December 6, 2020 Text: Mark 1:1-8
Dear Friends in Christ,
A few years back was a cartoon of a husband and wife sitting in their nicely decorated living room getting ready for Christmas. The wife had a frown on her face and looked completely exhausted. The husband says, “Of course, you’re depressed – ‘tis the season to be jolly.”
Where are you at as we get into the month of December? One thing we tend to do in these days is to look backward. We romanticize our childhood or when our own kids were little. We get a little melancholy. But Christian people follow a star because we are not looking for the way it used to be but what we need.
“GOD’S REPLY TO NOSTALGIA”
I think you will find this Merriam-Webster definition of “nostalgia” quite enlightening. “Homesickness. A wistful yearning for something past or irrecoverable.” This is mostly an adult emotion. Why? Because as adults we would like to go back to being children at Christmas. No responsibilities. No decorations to get out. No cards and letters to send. No gifts to buy. No baking to get done. We all got Christmas without the anxiety. Open gifts. Play with toys. Dad and mom telling us where to be and when. We didn’t have to worry about politics or religion or uncomfortable family gatherings. We had no idea what was going on. Heck, it was a great time to a kid. As somebody once said, “Some of our most vivid memories are of things that never happened, for we remember the images and the imagination of our childhood dreams.”
Earlier I said we get melancholy. This definition is not pretty. “Mental condition marked by extreme depression often with delusions.” Ouch! Add in the preceding nine months before December and melancholy and depression and anxiety are bursting out all over.
We need a future. We need something stable. What’s the answer? How do we get the merry-go-round to stop? Our text is the starting point. “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” (v. 1) It is good news from God. What He gives does not change. God replies not with a nostalgic look at our past but a present look at what He has given us through His Son Jesus. We look forward to all that Christ brings and that will never, ever change.
Mark reports, “John appeared, baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” (v. 4) You know John, right? Isaiah speaks about him in our Old Testament reading this morning. John’s message was not a morbid groveling around in what was but a spiritual lift to what is. Repentance for the forgiveness of sins. The grace of God through Christ who comes to forgive and take away our guilt and remorse of our yesterdays – our todays – and our tomorrows.
It is a message that is pointing forward. “And he preached, saying, ‘After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.’” (v. 7-8)
This is Advent and Christmas. It’s joy to the world because Jesus loves us with an everlasting love that cleanses our sinfulness. Christ has come to guide us through this world by His Word – the Holy Scriptures. Christ goes to a shameful cross to spill His blood so that the guarantee of our salvation would be sealed.
During these times we are so concerned about everyone’s mental health or their physical health. Important, yes. But what about the spiritual health of every God-created man and woman? Is that too going to become nostalgic? “O I remember the faith I once enjoyed. The church that was so beautiful. The singing that was uplifting. The message of Christ crucified that Pastor delivered.”
The voice is crying in the wilderness. “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” The past is past. God in heaven knows our sinfulness. He forgives us so that we can be givers and not takers. He minimizes our nostalgia and helps us let go of our melancholy. We stand with John on that first Advent. We stand in the light of a life of service to Jesus Christ. The One who loves us with an everlasting love. And you know something? That is how God replies to our nostalgia.
Amen.