The Summers of '77 and 70

Mark 1:1-8

The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

As it is written in the prophet Isaiah,

“See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,

who will prepare your way;

the voice of one crying out in the wilderness:

‘Prepare the way of the Lord,

make his paths straight,’”

John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. He proclaimed, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

When we went to the movies in the summer of 1977 to see Star Wars, that was all there was.  It was “A” single, stand alone movie.  We had no notion of sequels, let alone prequels, let alone all the rest that continues to come out year after year.  In the summer of 1977 it was JUST… STAR WARS, but it changed everything.  

When the Gospel of Mark came out in the summer of 70, it too was “A” single, stand alone Gospel.  They had no notion of Matthew and Luke’s prequel birth stories, nor sequel resurrection stories... neither of which are found in Mark.  They certainly had no idea that one day John’s Gospel would be a thing.  In the summer of 70 it was JUST… MARK, but it changed everything.

 

In the summer of 70 the first character they met in Mark’s Gospel was John the Baptist, but WHAT a character to start a story!  People came from all over to hear what John had to say.  His message was that God was getting ready to break into the world.  God would bring justice and free people held captive by oppression, poverty, violence, war, disease, and death.  People came to hear that message of God’s coming because for them, God’s coming wasn’t scary… It was a new hope!  The situation in which they lived… the Romans, the injustice and the pain was so great that only something truly epic could change the situation.  They came out into the desert to hear how their pain would come to an end when the King of Kings and Lord of Lords came to town and to hear that time was soon.

John also let people know that, as when any important person comes to town, there were some preparations that needed to be done.  In the ancient world when the king was coming to town the people would go out on the roads and cut back the brush on the sides.  They would fill in the potholes so the king had a smooth ride.  They would make the way into their town as straight as possible so the king would have no delays.  The same sorts of preparations needed to be done for the coming of God, John told them, but it wasn’t the roads that needed to be prepared for God, it was their hearts that needed the work.  They needed to straighten out the places where their compassion for the poor and hungry had taken a wrong turn.  Cut back the things that kept them from seeing their neighbors in need.  Fill in the potholes of greed that left them always wanting more, and turned them in on themselves to the exclusion of the world around them.  THAT was the way to prepare for the coming of THIS King.

When the people heard John’s message… the coming of the King and the need to prepare themselves… they committed themselves to that kind of personal preparation.  To mark their commitment, they were baptized by John.  John baptized them on the OUTSIDE to mark their commitment to doing the work THEY promised to do on the INSIDE.  But then John added… while he was baptizing them from the OUTSIDE-IN, when God came, God would baptize them with the Holy Spirit from the INSIDE-OUT.  

Outside in, inside out…what difference does it make?  Well, it makes ALL the difference!  Outside-in transformation begins and ends with us.  It is the power of our own will to change our lives and do things in a different way.  It counts on us, and us alone, to motivate ourselves to get out there and fill in those pot holes of greed, trim back the bushes of indifference, and straighten out what’s gotten off track.  It’s not that Outside-In transformation CAN’T work, it’s just that for most of us mortals, it’s not something we can keep up for the long haul.   

On the other hand, when we are baptized by the Holy Spirit from the INSIDE-OUT, our transformation isn’t up to us.  It’s ALL God’s work!  It is God, who begins that work inside us.  It is God who grows that work, from something small into something that simply can’t be kept inside.  It is God who then pours it out of us and into the world.  Because the Spirit’s INSIDE-OUT Baptism doesn’t depend on our will, it keeps on working within us, moving us, and transforming us no matter what we do or don’t do in our lives.  When we are Baptized with the Holy Spirit, God works in us, regardless of the road conditions, regardless of wrong turns, regardless of all the times we try and take over and play God.  When we are Baptized by the Holy Spirit, God never, never, never gives up on us.

No one here has been baptized with John’s kind of baptism.  None of us here have been baptized from the outside in.  None of us here have been left to transform our lives by our will alone.  Every single one of us here has been Baptized by the Holy Spirit.  That means that every single one of us, even now, even still, is being transformed by God from the inside out.  In each and every one of us, God continues to fill in our potholes, cut back the brush, and get us back on track.  That’s why our job as Christians is simply (well, not so simply) to get ourselves OUT of the Holy Spirit’s way and allow God’s love, grace, and compassion to do its work within us which then flows freely from us into the world, changing the world into the vision John proclaimed was coming, all those years ago in the summer of 70.  Amen.