Sermon on Mark 1:1-8

Pastor Jennifer Garcia

This is the beginning of the Good News? Some guy standing around near a river in the middle of nowhere, wearing camel hair and eating what he can forage, splashing people with water and raving about untying someone’s sandals?

John isn’t exactly a glamorous messenger for God’s Messiah. We might expect the herald of the Chosen One to stand in the halls of kings or in the midst of the Temple, clad in whatever the equivalent of a nice suit was in those days. A great, charismatic orator. But no. We get John, who’s someone we might avert our gaze from if we saw him in a dark alley.

But this is where the writer of the Gospel of Mark decided to begin. No genealogies, no birth narratives, no poetic introduction. Just John.

The Gospel of Mark gets right to the point.

And perhaps that’s what’s fitting about John. There’s no pretense with him. There’s nothing flashy or impressive. John is just John.

He’s the ultimate minimalist. He lives away from the distractions of the world. He wears and eats what he can find. He certainly doesn’t worry about keeping up with the Joneses.

But none of this is for simplicity’s sake alone. It’s so he can focus on his mission. John knows why he was put on this earth, and he doesn’t let anything distract him from that.

And people respond. They flock to the wilderness—not exactly a top vacation destination. They want to hear John speak; they want to be baptized by him. They seek a pilgrimage to confess their sins, to be touched by water, to feel connected to God. Perhaps they seek some of the simplicity John embodies.

But John never lets it go to his head. He always, always points to the Messiah who’s coming. He knows his role in the story. He knows his purpose and pursues it with everything he is. He constantly points people away from him and toward what God is doing.

I so admire that type of single-minded focus. And I’m not alone in that.

There are whole industries and philosophies that help us focus, cut out the noise, minimize distractions, and live our best lives.

There are mountains of self-help and productivity books out there. From Greg McKeown’s Essentialism to James Clear’s Atomic Habits to Marie Kondo’s Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, whether you’re looking to embrace minimalism, maximize your efficiency, or pare down physical, mental, and digital distractions, there’s a book out there for you. I should know—I’ve read a lot of them, and I’m always looking for more.

I won’t even get into the apps, planners, devices, software, podcasts, life-coaching services, and journals created to help us focus and prioritize.

Many of us are hungry for simplicity, for figuring out what’s most important to us and cutting out what doesn’t serve those values. We long for a clear understanding of our mission in life and the freedom to pursue it wholeheartedly.

That’s why I’m inviting us into the theme of Sabbath for the entire year of 2024.

Let’s rest from the grind, quiet the noise, cut out the distractions, and really listen to God. Let’s face our wildernesses, so that we can let the Holy Spirit guide our paths—as individuals and as a community.

Let’s learn what gifts Sabbath has for us and dedicate ourselves to rest, play, joy, peace, and connection with God in 2024.

And for today, we can see in Johna single-minded focus on what God was doing in the world. What was God doing in the world?

God was meeting people in the wilderness. God wasn’t only meeting people in the Temple or in the big cities. God was meeting people in the most unexpected of places.

And God was speaking through a most unexpected person. God was using John to evoke the passage from our first reading in Isaiah: a voice in the wilderness crying that God’s glory would be revealed. John reminded people of the prophet Elijah, wandering the wilderness and speaking God’s truth. And they listened to him, hoping to feel divine connection.

Most importantly, God was preparing the way for Jesus the Christ to meet us in our everyday, human messiness. The Gospel of Mark brings Jesus into the scene fully grown and ready for ministry. This is a Gospel of action, known for its frequent use of the word “immediately,” rushing from one story to the next with a powerful sense of urgency. There’s no time to waste.

No time to waste on anything but pointing to what God is up to. Like John, focusing on his priority of proclaiming that Jesus was on his way.

That is what we proclaim, too, especially during Advent.

We proclaim that God shows up in the most unexpected places: the humble places, the messy places, the dangerous places.

And we proclaim that God uses the least likely people, like John and me and you, to spread God’s message of love to the world.

And we proclaim that God came to live among us in Jesus and lives among us still—in the least, the last, and the lost. In our most unexpected neighbor, and in us as well. And Jesus will come again at the end of time to complete the Beloved Community, ending death and sorrow and pain forever.

That is the message of Advent. It was John’s message, and it’s ours.

God spoke through Isaiah and John, saying, “Nothing is going to keep me from my people.”

God might even say:

“Ain't no mountain high enough

Ain't no valley low enough

Ain't no river wide enough

To keep me from getting to you, babe”

There’s no wilderness vast enough in our world or in our hearts to keep God out.

There are no pilgrimages we need to take, no self-help books we need to read, for God to love us more. God tore heaven apart to be with us. That love is there for you always.

We can rest in that simplicity: we don’t and can’t earn God’s love. There’s nothing left to earn; God’s love for us has been 100% since the moment of creation.

That is what matters. God’s Advent love letter shines forth from your heart every moment. May you find rest in God’s love and peace now and forever. Amen.