There is something within people
that both runs from God and yet can’t completely ignore him.
I was reminded of this on
Tuesday, when I was having coffee with a friend. He told me of an elderly friend of his who
had died. The elderly man had left
instructions that he was not to be given a church funeral. Like many people in Ireland this elderly man
was fed up with the church. Yet, this
man wanted the apostle Paul’s beautiful words on love (in 1 Corinthians 13) to
be read, from the King James Version, at his funeral service. It was my friend who said that this
highlighted the inconsistency of that older generation. They neither want religion, nor can they
fully turn their back on it.
I observed something similar when
a friend and neighbour died. This
neighbour was a convinced atheist—which made his passing all the more difficult
to take. His family asked if I would be
master of ceremonies at his funeral service.
To honour his wished there were to be no prayers. Yet when we got to the graveside, his adult
daughters asked me if we could say the ‘Prayer of Serenity’. I told them that I didn’t know the words of
that prayer, but that they could led the people in it. As I watched them pray, despite the wishes of
their dad for there to be nothing religious at the ceremony, I thought how strange
it is that people don’t seem to be able to leave God behind.
But a lot of the spirituality in
our society lacks substance. People want
something divine in their life, but look in the wrong places. Just look at the obsession there is with
angles. Go to the religious books
section in O’Mahoney’s and you will see a fascination with them. There is also an angel shop on Thomas
Street. I think that our society’s
obsession with angels reflects the fact that people have a desire for a divine
element to their lives, but that this desire for the divine is wrapped in pride
and selfishness—after all, people don’t imagine that an angle might ever call
you to repent, and people believe that angels simply exist to serve us and
remind us how special we are.
However, in our reading from the
start of Mark’s Gospel we see a rival in true spirituality. The people had been waiting for the long-expected
Messiah and now comes the one preparing His way. But the message was blunt. He was naming people’s sin, warning of God’s
judgement, telling them they needed God’s forgiveness and calling them to a new
way of living. This was not the sort of
superficial spirituality that is so popular today!
Jesus is the source of God's forgiveness
There was something about John
the Baptist. He is baptising in the
wilderness. Now the wilderness is not
exactly a great holiday destination. The
apostle John’s Gospel tells us where on the Jordan John the Baptist is
baptising. It is a place located
thirty-three kilometres from Jerusalem.
That is the distance from the centre of Limerick, through Adare, and on
to Rathkeale. On foot, with a family,
that might have taken ten hours. That is
a significant journey seeing as you would have to stay overnight. It was also 4,00o feet below Jerusalem which
would have made for a tiring journey home.
Yet loads of people were going to hear John. ‘And all the country of Judea and all
Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptised …’ (5).
Why were they going? They were going to be entertained. A true revival does not need to depend on
putting on a great performance. John the
Baptist is no fancy televangelist in a sharp suit packing out stadiums with a
message of how God can make you wealthy and give life without sickness. John the Baptist was a man clothed in camel’s
hair, wearing a leather belt around his waist and eating wild honey (6). He was the last of the old covenant prophets
that paved the way for Jesus. He
appeared in the style of the prophet Elijah (1 Kings 17:4). His message was straight forward and
blunt. ‘We are sinful people who are in
desperate need of God’s forgiveness.’
In those days, baptism was an act done by someone who was not Jewish who wanted to become a part of God’s covenant people. By telling the crowds that they needed to be baptised, he was saying you can’t be one of God’s people unless you repent and turn to God. This baptism pictured the washing away of sin. John the Baptist was pointing to the the Messiah through whom this forgiveness comes.
Don’t be afraid to talk about
sin. But don’t simply be a naysayer who
seems to get some self-righteous delight from pointing to the sins of
others. Tell the story of how God forgave
your sin. When Caroline told the parent
and toddlers’ group that she considers herself to be morally bankrupt, on of
the mother’s objected, thinking that Caroline might have something wrong with
her self-esteem. But unless someone’s
conscience is completely warped they know in their hearts that we all fail to
live up to our standards, yet along the standards of a perfectly holy God. The late John Stott, a marvellous Anglican
rector, said that when we share the message of God’s forgiveness we should
always remember that our friend’s conscience is actually on our side.
Jesus comes to give us a new life
But surely, we need more than
forgiveness. We need the power to
change. We all have a strange
relationship with sin: we sin because sin gives us pleasure, but we hate the
fact that we sin and it makes us regretful and sad. We are attracted to sin, but we also want to
be freed from it. We might like to
gossip, but we leave the conversation feeling empty and mean. We might get a thrill from that image on the
screen, but we turn the computer off feeling cheap and dirty. We want to change. In fact, the Christian is someone who knows
exactly how they want to change, because our desire is to be more like the
beautiful person of Jesus. The good news
tells us that there is a better type of pleasure than that offered by
temptation.
