John the Baptizer invites us to talk about sin like it’s something we can repent and get rid of. Because it is.
and the need to talk about sin
Advent 2B | Mark 1:1-8
“The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”
Mark introduces the story as good news. As being about the Messiah. The true anointed. The one and only. No equivocating. No waiting and seeing or thinking there are other options. This is about Jesus. He is the Messiah. And the true Son of God. Regardless of what others claim.
This good news is about him. And no other. Including the emperor. No one else is any of those things.
This is our word today. “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”
So naturally, the camera turns to John the Baptizer.
It says
“John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”
So much in so small a space. Which word do we focus on? Appeared? Wilderness? Baptism? Repentance? Forgiveness? Sins? Each word is pregnant with possibility.
And there is also the matter of this one who is not Jesus, the Messiah and Son of God. Who is he? Where does he come from? Is he anything more than a bit part in a bigger story?
These are important questions because the evangelist began with the good news of Jesus and then introduced someone else to start the story. But these questions can lead us into different territory.
The allure of dogma
We can take a strange posture with scripture and theology: as if there were a correct sequence of events, like an incantation, that is required. Like God is a magician casting a spell. A divine Dumbledoor. Say these words and flick your wand in just the right way. The only way to make the magic happen.
Doing this, we turn John into a set piece—a necessary character for the action, but without any true purpose. We make it so John doesn’t have to be John, he could be his brother or a stranger off the street. Put his clothes on him and call him John. Stick him out in the wilderness to fulfill a prophecy.
But instead, we get a single person: John.
A prophet, out in the wilderness, “proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”
These are words and concepts we know and associate with Jesus! This is the beginning. The starting place. The Good News starts here; quite literally and figuratively.
John preaches repentance. To turn. Turning away from sin and toward God’s way of love.
He’s calling people to come out into the wilderness, come to the river, and change. Start the transformation, initiate the change process. Get it going! Jump in this water and be reborn! Because God is in the change business! God is coming with an offer we dare not refuse.
Looking backward
We tend to get this one flipped. The words repentance and sin are heavy, dour. They bear the weight of judgment and judgmental traditions.
Many of us were raised in denominations or congregations that loved talking about sin and evil. Communities which relished the opportunity to talk about how bad people are and how in need of redemption they are. So that we might be the source of their salvation.
And many of us were raised in a tradition that loathed to talk of sin and made every Sunday the chance to talk about happier and less divisive topics. We want God alone to deal with that messy, depressing sin stuff.
No matter what we’ve been taught about sin and repenting of sin, chances are pretty good that growing up, we got some mixed messages about what God is up to in this.
And why the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God begins with John preaching repentance of sin.
Repent: like your toothbrush
Repent, turn, go in a new direction. Abandon the way of sin. Accept a new course away from it. Cut your losses. There is no sunk cost to worry about. Become a new creation.
This is the message John is offering us in the river.
Come. Wash your sins away. Start again.
And because we are so dogmatic about our theology and ideology, we can’t fully absorb the message for what it is. We want this to be essential and permanent; like baptism. One. And done.
But repenting of sin, turning from the ways that draw us from God, that isn’t a singular achievement. We don’t make a break from sin and live in perpetual bliss without it.
We need to keep changing. Regularly.
Dentists recommend we change our toothbrushes every three months. Why? Because they get dirty and worn out. Most give you a new one every time you visit to make sure you change it out at least every six months.
This is what we’re doing in the river.
Not because that one time 2,000 years ago, some people needed to change. Then they did. And they all lived happily ever after.
If that were true, Mark 1:5 would simply read: It worked. Here endeth the gospel!
But it does say:
“And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.”
As often as we hear “people don’t like change” around here, John is preaching it and hordes of people are clamoring for it. It is the baton John hands off to Jesus.
So the sooner we get just how much people do want change, quite literally for the sake of change because they are miserable the sooner we get to understanding what the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God is about.
It begins with repentance
And that starts with repentance. They, we, come to the river to change from the bad and to the good. And to make that work, we confess. This is the key. We confess that we have had a broken relationship with God and we want to fix it.
This is why the Way of Love starts with Turn. It all starts there. With the desire to change. And then the audacity to confess it.
So we begin here, in this Adventiest of Advents, still waiting for the end of this blue season, even as it has technically only just begun. Desiring the presence from which we feel so alienated.
But it is not the Messiah who begins the Advent. This anticipation. It is John. A person. A prophet. Who “appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”
One person. To whom countless people flocked. All bringing with them the hope that their lives can change.
He is out there today. Reminding us to turn. Inviting us to turn. Calling us into the river. This river of doubt and loss and frustration. To be reborn with new life, in hope, wonder, and true love. A do over. The chance we never thought we’d get again. But here it is. Fresh, new, and free.