Believe the Good News
March 5, 2006
Mark 1:9-15
All this Joy,
All this Sorrow,
All this Promise,
All this Pain,
Such is life. This is where we find ourselves as we begin Lent. Right in the middle of our lives--some brimming with joy, others devastated by sorrow, some the promise of tomorrow, some decimated with pain. And yet, we gather here today, to begin. We come to this place to be a people of faith; a people of the Jesus movement. We come into this season of Lent knowing these life moments, living these moments, barely surviving these moments. And we look to our tradition to teach us how we can “live” in this life, how we can “be” in this life, where we find Spirit and how it is we are filled with the unconditional love of God. For we believe, in order to really live in life, we must be who God has created us to be, we must allow room in our lives to fill with the Spirit, which begins with the unconditional love of the Creator.
Such is Being . This is the first Sunday in the church season of Lent. We're beginning a new thing here. It's the season before Easter when we consider what it takes to be a disciple of Christ. It's the 40 days prior to Easter (without counting Sundays, you get those days off from practice!) when we take on learning a new discipline. What does it mean to be a member of the Christian Movement? What skills does it take? This is the season we explore those questions and develop practices to reflect the answers. And, to help us with answers, this season we are going to study the gospel of Mark.
Mark is the oldest gospel story. It was the first one written down even though it doesn't appear first in the New Testament. It was written about 70 years after the death of Jesus. The gospel of Mark is very short, and if you don't hold to it's intention, it seems disjointed and bumpy. These things can make us want to rush through it. However, Mark is the gospel of spaces and silence. Mark is the gospel of going away into the silence to reflect, and pause, and pray. Mark is the gospel of “being” in those threshold moments of faith. And we're going to follow this intention and allow this gospel message to open ourselves to a new connection with God this Lent. We're going to step into the silence, pause, and reflect on how it is we're living, being, and loving. This story that Mark brings to us is an incredible mirror for us living in these times. The gospel of Mark ends at the tomb of Jesus without an appearance of a risen Christ. Instead it ends in silence and fear—no appearance—just women fleeing. I think today, this is where we are often times pulled to live: in silence and fear. We haven't seen Christ lately, and he hasn't appeared in our midst. How is it that we're going to live in this space, that seems so empty, so quiet, so unsettled, so in between?
Mark meets us in that creative threshold reminding us that it's O.K. to be in the silence and to open ourselves up. This space allows us time when we just don't have the answers right away. Mark reminds us that we don't know exactly what happened to those people on Easter. CNN wasn't there. We can't watch a documentary on the event. There are different versions of the story in each gospel message. And this one, the oldest one, it wasn't recorded for at least 60 or 70 years. But, we do know something happened. We know something happened because we do have this document. And, whatever it was that happened was so big that there were no words for it. It was so frightening/exciting that it took their breath away. Like the moment before you go over the drop on the roller coaster…like the moments when you're hiding in the dark at a surprise party before the guest of honor arrives…like the moments after a baby is born and the pain has lessened and a lifetime lays before you in your arms…it's the pause in the Hallelujah chorus. You know they have been singing for quite some time and the choir comes to the end, and it's almost a fevered pitch: “hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah----pause----hallelujah” Let's hear it. That is the place Mark is writing about, this space, these moments in between when we find ourselves there, in joy, sorrow, promise, or pain, how do we find Spirit for our being?
Such is Spirit. And this is where we meet the gospel story read for us today. This beginning of Mark is a summary of all that is to come in Jesus' ministry. Jesus is baptized by John. And while being baptized, Jesus hears the heavens tearing apart. And the word for tearing is an interesting word. It's what today we would call schizophrenic. This tear is so fractured it is transformed forever. The Spirit is so changed it will never be put back to the way it was. The pieces can't line up. And, yet out of this violent image a dove is produced. Then, only Jesus hears, in an intimate way, “My son, my beloved, with you I am well pleased.” It's a transformation, it's something that will change you forever, but it's a gentle, loving presence that comes in the form of a dove. Nothing to fear, only peace and love come from the transformation of being part of this Jesus movement.
Afterwards, immediately, before he has time to process what has occurred, Jesus is driven out into the wilderness. Jesus is always ahead of the people in Mark, he's always out front with the rest trying to catch up or keep up. He is driven out into the wilderness, immediately. Not a retreat center or vacation resort, but the dangerous place. The place where danger lurks around every corner. The place where you can't be sure of anyone. The place where all the invisible live. The place where you go and you never come back the same. Today we might call it the street, war, disease. Jesus is driven out into the wilderness and he knows and senses that he is no longer the same. It is the threshold story of Jesus moving from being a child of God to an adult leader in the movement.
Such is Love. How is it that God sounds when God speaks to you? We are, in the UCC, the people who believe that God is still speaking. How is it then, that this God sounds? Is it the heavens tearing open? Is it a dove gently resting upon you? Is it like a parent, “With you my son, my beloved, with you I am well pleased.”? Such is love. Sometimes love means keeping a firm line. Sometimes love means forgiveness and peace. Sometimes love means beginning again. Sometimes love means trusting what you don't understand yet. Such is love.
This gospel story challenges all of these things: being, spirit, love. They are all laid out in this short beginning passage but already we can hear the paralyzing fear. John has been arrested. Danger lurks in the business of following this leader. It's counter-empire. It's unsettling. It's an extravagant new thing this living in the threshold. And then this passage ends with “repent and believe the good news”. The word “repent” translated is actually an old Jewish word for mend. Mend and believe the good news. Mend, because this experience of the Creator can tear you open in all sorts of ways. It will tear you open that God might mend you. It is a verb. We must do something to mend ourselves. Just like covenant requires an action, repentance is an action. This small story at the beginning of Mark calls us into the action of opening and allowing God to break into our lives. To tear open our joy, sorrow, and pain, and promise to allow the love of God to mend our lives. And, in this practice of opening and mending, the Good news will come to life in new ways. Ways that go against the empire…we will love ourselves as God loves us, we will love our neighbors as ourselves…Believe the Good news, for such is love. Let us pray…