily entangles,” and “to fix our eyes on Jesus.”
We “turn from” everything that hinders and from the sin that entangles,
and “turn toward” the Jesus who is coming to us. This is repentance.
Notice two categories come under the heading of “turn
away from.” First, there is everything that hinders. Throw it off! Does
it surprise you that the writer of Hebrews doesn’t have sin as primary
in the order of address? Instead the first order of repentance is to turn
from hindrances. Hindrances might be wonderful things, good things, “fine
for someone else” kind of things, but they create an obstacle in our
relationship with Christ. Therefore, we must throw them aside. A hindrance
might be the amount of television we watch, or another activity that eats
up so much of our time we fail to read the Scriptures or pray. Or it might
be our poor diet that weakens our health and limits our effectiveness as the
Lord’s instrument. Whatever it may be, are we willing to remove such
hindrances?
Throw “off everything that hinders and the sin that so
easily entangles.” The second category is sin. John the Baptist’s
preaching, with its call to repentance, focused more on this second emphasis.
Scripture is clear here: we will never receive Christ in the fullness of His
coming when we entertain sin, remaining entangled in its web. We must turn
away from envy, selfishness, unforgiveness, disobedience, promiscuity, and
every other act that violates the Creator’s intent that we love Him
and love others with all we are. All the wondrous things the Scriptures promise
to us, we will never receive until we have made this “about face.”
Until we do, the highway of holiness is too cluttered with roadblocks. There
is a dam cutting off the flow of the Spirit. The Lord desires to come to us,
but there is no access ramp, until we repent. So John the Baptist calls us
to repentance.
We need to hear his message well. You see, we can preach all
the wonderful messages we want to about Christmas, Jesus, and what He’s
done for us; but if we aren’t ready to receive—if we aren’t
prepared through repentance to receive—then we will go through this
holiday season and miss His coming. We will enjoy the lights and the greenery,
we’ll have a lot of fun with gifts, but we’ll miss Christ, who’s
coming to us. Brother and sister, I don’t know about you, but I don’t
want to miss Him.
Not only does John the Baptist call us into the wilderness to
hear a message, but he also calls us there to show us a lifestyle. When we
follow the progression of Mark’s gospel story we read that Jesus comes,
is baptized, the Spirit descends, and God’s voice speaks. Then the Holy
Spirit sends Jesus out into the wilderness, where temptation comes as the
evil one assaults. Jesus overcomes this bout with temptation and is ready
to call His first disciples and begin His public preaching ministry.
Right before He gets started, though, Mark tells us about John
the Baptist. Verse 14 states, “After John was put in prison, Jesus went
into Galilee.” Now Mark doesn’t tell anything more about what
is happening with John the Baptist for several chapters. There will be a time
and a place in Mark’s gospel (6:14-27) when we will find out John the
Baptist was arrested by Herod, why Herod had him arrested, what happened,
and how he lost his life. But at this point, we are given this simple statement
about the Baptist’s arrest. Seems almost out of place, doesn’t
it?
There is a purpose, however, for Mark mentioning this change
in the Baptist’s fortunes at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry.
Mark wants to remind us that from the beginning, death overshadowed the life
of John the Baptist; and in turn, the life of Jesus. These two live out their
lives in the shadow of the cross, embracing its sacrifice from the very beginning
of their ministries. The cross is not something Jesus does at the end of His
ministry. It is His way through His ministry. Sacrifice is not something John
the Baptist experiences at the hands of Herod. Sacrifice is the lifestyle
of the one who continually cried, “After me will come one more powerful
than I.”
Here is the example we discover in the wilderness. John invites
us out into the wilderness to join him, to join Jesus, in the way of the cross,
where we discover that we really save our lives when we lose them. The way
in which we realize that we find ourselves by denying ourselves. The way where
we learn that we gain purpose, meaning, and significance in our lives when
we stop trying to create our own way and receive the Lord’s will for
us, which is the way of Christ.
This is a driving motif in the entire gospel of Mark, which
climaxes as Jesus is going through the city of Jericho on His way to Jerusalem
(10:46-52). Jesus passes by the beggars that line the way of a typical Judean
city. There are men and women who are blind, lame, deformed, deaf and mute.
Their handicaps cause them to be shunned. Their only means of livelihood is
to hope for pity on the thoroughfares of the city.
As Jesus walks by, there is a man on the side of the road. We
don't really know his name; just that he was the son of Timaeus. We do know
this, however: we know he is blind. Blind Bartimaeus is what the people call
him. A rejected waste of flesh left to beg on the side of the road, about
whom no one even cared enough to know his name.
Somehow, blind Bartimaeus has received news about this Jesus
and His teachings and miracles. So when he figures out that the sudden ruckus
on the road is actually Jesus walking by, he makes a scene. He jumps up, shouting
“Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” The crowd tries to make
him hush. Jesus is an important man. He doesn’t have time to speak with
someone as insignificant as Bartimaeus. “Be quiet,” they say,
“You will disturb the master.” But Bartimaeus is not quiet. He
shouts all the more, “Jesus! Jesus! Son of David, have mercy on me.”
Jesus stops and calls blind Bartimaeus to him. “What do
you want me to do for you?” Jesus asks.
“I want to see!” Bartimaeus answers.
Jesus then speaks a new creation into Bartimaeus’ world,
“Go, your faith has healed you.” Immediately Bartimaeus can see.
He can see the blue sky and the white puffy clouds as they sail pass. He can
see the green grass, the beauty of the sun reflecting off the water, the birds
flying through the air. He can see!
What I want us to catch, however, is this. When Bartimaeus sees,
and Jesus turns to resume His trek to Jerusalem, Bartimaeus follows Jesus
“on the way,” as the Revised Standard Version translates. In doing
so, Bartimaeus shows he understands something we often miss. He can’t
just experience the grace of Jesus, receive His coming, and then let Him pass
by! He has to follow Jesus on the way, on the way to Jerusalem, on the way
through the heart of the city up to a hill called Golgotha, on the way to
the cross. That is Jesus’ way. Bartimaeus understands that experiencing
the coming of Jesus, receiving all God wants to pour out upon us, will only
be found in its fullness on the way with Christ. So he joins Christ on His
way. It is the example of John the Baptist, the one he models for us in the
wilderness. In his modeling he invites us to join him on the way with Christ
as well.
Let me ask a question, one I have asked myself this week. Jesus
is coming. He came 2,000 years ago as a babe in a manger. He is constantly
coming to us, in His love, in His grace, and in His mercy. All the promises
of God are, “Yes!” in Him. He will come again to bring all things
to fulfillment. Are we ready? Are we ready?
John the Baptist has been provided for us. He calls us out into
the wilderness to get away from all the clamor and distraction, so we might
focus on Christ. He asks us to respond to a message of repentance, to pray
about hindrances and sin and cry out, “Lord, deliver me from this! Forgive
me of that! Help me to overcome! I am putting these hindrances, those sins
aside. I am not going there anymore. Give me strength Lord!” He invites
us to follow him on Jesus’ way, the way of the cross; the way of giving
our lives away. John the Baptist enters the Christmas story to get us ready
for the coming Christ.
Are we ready? Are we ready? Or do we need to answer the call
of John the Baptist, join him in the wilderness, and get ready?
Jesus is coming. Are we ready?
