1. Please pray with me. May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock, and our Redeemer. Amen. The message from God’s Word this 2nd Sunday in Advent is taken from Mark 1:1-8, it’s entitled, “The Voice That’s All About Jesus,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2. “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” This is how Mark introduces his account of Jesus. He doesn’t begin with the Savior, however. He pays no attention to the stable or the shepherds or the eastern sages. Instead, Mark takes his readers back in time. Before there was Jesus, there was John. And before there was John, there was Isaiah, which is Mark’s way of saying that we need a runway. We need some context. If we are to receive the good news of Jesus rightly, we need help getting prepared.
3. Each of the four evangelists prepare their readers in different ways. Matthew begins by naming the generations leading up to Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior . Luke leads with his journalistic method as a historian carefully studying the events of our Lord Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection from the dead. John opens with echoes of creation. But Mark is narrower, more particular. In order to prepare his readers for Jesus, Mark draws attention to a voice.
4. Mark’s voice is unlike so many that clutter the air these days. His voice is silent about COVID restrictions or legal battles over the election. It has no regard for holiday shopping or the voice-coaching of Blake Shelton or Gwen Stefani. Mark makes no effort to impress listeners or win votes. His voice aims only to prepare those who hear it for the coming of the Lord.
5. There are four things about the voice of John the Baptist calling from the wilderness we want to consider today. First, the voice has been a long time coming. The Book of Hebrews tells us that “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son” (Heb. 1:1–2). All that speaking of God in the Old Testament, from the sermon that God preached to our first parents in Eden down through patriarchs, prophets, and poets, comes to a point, culminating in the great preacher of Advent, John the Baptist. Standing there in the Judean wilderness with one foot in the Old Testament and other in the New, John is that voice crying in the wilderness. He does not preach himself but the coming One, Jesus.
6. Second, the voice appears in the wilderness. In biblical thinking the wilderness isn’t a happy place. It is characterized by desolation, isolation, abandonment, and danger. Sound familiar? John the Baptist preached in the wilderness, and that is the first and most direct connection to the voice in the text. But these unending days of pandemic have a distinctly wilderness-ish feeling to them. The fact that the voice cries out “in the wilderness” is a reminder of how the good news of Jesus appears amid struggle and strain, exhaustion and fatigue.
7. It was sin that exiled Adam and Eve to life in the wilderness, but even there God was preparing the way for the Redeemer. Under God’s judgment, they were sent to live in the wilderness, where the ground was cursed, yielding briars and bramble. Only in toil and sweat would Adam wrestle a living from the dirt. Adam and Eve exchanged a garden for life in the wilderness. It was a harsh life, complete with sibling murder as Cain slaughters Abel. There is death in the wilderness. The dust from which Adam is taken finally claims him and all of his descendants, including us.
8. But, there is the promise of Gen 3:15, which says, “15I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” Even there, then, in the wilderness of sin and death, God preaches the promise of the Redeemer. He is preparing the way. Now John the Baptist also appears in the wilderness, preparing the way for the Messiah. John’s ministry of preaching and baptizing begins there where Adam and Eve found themselves—in the wilderness. Wilderness brings back not only memories of a lost Eden but also of the children of Israel wandering in the wilderness around Sinai for a forty-year-long Advent season, as God prepared them to enter the Promised Land. The preaching of John the Baptist finds us here, now, where we live—in the wilderness. Not in the desert around Sinai or the wild haunts around the Jordan, but here in the wilderness of our own sin, in the arid places where we attempt to go it alone, to live as if God didn’t matter and I mattered most.
9. Third, the voice directs attention away from itself. John the Baptist drew the crowds, but he directed attention away from himself. He wanted the people to think about the One whose sandals he was unworthy to untie. John seems to have taken seriously the advice of his homiletics professors who insisted that any preacher worth his salt sends people home talking about Jesus, not himself. Medieval artists often portrayed John with an out-of-proportion, larger-than-life finger pointing to the Lamb of God. That is John’s office. He gets out of the way so that we see only Jesus. John admits that he is no more than an unworthy servant. John’s Baptism anticipates the fulfillment that comes in Jesus’ Baptism (Mark 1:8). John’s Baptism is with water. It is for repentance and the forgiveness of sins. It will be fulfilled and rendered obsolete then with Jesus’ death and resurrection. But, Jesus’ Baptism is with the Holy Spirit. The Spirit given with the water and the Word, now unites us to Jesus’ death and resurrection for the forgiveness of our sins and the gift of eternal life. Titus 3:4–7 says, “4But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, 5he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, 6whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”
10. Fourth, the voice calls the people to repent. Repentance is necessary for our sake. In many and various ways, we have eased into unchristian ways of thinking, speaking, and acting. The objects of our fear, love, and trust are too often something other than the One who came after John, Jesus Christ our Lord. This call to repentance is the prophetic call to straighten our paths by removing those things in our lives that keep us from welcoming King Jesus and His reign in our lives. John the Baptist preaches repentance. He announces that you have no future in the wilderness. There is no exit, no way of escape. He is the voice crying in the wilderness. He is God’s road crew of one to make straight a royal highway for the Messiah.
11. Advent is focused on Jesus and his coming to be our Savior. John the Baptist stepped there, then, into the wilderness to point the way, preaching repentance and forgiveness of sins. That voice is still ringing out here, now, today. Repent and believe the Gospel in the One who is proclaimed by John. And this is the Gospel, the reign of Jesus our Lord and Savior who came after the voice to bring to you the forgiveness of sins, eternal life, and salvation that He gives to you through His Holy Spirit. These gifts strengthen and encourage you. They comfort you when you are weary, sustain you in your exhaustion, and direct your attention away from life in the wilderness to the coming of the Lord. This is good news. It is the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Amen. Now the peace of God that passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, until life everlasting. Amen.
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