Wake Up

You can listen to this sermon here

 Gate Pa – Advent 2 - 2023

Readings:

Psalm                          Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13                                        
First Reading:             Isaiah 40:1-11  
Second Reading:        2 Peter 3:8-15                         
Gospel:                        Mark 1:1-8                              

What I want to say
Do we hear the call to wake up – In Isaiah, in John the Baptiser, in how Mark introduces his telling of the good news of God found in Jesus. Do we feel the urgency as we stand on our threshold.

What I want to happen
What thresholds do we stand on?
In our wilderness what does it mean to wake up and live peace this Advent

The Sermon

1.     Introduction:

Wake up!!!
Did you hear that in our readings this morning?
Did you hear the writer of Isaiah begin “Wake up”?
Did John’s wake up catch you?
Did Mark’s urgent “wake up” find you this Advent?
 
2.     Isaiah 
The writer of second Isaiah
Written long after Isaiah the prophet
Holding the prophet’s words and reinterpreting them for this new time
This time of exile
To this new audience living in Babylon
Judea and Jerusalem are long way away
Temple and ark covenant gone
To this people lost in hopelessness
-         Disoriented
-         despairing,
-         Complacent and idle,
This Isaiah says “wake up!”
Pay attention
Listen
God is coming ready or not
You stand on the threshold of a new age
Let go of your hopelessness and despair
Embrace all that God is doing
Replace your complacency and idleness with God’s justice and peace
Wake up!
Now is the time.

3.     John the Baptiser

There is John Baptiser
Standing on the Jordan side of the Jordan
Standing on holy ground @@@
-         Ground where people God had crossed the Jordan into the promised land
-         Ground below the hill Elijah was drawn into Heaven on his fiery chariot
o   Elisha carried his mantle on to his new age
On this land looking back to Jericho and the Judean wilderness
He cries
“Wake up!” 
-         There is a new thing happening
People longed for God’s new thing
They had suffered under Rome and their own entitled leaders for too long
They travelled down the road to Jericho
A road through the Judean wilderness
Barren and dry

Waded across the Jordan river and found this strange figure
Dressed in ways to evoke Elijah.
-         Standing beneath Elijahs hill

On this place that evoked endings and beginnings
This place of threshold
He invites is hearers to have their minds blown by God’s goodness
-         To see this new thing
Jesus embodies this new thing that God is offering.
And John says he is unworthy to untie the thong of his sandal
John stands in awe
And in his baptism offers a way for others to also stand in awe
To let go of all that blinds them and holds them.
He cries “wake up!” 
Now is the time.

4.     Mark 
Mark takes all this
To his community
-         Living in the trauma and grief of what has happened in Palestine
-         The destruction of Jerusalem and the temple
-         The slaughter and enslavement
-         His community perhaps divided in apportioning blame
o   Divided in how to respond
-         dazed into inaction and grief
-         maybe complacent in their distance from that horror
He begins his Gospel with
“Wake up!”
This is the beginning of the Good news of God found in Jesus
This fast paced gospel
-         Short sentences
-         Active verbs
ð Urgent in its telling
ð Urgent in its demand
Wake up.
This is just the beginning
Pay attention
Listen
God has come ready or not
We stand on the threshold of a new age
Let go of your hopelessness and despair
Embrace all that God is doing
Jesus crucifixion defeated those powers of death
The resurrection affirmed this way of life
Wake up and live this gospel 
This is the beginning
The story of the Good news of God found in Jesus carries on
Wake up
Urgently live it now
The world needs it!
 
5.     Conclusion

As we stand on our own threshold
-         Wars in Ukraine and Israel-Palestine
-         New government with all it seeks to do or undo
-         Climate change
-         Threshold for this parish
As we hear these readings
As we hear the writer of second Isaiah
As we hear John the baptiser
As we hear Mark’s urgent
Wake up
This is the beginning of the good news of God found in Jesus
What do we hear?
As we hear John’s call to have our minds blown by God’s goodness
How does that help us prepare to celebrate the birth of the Christ child
-         Part of that beginning
What might we need to wake up to?
What does it mean for us to Wake up?