John the Baptist point to someone
who is mightier than he is. ‘The straps
of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie’ (7). While John the Baptist baptised in water,
this greater person will baptise with the Holy Spirit. That looks back to a promise made a number of
times in the Old Testament. For example,
the prophet Isaiah spoke of a time when the Spirit would be poured out from on
high, and when the wilderness becomes like a fruit field (Isaiah 32:15). John the Baptist was speaking to a barren
wilderness, and they knew that their lives were barren and empty, but the one
who would come after him could transform their lives into a beautiful garden.
On the Day of Pentecost, Jesus
poured out the person of the Holy Spirit on all His people. From that day on all those who live in
relationship with Him have the Holy Spirit dwelling within them. That Spirit is the guarantee that one day we
will be perfect like Jesus. Although in
this life the Holy Spirit’s work is one of gradual change. We are not yet perfect, but we are being
transformed into the likeness of Christ (2 Corinthians 3:18). I wonder have some of us become lazy and
ambitious in responding to the Holy Spirit’s work of changing us. All of us have some idea of what we would
like to be. Is that idea of who we would
like to be set upon Jesus, and people who reflect Jesus well to us? When I was growing up one of the most
attractive people I knew was a man who I referred to as Uncle George (although
he was not actually my uncle). It was
written more than once of George Good that he reflected the beauty of
Godliness. Are we still aiming our lives
at the joy have having a strength of conviction and a gentleness of heart?
Forgiveness and change are a gift from God the Son
The Gospel of Mark, centres on
Jesus on the question, ‘who is Jesus?’ John
Mark is writing to the Christians in Rome.
He is writing down what the apostle Peter taught him about Jesus. He is writing to Christians who were being
persecuted by the mighty Roman empire.
They knew how the apostles Paul and Peter had been martyred for their
faith. What do Christians under that
sort of pressure need? They needed to be
reminded all over again about the good news of Jesus. They need to remember His person, authority
and work on the cross.
Mark is no suspense writer. He tells who Jesus is straight way. ‘The beginning of the gospel of/about Jesus
Christ, the Son of God’ (1). Jesus is a
person who has a unique relationship with God.
He is ‘the’ Son of God, in a way that we are not. We are sons of God, but He is ‘the’ Son of
God.
The profound nature of that
sonship is highlighted in the Old Testament quotes at the beginning of this
chapter. John the Baptist has been sent
to ‘prepare the way for the Lord.’ That
is a quote from Isaiah (40:3). But the
remarkable thing about that quote is that in the Old Testament the messenger is
sent to prepare the way for Yahweh/Jehovah.
Jesus is the Son of God in the sense of being God the Son. He is the Son in relation to God the Father
and God the Holy Spirit.
This means that the good news
that we share with our neighbours and friends is that while all of us need to
be washed of our guilt and enabled to live a new and better life, this washing
and transformation comes because God Himself descended from the glory of heaven
and stepped into our world where he would be despised and rejected and pinned
to a cross to take the punishment for our wickedness. Then He would rise from the dead, ascend to
heaven and pour out the person of the Holy Spirit so that we could live a live
of being transformed into the likeness of His wonderful and beautiful
personality. This is good news that
should keep us positive when all around us seems negative. This is good news that should leave us
feeling glad when our circumstances make us sad. This is good news that gives us the strength
to get up and face the day.
Conclusion
Wouldn’t it have been wonderful
to see those people set off on the thirty kilometres or so to walk into a
wilderness simply to see a man tell them of their desperate wickedness and show
them the way to forgiveness and transformation?
How different that is from the superficiality we see in our own time!
I saw of tiny bit of what this
was like when I was working in the boarding house of a school in Dublin. The boarders had to go to church on
Sundays. Those who went to the local
Methodist church witnessed a sketch that reminded them of the reality of
hell. That sketch started a conversation
among the boarders and a number of them enquired about what was involved in a
relationship with God. Sadly, I only
know of one of those kids who actually came to faith. It was Eric Miller, who later went on to play
rugby for the Irish team and the Lions.
I am not sure that this was the moment that Eric was brought from
spiritual death to life, but I saw that it was a time when God made a big
impression on him.
I saw the sketch in that
Methodist church, and I have to say that it was very John the Baptist
like. It was a simple and
straightforward message of our desperate need for Jesus. Indeed, thinking of that drama, and the style
of John the Baptist, I wonder if at times we are not blunt enough. As one great Dublin evangelist used to say,
‘sometimes we are so low key that we are no key.’
May God give us that tact and
courage to be both loving and blunt. May
He also keep reminding us that this gospel is truly good news—the good news
that will sustain us, even when we are under all sorts of pressure! Amen.
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