Text: Mark 1:1-8
Date: December 6, 2020
Event: The Second Sunday in Advent, Year B
Mark 1:1-8 (EHV)
The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. 2This is how it is written in the prophet Isaiah:
Look, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare the way for you.
3A voice of one calling out in the wilderness,
“Prepare the way of the Lord.
Make his paths straight.”
4John appeared, baptizing in the wilderness and preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
5The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him. They were baptized by him in the Jordan River as they confessed their sins. 6John was clothed in camel’s hair, and he wore a leather belt around his waist. He ate locusts and wild honey. 7He preached, “One more powerful than I is coming after me. I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the strap of his sandals! 8I baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
Jesus Is Coming! Prepare Your Hearts!
Sufficient preparation is important. You want to be ready to face the day and any challenges you might encounter. And sometimes those plans require modifications. It’s taken me a while, but think finally a mask has joined my subconscious checklist of keys, wallet, and phone as things I need to have on me before I leave the house.
And depending on the situation, you’re going to do different things to prepare, right? A child coming home from college for a break probably results in different preparations than an elderly parent moving in with you. Preparing to meet a friend for coffee looks pretty different than getting ready to clean the bathrooms.
As we began to consider last week, we’re reminded again today that Advent is a season about preparation. Yes, perhaps the Christmas decorations are going up inside or outside. Perhaps some presents are being bought or even wrapped. Maybe the Christmas music is playing at home. Maybe the oven is starting to crank out seasonal treats. These are preparations for Christmas, but these are not Advent preparations. John the Baptist leads us to see this morning that the most important preparation to celebrate Jesus’ first advent or to prepare for his second advent is that we prepare our hearts.
Mark wastes no time in his Gospel telling us for whom we are to prepare our hearts. The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Jesus, God’s Son, is coming. What a confession of faith! This is not a mere celebrity or royal dignitary. This is not even a dearly loved family member or long-lost friend. This is God himself, the Father’s Son, coming to dwell among his people, to save his people, and eventually to take his people home to eternal life!
God had promised through the prophet Isaiah that a messenger would come to prepare the way for the Messiah. He came to make roads ready and paths straight. But John the Baptist didn’t embark on a public works project to get ready for Jesus. He wasn’t literally building roads and filling in ditches. No, we heard that he went out to the Jordan, the “wrong” side of the Jordan, the opposite banks from Jerusalem. He’s in the wilderness, living and thriving unlike almost anyone else. But it wasn’t John’s clothing or diet that were getting the people ready for Jesus. Mark tells us exactly what John was doing to prepare hearts for the coming Savior: John appeared, baptizing in the wilderness and preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
John’s baptism was different than our baptism that Jesus would later give to his disciples. John’s was a washing connected to the person’s repentance. Repentance is an important, but perhaps often misunderstood, component of the believer’s life. In the Augsburg Confession, Philip Melanchthon describes repentance this way: Repentance consists of two parts. One part is contrition, that is, terrors striking the conscience through the knowledge of sin. The other part is faith, which is born of the Gospel or the Absolution and believes that for Christ’s sake, sins are forgiven. It comforts the conscience and delivers it from terror. Then good works are bound to follow, which are the fruit of repentance (AC XII 3-6, quoted from Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions, 2006 Concordia Publishing House).
What was John doing as he preached in the desert? He was trying to get people to see the severity of their sin, the danger it posed for their eternal well-being, to install in them sorrow over that sin, but also joy in God’s forgiveness. The source of that forgiveness was coming, and soon! And to get his path ready John proclaimed this message to prepare the hearts of those Jesus would come to save.
Truly this is Advent preparation in the truest sense. It shouldn’t take an odd looking fellow living in the desert to make you and me realize our need for repentance. Sin infects every part of our being—every thought, word, and action. Our lives continue to be rebellion against God.
And this is why we need this time of preparation so much. Because what good is Christmas if I don’t see my need eternal need for the Savior whose birth we will celebrate? And what good will his second advent be for me if I stand on my own, confident of my own good works for my salvation? Through Advent we strive to prepare our hearts, to identify those places where sin has taken a hold of us, and to purge it from our lives. As we find sin, we repent and turn away from it. The way we get ready to celebrate Christmas is the same way John got the people ready for Jesus’ first arrival and, in fact, is the same way we get ready for Jesus’ second arrival.
Without repentance Christmas is just Santa and presents, or family and church traditions devoid of any eternal meaning. But with repentance, with sorrow over our sin and trust that God has in fact forgiven us, we see in Jesus’ first arrival the assurance that God loves us, the assurance that God keeps his promises, the assurance that there is forgiveness. It’s the same hope that John’s baptism brought. After all, it was a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. That certainty of forgiveness for them depended on God’s promises to send their Savior. The certainty of our forgiveness depends on that same promise but now fulfilled, that our Savior has come, lived, died, and rose for us.
John’s work and Jesus’ work would be different. John was clear on the distinction between he and the Savior: One more powerful than I is coming after me. I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the strap of his sandals! We will see him be even more adamant in our Gospel next week when he is pressed with questions about whether he, John, might possibly be the Messiah. But no, John and Jesus were as different as different could be. Though relatives by blood and having callings that intertwined and related to each other, their roles were very different: I baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.
John was preparing people with a ceremonial washing connected to repentance. Jesus was coming with the Holy Spirit. He would bring faith to the repentant to trust that he was in fact the Savior that they hoped and longed for, even as he does today. Right here, right now, even through a YouTube live stream, Jesus is active in his Word, sending the Holy Spirit to strengthen our faith in him as our complete Savior from sin. Here this morning he assures us that the faith he gives which is paired with our repentance is not misplaced.
And while our Jesus-instituted baptism is not really mentioned here, we do well to be reminded of it yet again. Peter made the point last week that baptism saves us like the water of the flood saved Noah and his family from all the threats to their faith in the ark. Our baptism leads us to a life of continued repentance that turns from sin and trusts Jesus as the one who provides full forgiveness for it all. This is how we live as the adopted children in God’s family. Remember how Martin Luther clearly and simply explained the blessings of baptism in the Small Catechism: Baptism works forgiveness of sin, delivers from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe this, as the words and promises of God declare. Baptism [also] means that the old Adam in us should be drowned by daily contrition and repentance, and that all its evil deeds and desires be put to death. It also means that a new person should daily arise to live before God in righteousness and purity forever. (SC Baptism 2 and 4, quoted from Luther’s Catechism, 2017 Northwestern Publishing House).
As you continue to prepare your hearts during this Advent season, stay focused on your Savior and the blessings he provides. Repent of your sin and know that there is no doubt—contrition doesn’t lead to despair. Your sins have truly been forgiven by the one who was promised and has come. Jesus lived and died to save you. Keep your focus on him, the one who was to come and who will return, for then and then alone is your heart truly prepared! Amen.
