SPEAK TENDERLY BAPTIZER JOHN
Isaiah 40:1-11; Mark 1:1-8
2nd Sunday of Advent, December 10, 2023
Pastor Ritva H Williams
On this second Sunday of Advent, we are introduced to “a beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ.” This beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ begins with John the baptizer appearing in the wilderness. Dressed in camel’s hair and leather belt, eating locusts and honey, John preaches a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, and predicting the coming of one who will baptize in Holy Spirit.
Baptizer John shows up every year on this Sunday. He’s a challenge to preach. In Matthew and Luke he calls the crowd “you brood of vipers” but there’s none of that in Mark’s story. The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ seems to be a bit meager in Mark’s version. So it was with amusement and relief that I came upon this blog post by Professor Richard Swanson:
I have been working with actors to perform this scene for a long time, nearly 20 years, in fact. I have seen women and men perform this scene, old people and young, pastors and sophomores at Augustana [College, Sioux Falls] where I teach. In almost every performance, John the Baptist shouts. Sometimes he foams at the mouth. Most of the time he resembles a revivalist preacher, whether or not he adopts a phony Southern accent (it is especially bad when he does).
But this common way of playing this scene ignores how John is invited into the story… out of memories from Exodus, from Malachi, and from Isaiah …Go look at … the First Lesson for this Sunday. It comes from Isaiah 40, and it does not anywhere mention repentance. It does not foam at the mouth. It does not even shout.
[It begins with the words] “Comfort, O comfort my people,” says God. “Speak tenderly.” Stop and think about that.
I did and found much good news. So let’s turn to Isaiah 40.
Our English translation hides some important details, but I’ll make those clear as we go along.
The prophet is reporting what “your God says.” The “your” is plural in Hebrew, meaning this is the God of y’all who says: y’all comfort oh y’all comfort my people, y’all speak tenderly to Jerusalem, y’all cry to her that she has suffered enough.
Isaiah claims Jerusalem’s suffering was a penalty — a consequence — for her leaders’ sins, decreed and carried out by the Lord. Even if that were true, which I sincerely doubt, punishing people is not the task God gives us. No. God wants us to comfort one another, and especially to comfort people who are suffering. The you plural makes it clear that comforting one another is not a job for one or two people of us, but is the job of the whole community of faith.
Why? If we read on in the book of Isaiah we discover that comforting people is first of all God’s work.
49:13 — The Lord comforts God people, and has compassion on suffering ones”
51:3 — “The Lord will comfort Zion; God will comfort all her waste places, bringing joy and gladness
51:12 — God says, “I am [the one] who comforts you.”
52:9 — “The LORD has comforted [God’s] people, [and] redeemed Jerusalem.”
66:13 — God promises: “As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you; and you shall be comforted.
The entire community of God’s people is called and invited in participate in and collaborate in God’s work of comforting people. If you’re wondering what’s involved, consider this. The word comfort literally means to strengthen, to encourage, and to empower people so their lived experiences are changed from fear to hope, sorrow to joy, shame to self-esteem.
In verse 3, a heavenly voice rings out: In the wilderness y’all prepare a road for the Lord. In the desert, y’all make level a highway for our God. Comforting and empowering one another requires changing the landscape of our communities: leveling uneven ground, lifting up valleys, lowering mountains, smoothing out obstacles. This is a beautifully poetic call to transform human communities and societies, so that no one suffers separation from loved ones, loss of freedom or homeland, due to systemic inequities and prejudices. On this point, the mouth of the Lord has spoken.
The heavenly voice rings out again in verse 6, “Cry out!” In the Hebrew this is a masculine singular imperative. A male human is commanded to lament the state of God’s people who are as vulnerable as grass, here today and gone tomorrow, in contrast with the word of God which stands forever.
In verse 9, the same voice addresses Zion with a string of feminine singular imperatives: “get you up to a high mountain … lift up your voice with strength” … “lift it up; do not fear, say to the cities of Judah, “Here is your God.”
Within the community’s collaborative and inclusive ministry of comfort there are roles to be played by individuals — male, female, non-binary, trans — declaring and even lamenting the reality of human life, and proclaiming the good news that God comes with power and might to “feed the flock like a shepherd, gather the lambs in his arms, carry them in his bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep.”
Professor Swanson wonders in his blog why everyone who plays Baptizer John shouts, even foams at the mouth. It’s as if we believe people will only change if we scold them loudly. We do live in a culture where there is a lot of shouting, a lot of blaming and shaming, of fault-finding and fear mongering. Too many of us live, study, work, and play in hyper-competitive, judgmental situations where people to attack one another with their words, and even with fists or worse. That comforts, strengthens or empowers no one.
Mark reports that all the people of Jerusalem and people from the whole Judean countryside went out and were baptized by John in the River Jordan, confessing their sins. Maybe Baptizer John didn’t shout or foam at the mouth. Maybe he comforted and empowered people by affirming their dignity as God’s children. Maybe he invited them to repentance — to let go of fear, anger, resentment, prejudices and bad habits — with tender and kindly words rather than blame and shame. Maybe Baptizer John, who undoubtedly knew the Hebrew scriptures kept telling the people that God is gracious and merciful, abounding in steadfast love. Maybe Baptizer John preached Isaiah 40. We’ll never know for certain. What we do know is that Baptizer John was Jesus’ cousin, John’s disciples became Jesus’ disciples, the people who came to be baptized continued to work with him and with Jesus after him. Maybe the messages of Baptizer John and Jesus the Christ were more alike than we have been led to believe.
Please pray with me this prayer written by Thom Shuman (lectionaryliturgies.blogspot.com)
Comfort of the ages, you come: so you can fill our empty places with your hope;
so you can level our pride with your call to servant the vulnerable;
so you can smooth our toughened hearts with your tenderness.
Herald of Good News: when we hunger for exaltation, you feed us with humility;
when we trip over sin, you gather us up in love;
when we become satisfied with our faith, you shake us with your Messenger.
Spirit of Advent: in this hectic season, give us the gift of patience;
when we overflow with stress, soothe us with your serenity;
when we are overwhelmed with the desire for more and more,
speak to us of the needs of the outsiders.
Holy God, surround us with your presence, and fill us with the love of Christ. Amen.
