Advent 2 – 2017
Mark 1:1-8
Marian Free
In the name of God who comforts the disturbed and disturbs the comfortable. Amen.
Isaiah calls out to those in exile:
“In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord,
make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
Every valley shall be lifted up,
and every mountain and hill be made low;
the uneven ground shall become level,
and the rough places a plain.
Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,
and all people shall see it together,
for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”
God has charged Isaiah with a message of assurance for the Israelites. The time of their banishment has ended. Soon they will be able to return to their homes. What is more, a road will be prepared for them so that they do not encounter too many obstacles on their way. Isaiah declared that despite all that their forebears have done, despite their present anxieties and fears, God has not forgotten them. During their exile the Israelites have recognised their dependence on God and God, who observed their remorse had sent the prophet with words of comfort and hope.
Centuries later, the author of Mark’s gospel used these same words more as a threat than a promise. John the Baptist did not offer words of assurance but rather insisted that the people: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” Instead of offering comfort to a suffering people, John demanded that the people admit and repent of their sins, that they turn their lives around in order to make the path clear for the coming of God.
Isaiah reassured the people that God had forgiven their transgressions and would come to them and will comfort them. In contrast John the Baptist warned the people to seek forgiveness for their transgressions because God was coming among them.
In Mark the words of Isaiah are applied to a different time and place. Whereas the Israelites in exile needed to hear words of comfort and reassurance, the people of the first century needed to be confronted and challenged. The exile had given the Israelites plenty of time to think about the past and to long for their relationship with God to be restored, whereas the situation of the 1st century had allowed them to once again become complacent. It was true that the Romans had occupied the land, but the Temple still stood and the people were free to worship and offer sacrifices without too much interference. Such freedoms however had come at a cost. The priests and leaders of the Israelites had accommodated themselves to the Roman occupation. They had made themselves comfortable with the present situation and they had made compromises that meant that they had lost the trust of the people and led others to believe that the Temple and its worship had become corrupted. They had lost sight of their need to trust in and depend on God to take care of all their needs. They felt that they were comfortable enough. They did not need a prophet to speak words of comfort. They needed to be challenged and confronted. They needed to be forced to consider what was really important – their own comfort or their relationship with God.
Isaiah offered comfort. John demanded repentance. Our scriptures are full of these kinds of contradictions: comfort and judgement, reassurance and challenge, compassion and rage. The different voices of our scriptures reflect the different situations into which they speak. There are times when the prophets need to censure the people of Israel, to remind them of their true calling and to bring them back to God. At other times, often when the people of Israel have been humbled and humiliated – the prophets need to speak words of reassurance and comfort, to reassure the people that God has seen their suffering and has not abandoned them.
The different voices of scripture speak to our own situations. There are times in our lives when we need to know God’s loving presence: when a loved one is dying, when we have lost our job or when our child comes up against an obstacle. At such times it is easy to recognise our dependence on God and to seek the comfort of God’s presence. There are times in our lives when everything seems to be going along smoothly, when we are at peace with the world around us. At such times it is easy to take God for granted, to lose sight of our dependence on God and to go our own way.
The contradictions that we find in scripture help us to seek the right balance between anxiety and complacency. Threats of judgement remind us that we cannot take our relationship with God for granted. Like any other relationship, our relationship with God can be damaged by neglect, by carelessness and disregard and when it is damaged we will experience the pain and heartache of being separated from God as if we really were in exile. Words of comfort provide us with hope in our moments of darkness and despair. They remind us that no matter how far we have strayed, God is constant and will never abandon us.
The tensions and contradictions in our scriptures serve to heighten our awareness of our relationship with God and encourage us to take stock of our lives. Words of judgement and calls to repentance remind us that there are consequences to pay for going our own way. Words of comfort provide strength and encouragement in those times when we are tempted to feel lost and alone.
This Advent, may the contradictions and tensions of our scriptures keep us on our toes, help us to focus on what is really important and prevent us from falling into the sort of complacency that allows us to neglect God and to forget how much God has done for us. May words of comfort not blind us to the need to be on the alert so that we are ready when Christ should come again.
Swallowsrest 