First Sunday of Lent
March 1, 2009
 
 
  Fourth Sunday of Lent
March 22, 2009
 

Fifth Sunday of Lent
March 29, 2009
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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March 1, 2009--First Sunday of Lent

Lectionary Texts: Genesis 9:8-17; Psalm 25:1-10; 1 Peter 3:18-22; Mark 1:9-15

Sermon Text: Mark 1:9-15

Ladies and Gentlemen, Introducing Your New King!

I was born and bred in the Pacific Northwest. A place where most everyone recycles, owns a GORE-TEX coat, and knows the difference between a latte and an Americano. For graduate school, however, I decided to move beyond what was comfortable and attend Duke Divinity School in Durham, North Carolina. This Pacific Northwestern girl threw her Birkenstocks and anything else that would fit into the trunk and headed south.

It was an interesting journey to say the least. For starters, I never realized how long it takes to drive through Nebraska! That is a lot of corn. We are blessed to live in a beautiful country and all the different parts of it are unique and amazing--some more unique than amazing.

I sensed a definite shift when we started to enter the land of Dixie. I will never forget how I knew I was in the south. My dad and I had stopped at a convenience store and the woman behind the counter called me “sweetie.” If someone had called me sweetie in the Pacific Northwest I might have pressed charges, but this term of endearment in the southern drawl thrilled me. I ran to the car and told my father we had arrived. I felt as though we were in an episode of the Dukes of Hazard and it was all I could do to not crawl through the window rather than opening the door of the car!

Beyond the terms of endearment, it was a big transition for me to move from my Northwestern home to the heart of the South. I had not realized, when I chose Duke, that the place it was in would have the effect on me that it did. It was one of the surprise blessings that God provided. It was so much fun to learn more about a new and different place; experience a different kind of life that I was used to.

There were many things that amazed me about Southern culture. For the most part I enjoyed the differences and was an avid student when it came to particularities of Southern speech and cuisine (especially hush puppies!). There were a few things that befuddled me however. One was the fact that women rarely left the house without getting gussied up (high heels and make up were staples of the Southern women’s attire). Another was a tradition that I had assumed was defunct. Although I could not imagine a for “reals” debutante ball, I found that they still exist albeit most often amongst the upper middle to upper class.

The debutante ball is the moment where a young woman is introduced into society. It is the rite of passage for when she goes from child to adult. The ball is a celebration of who the young lady has become and her transition into womanhood.

It blew my mind that there were still these opportunities for teenage girls to wear formal dresses and be introduced into formal society. The closest thing I had to this was a welcome to the youth group party where we were led to the slaughter in a dodge ball tournament--the new seventh graders against the senior high. I think I still--even 14 years later--have the imprint of a red rubber ball on my arm in certain light.

But, as odd as it may seem in 2009, there is something special about taking an opportunity to recognize a young person for what they have become and let the entire community know who they are. I am not going to institute debutante balls at church or anything, but is a great concept to introduce the young person to the world like this, “everybody, this is the young person--expect great things; young person, this is everybody--go get ‘em.” The act of doing this reminds the young person who they are and where they come from; their relationship with the community is an important one.

Our passage in Mark this morning is a description of Christ’s formal introduction to the community. It is Jesus’ debutante ball as Messiah where His cousin, the prophet, and His Father, Almighty God, are the keynote speakers. He did not wear a fancy outfit, but He is adorned with power from on high in the form of a dove. The event was most likely not catered and if it was the menu would have consisted of little more than locust and honey. But, regardless of the lack of royal charms, it was the moment where the waiting world was introduced to the King.

The heavens ripped open and God spoke to Jesus so that all could hear. “You are my Son, I love you, I am so proud of you.” What a beautiful Father-Son moment, huh? It brings tears to my eyes to think of what that must have felt like for Jesus to be recognized like that. It feels so good to have our parents tell us they love us and they are proud of us. What must the full weight of God’s perfect love felt like to Jesus that day What must it have felt like to have the Spirit envelop Him even as He is coming up out of the waters of baptism. Amazing.

So, if we were to guess, we would say that the rest of the story is that after this amazing time of being introduced to the world as the Messiah from God himself, Jesus rides into the sunset with a crown and takes everything by storm, right? Isn’t that how the story should go according to our sensibilities? If He is crowned Lord, then He should be treated as such, respected as such, given a cushy place from whence to rule . . . .

But that is not what happens here. Our text this morning reads that “at once” the Spirit sent Him out into the desert where He spent forty days being tempted by Satan. While He was in the desert being tempted by Satan, He was with the wild animals, and angels attended Him. Hmmm. That does not sound like the best way to celebrate the introduction of the new Messiah King, does it?

Our young hero goes from heaven being ripped open, God speaking, the Spirit descending like a dove to temptation in the desert. This jump does not go along with our sensibilities and yet our sensibilities are precisely what we must begin to challenge if want to see Christ for what He really is.

We spend so much time working on being safe and comfortable, that it is difficult for us to see the profound value in what Christ has done. You see, He is establishing the timbre of His Kingdom. He is demonstrating how it is going to be--how His power will be demonstrated, from what place He will rule and He is showing us the way of the suffering servant. He is the One who will give up everything so that we can have access to everything.

He takes our values about what we think a King should be and turns it upside down. He is no warrior King who conquers with military strength; He is a counter-cultural Savior who constantly challenges the status quo. He is not the kind of King who will swoop in on His private jet with a Hummer waiting on the tarmac; He is the kind of King who rides a donkey into the town where He will take on death itself and conquer it.

What then would it mean for us to emulate this King? What would it take to follow this Jesus? Would it be more than sitting neatly in a pew and every once in a while volunteering for usher duty? Would it be more demanding than one or two hours a week? Would it mean that we would have to mark ourselves with more than simply a bumper sticker or T-shirt?

This last Wednesday we marked the beginning of Lent with Ash Wednesday. We remembered that we are made from dust and to dust we will return and were marked with ashen crosses on our foreheads. From Ash Wednesday to Easter is forty days: Lent is meant to mirror this time that Christ spent in the desert. It is meant as a time for us to ready ourselves, as followers of Christ, to truly receive the death and resurrection of Christ. It is meant to be a time that we can set ourselves apart through fasting and prayer and spiritual disciplines so that we can understand the depth of our desperation for Christ.

It is disciplines like this that bring out beyond that place of just sitting neatly in the pew, to higher heights than simply volunteering for ushering once in a while, to dirty our hands in ministry and be able to operate in the fullness of Christ. It is transforming thing to partake in this kind of self-denial with the goal of being found completely in Him.

We are nothing more than dust. Dust with cultures and ideas, debutante balls and GORE-TEX jackets--but mere dust all the same. We are in desperate need of the love, death, and resurrection of Christ Jesus. We are in need of just the kind of King that would go into the desert and come out victorious.

It is my prayer for us that this Easter, we will be ready. I pray we will have followed Christ and have seen our desperate need so profoundly, that we are ready to receive our King.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.