Bible Passage: Mark 1:1-8
Pastor: Joel Jenswold
Sermon Date: December 10, 2023

Bulletin December 10, 2023

In the name of, and to the eternal glory of, Jesus,

It wouldn’t be Advent if we didn’t spend some time with John the Baptist.  John is a unique figure in the Bible.  He is called the “Forerunner” of Jesus.  His job, his ministry, was to run before Jesus to get things ready.  We might say he was the very last prophet God sent before Jesus Christ entered upon his public ministry.

So important was John’s ministry as Forerunner that God prophesied the coming of John in the Old Testament.  Our text contains the two main prophecies.  From Malachi:  Look, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare the way for you. (v. 2, also Malachi 3:1)  And from Isaiah:  A voice of one calling out in the wilderness, “Prepare the way of the Lord.  Make his paths straight.”  (v. 3, also Isaiah 40:3)

And this is where it gets interesting.  God calls him a “voice.”  It’s almost as if nothing else matters.  John was not “fancy” or “showy.”  Jesus once remarked to the people about John, What did you go out to see?  A man dressed in fine clothes?  No!  Those who wear fine clothes are in king’s palaces! (Matthew 11:8)  John was not in a palace, out in the wilderness.  Mark tells us in our text, John was clothed in camel’s hair, and he wore a leather belt around his waist.  He ate locusts and wild honey. (v. 6)  This was John!  No fancy clothes!  No fancy surroundings!  No fancy food!  The only significant thing about John was the VOICE. And so once again this Advent we say, There’s that “Voice” Again!  Do You Hear It, Too?

 If you want to hear it, you have to be in the right place.  Isaiah’s prophecy told us where this voice would be heard.  In the wilderness. (v. 3)  And so Mark tells us, John appeared…in the wilderness. (v. 4)  This was a barren region located between Jerusalem and the Jordan River.  This is where you had to go if you wanted to hear the Voice!

That’s interesting.  John was the son of a priest, Zechariah.  By all measures, he should have been beginning his duties as a priest at the Temple in Jerusalem.  Serving as part of the priestly division of Abijah.  He would have been part of the busyness and the bustle at the Temple each day.  But he wasn’t.  He was in the wilderness.  If you wanted to hear the Voice, you needed to get away from the crowds in Jerusalem and take a day trip out to the wilderness.  If we want to hear the Voice, we too, need to step away from the “busyness,” the crowds, the mall, the computer screen on Cyber Monday (which never ends), or the Hallmark Channel, and take a little day trip to the wilderness.  There we will hear the Voice.

There we will hear what the Voice was sent to herald:  John appeared, baptizing in the wilderness and preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. (v. 4)   Here is what the voice was talking about:  repentance.  John called upon the people to repent of their sin.  That means the Voice was not afraid to talk about sin.  He had to!  He was preparing the road for Jesus!  John told soldiers it was sinful to use their muscle to extort money from people.  John told tax collectors it was sinful for them to use their IRS badge to overcharge people.  John told the crowd it was sinful to think they had all the merit they needed before God because they were children of Abraham.  John even told King Herod it was sinful adultery for him to have taken his brother’s wife to be his own.  And here’s the thing about John’s preaching of God’s Law…it worked!  We are told in our text that the crowds that came out to him confessed their sins (v. 5)  The word used for “confess” is a word that means “to confess without reservations.”  There was no holding back.  They “put all their cards on the table.”

As we prepare to meet Jesus, let’s listen to the Voice.  Let us heed the call to repent.  Let us confess our sins.  We just did a few moments ago in this service.  Did you confess without reservations?  Was there no holding back?  Did you “put all your cards on the table” with God?  Friends, there aren’t any sins that are “cute.”  There aren’t any sins that are “funny.”  There aren’t any sins that are “off-limits” or “none of God’s business.”   Put all your sinful cards on the table.

But now we must go back to the Voice!  He preached sin.  But he didn’t let the people wiggle around like a worm on a hook.  He brought them relief.  He brought them baptism.  He brought them forgiveness.  He baptized them for the forgiveness of sins (v. 4)  We don’t know what words John used when he baptized; Jesus hadn’t yet told us to baptize in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Did John baptize “in the name of the Coming One”?  Don’t know.  But John’s baptism washed away sin.  It was a baptism that drew upon the reservoir of forgiveness that Jesus would fill up three years later with his death and resurrection.

Advent is a good time for us to remember our own baptism.  On the day of your baptism the font was filled from the same never-ending reservoir of forgiveness!  You were baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit and so your sins have been washed away.   In baptism Jesus forgives without reservations, without holding back!  And without holding back, we live our baptism every day.  Paul reminds us:  Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?  By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?  Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?  We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. (Romans 6:1-4)

There’s that Voice again!  Did you hear it?  We have heard it!  That voice that marks the beginning of the gospel (the good news) of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. (v. 1)  That voice that preaches repentance, and baptism, and forgiveness.  That Voice that amplified, magnified the more-powerful, the more-worthy, the coming Lord Jesus!  We have heard the voice!  The road work is done.  All lanes are open!  Come, Lord Jesus!

Amen.