JOHN CAME BAPTIZING AND PREACHING
Prayer: Dear God of grace: During this season, we struggle to keep our minds on You, that is, on You O Christ, the God-in-human-flesh, and You, God our Father who sent Him. But don’t we also need the Holy Spirit? Isn’t true faith in short supply, and also godly living? Don’t we have pressures, sadnesses, and fears; and we need to be comforted? We need You, Holy Spirit! Show us that Advent is also about You. Help us to see that John the Baptist’s way is still the only way You bring us Jesus, in Your Word and Sacraments. Amen.
Sermon Text, St. Mark 1:1-8. 1 The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. 2 As it is written in the Prophets: “Behold, I send My messenger before Your face, Who will prepare Your way before You. 3 The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord;Make His paths straight.’ ” 4 John came baptizing in the wilderness and preaching a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. 5 Then all the land of Judea, and those from Jerusalem, went out to him and were all baptized by him in the Jordan River, confessing their sins. 6 Now John was clothed with camel’s hair and with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. 7 And he preached, saying, “There comes One after me who is mightier than I, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to stoop down and loose. 8 I indeed baptized you with water, but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
Lord, this is Your Word and these are Your words. Sanctify us by the truth. Your Word is truth. Amen.
Dear fellow redeemed in Christ: Grace be unto you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
What is it that comes right after the first words of Mark’s gospel, “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ”? Not Jesus’ birth, as we’d expect; instead the next thing is that suddenly Jesus is 30 years old. He isn’t even in the picture yet. Instead we hear: “John came baptizing in the wilderness and preaching a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.”
The beginning of this gospel is that “John came baptizing and preaching.” So how is this about Jesus? With Christmas in view, we’re in a hurry to see Him. This shows how we Christians prepare for Christmas differently. Nothing shows this more clearly than John the Baptist. If he’s part of our preparations, then how we prepare is different indeed.
John the Baptist doesn’t fit in to the way the world prepares for Christmas. We need what he brings us, because we Christians do get sucked in to this other way. The Christmas music starts playing, the store Christmas displays go up, and suddenly you’re feeling pressure to be in the Christmas spirit, to have a certain kind of Christmas. You focus on all you have to do to be “ready” with your decorations, your presents, your feelings too.
But here’s the thing: you don’t need Christ at all for that kind of Christmas. So we hear from John the Baptist, who doesn’t fit into any of that. Instead he brings what we need. John doesn’t give you a cozy or comfortable Christmas. His work was the polar opposite of that.
But before we meet him, Mark has us listen to two Old Testament prophets, Malachi and Isaiah. We’ll take Isaiah first. We hear him say: “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; make His paths straight.” What does it mean? It’s that part about making the road straight, having to straighten and smooth it out. The verse in Isaiah goes on to say: “Every valley shall be exalted and every mountain and hill brought low. The crooked places shall be made straight and the rough places smooth.”
What needs to get smoothed out? You do. This is about our rough spots, the places in us that are crooked. This means: every way that we don’t follow the straight path that God’s Law sets out for us. It’s about our stubbornness, how we resist God’s call to listen to Him and do as He says, and how we defend ourselves and make excuses for the sins we do. His Law is good, it’s the good way. But we go our own way. Our feet dig a crooked path. Then we find that we’re a desert, empty and dry because of our sins.
Then we hear from Malachi, and it’s the Gospel: “Behold, I send My messenger before Your face, who will prepare Your way before You.” The way Mark has it, Jesus is in this verse even though it’s way back in Malachi. We’re allowed to listen in as the Father says this to His Son: “I send My messenger … He will prepare Your way before You.” It’s a John the Baptist verse, but it’s about Jesus. And this is the key with John the Baptist.
The way Jesus comes is through John the Baptist. After these verses from the prophets, which are about John’s ministry, this is what we hear: “John came baptizing in the wilderness and preaching a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.” We should not hear about John baptizing and preaching as being disconnected from Jesus. He was preparing the way for Jesus to come. To this day, Jesus comes through what John was doing.
He comes through baptism and through preaching. Why does He come? To take away your sins. How does He take them away? Through baptism and through preaching. This was also the case in John the Baptist’s ministry.
John’s baptism was no different than the baptism Jesus instituted, in what it does. As it says here, John’s baptism was “a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.” Hear that? It was “for the remission of sins.” Remission is a beautiful word, it means “to send away.” John’s baptism sent the sins away, same as your baptism and mine. This wasn’t by his own doing or power, just as it isn’t the pastor’s own doing or power. From the Old Testament, to John, down to this day, there’s only way that the sins go away: Jesus died for them. Through His Word – the words spoken in baptism – God puts into the water the forgiveness of sins Jesus won, and the power for the sins to go away.
You know how your sins are sent away in your baptism: through the words, “I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” the Triune God comes into the water. God the Father declares you to be His dear child, Jesus’ blood – which is in the water by the speaking of the words – cleanses you of all your sin, and the Holy Spirit gives you faith.
And what about John’s preaching? The only actual words we hear from him here in Mark are about “the One after me who is mightier than I, Whose sandal strap I am not worthy to stoop down and loose.”
How is Jesus “mightier?” By His death He destroyed death, He let death swallow Him up so it would swallow up all the sins, and then He rose from the dead and brought with Him the power to forgive sins, and He puts it into Baptism, into the preaching of His Word, into the Lord’s Supper. In these means of grace He sends all your sins away, shuts the devil’s mouth from accusing you, and declares that you are His dear child.
But the very first thing John says about Jesus is: “He comes.” He comes to you in Baptism. He comes to you in the preaching of His Word. And always to save you, to do His Savior-ing on you.
This is how He exalts you when you’re in a valley. This is how He smooths out your rough spots, your sins. This is how He puts you on the straight path again. This is how He turns you from a dry desert into a blooming garden, as He gives you faith that bears fruit in your life in good works prepared by Him for you to do. You may have scars from your rough spots and crooked places but that’s OK. When you can see the signs of your past sins, it reminds you of His forgiveness and motivates you to resist leaving the straight path.
What we learn today, as we hear what John the Baptist did, is that our hearts are being prepared. So there is another Person of the Holy Trinity who is important to us as we prepare for Christmas: the Holy Spirit.
You don’t often think of Him at Christmas. But He is always thinking of you. He never stops thinking of you. After He gives you faith in baptism, He sees your faith – when it’s weak, when it feels strong, when it’s about to be tested severely, where exactly you need help and comfort and strengthening, and He’s never left your side or abandoned you. He’s always giving you precisely what you need, by means of His Word and Sacraments.
He is always bringing Jesus to you in just the way you need Him. The Holy Spirit never forgets you. Let us then not forget Him but thank Him for this Gospel that fills us with God’s love. Amen!