Go. Tell. Maybe with words.

 

SERMON PREACHED AT St BARNABAS’, WARRINGTON

SECOND SUNDAY OF ADVENT

6^th December, 2020

 

Readings:       

Isaiah 40:1-11

Psalm 85: 1-2, 8-13                             

2 Peter 3:8-15a

Mark 1:1-8

 

 The author of the second gospel, who we call Mark though he deliberately avoids identifying himself for reasons we will explore in a moment, throws a gauntlet at the feet of corrupt authorities from the very outset of his work: Ἀρχὴ τοῦ εὐαγγελίου Ἰησοῦ χριστοῦ. The very first word in Greek is “beginning,” but it carries all the weight of bedrock and foundation, the absolute basis, as well as subject, of all that follows. The third word in Greek, nonchalantly thrown around in the centuries since, we translate as “gospel,” εὐαγγελίοv. Really the only person entitled to fling that word across the Roman Empire was the Caesar: announcing the birth of new heir. Mark was already trading dangerous ground – and all the more so as he was probably writing for the church in Rome.

This gospel-εὐαγγελίοv had nothing to do with Caesar: it was about a crucified criminal who, we will go on to discover, transcends the authority even of Caesar and his henchmen. The opening of this remarkable new form of writing trumpets the beginning of good news. As it does so it simultaneously trumpets the end of “ungood” or ersatz­- or fake-good news, the end of corruption. And as if that were not enough it unambiguously and contentiously anchors the source and subject of that good news in the words and actions and life and death and hinted resurrection of the Executed Jew, Jesus.  This is something akin to but immeasurably greater than US Democrats declaring a new president, only to meet the denial of the current president and his supporters. This is greater even than the king is dead, long live the king. But it is of the ilk of these comparisons.

As if to underscore this Mark says nothing of himself. Was it Mark? Was this the John Mark who accompanied but fell out with Paul, the cousin as it happens of your patron saint Barnabas? I’m old fashioned in my interpretation – I suspect we do get a glimpse of the author, but only as he flees naked at the arrest of Jesus, using a rare word to depict the frightened figure. But he uses that word, neaniskos, again, for there is a neaniskos sitting at the tomb of Jesus as the two women named Mary and a third named Salome prepare to anoint the body of their dead friend Jesus. The one who was frightened and fled becomes the one who proclaims good news to the women, and the women become the ones who proclaim good news to the world, and we become the ones who hear it and try to live it long after Caesar or any other corrupt leader has been torn down from his throne. But he has no name, because not Mark but Jesus is the good news, and the good news is never gospel of Mark but always Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Indeed, as if to underscore that, this brilliant but instinctive writer goes on to use another literary quirk. For he begins to tell us not about Jesus but about someone else, probably better known in many circles at the time: he begins to tell us about John the Baptist. Yet then he delivers a body blow: even this greatest of holy men, greatest of divine prophets, must dwindle in comparison to the man-god whose tale this really is, who will baptize not merely with water but with the Holy Spirit.

This, then is to be the story that is the greatest of stories, Mark and we believe. It will be a story of one who is fully and utterly human as humans could be if we were saturated with God’s intention for us, God’s image in us. Yet it will be the story of one whose humanness is so perfected on obedient holiness that it becomes translucent, allowing the light of God to pass through him so that we who, in Hebrew tradition, cannot see the face or the light of God can look instead on the man Jesus and see all that we need to know of God.

Mark is here showing himself to be well-versed in the profound theology of Paul and his school of Christ-followers, proclaiming the deep mystery that the man Jesus is in fact the “image of the invisible, “unsee-able,” the “un-knowable” God, making God visible, making God knowable, making God as comprehensible as God can be to human minds. Jesus embodies, Mark is flagging, and as we read in Colossians, that all the kindness, all the justice, all the compassion, all the goodness, the “Godness” of God is visible in the Christ we meet in Mark’s story. Mark might well sit down with the great hymn-writer Walter Chalmers Smith (but following the author of 1 Timothy 1:17) and write of the one who is “immortal, invisible, God only wise.” Mark though would emphasize that he is made mortal and visible, dwells no longer “in light inaccessible hid from our eyes,” but made visible in in the events that Mark is about to narrate.

And what does Mark go on to narrate? Sparsely, selecting and weaving together only skeletal yet critical moments in the life of the one whose arrest he fled in the garden, Mark tells of one who immeasurably embodies hope, justice, compassion, love (though it is John who will go on to stress that last facet most completely). Mark will tell of one who will by his absolute integrity challenge corruption, self-interest, selfishness, and greed (especially on the part of those who claim God on their side but oppress in the name of their God). He will even, and most provocatively of all, tell of one who transcends execution and death, but he will do so sparsely with few words, because that event above all surpasses words: “He has been raised: he is not here.” And he will add a command, his only command: “Go, tell.”

And against all odds, and even as the odds of continuous proclamation appear to crumble around us as our institution crumbles and our knees creek and our civilizations looks shaky and few of our off-spring or neigbours seem interested, we are still commanded to go and tell. And, empowered by the Holy Spirit that John the Baptist flags, we will do so with our lives and, if necessary, our words, by our worship and pray God by at least hints of integrity as we continue to permit our lives to be invaded by the risen Christ.  And if we do that then we like Mark-the-Young-Neaniskos-Who-Fled will continue to throw gauntlets at the feet of Caesars of corruption in church and society alike.

 

TLBWY