Sabbath Day Thoughts — “Messengers” Mark 1:1-8
When we want to send a message, we pick up our phones and tap out a text. We may even resort to a phone call. For longer messages, we’ll sit down at the computer to send an email. All those modes of communication get the message out instantaneously. If we are old school, we might pick up a pen and write a letter, carefully seal it in an envelope, apply a stamp, and drop it off at the post office, trusting that our snail mail will reach its destination across the country in a matter of days.
To send a message in the ancient near east, you needed a messenger, someone who would carry your words to their intended destination. Messengers traveled long distances on important purposes, sometimes at great risk.
There were royal messengers. In the fifth century BC, the Persian Emperor Darius developed the Royal Road, a network of mounted couriers called the Angarium. They efficiently transmitted imperial messages from Susa in modern-day Iran to Sardis in modern day Turkey. Like the pony express, the mounted messengers of the Angarium worked in relays. They reportedly could make the 1,677-mile journey in nine days, a journey that would take ninety days on foot. The Greek historian Herodotus was so impressed that he wrote, “There is nothing in the world that travels faster than these Persian couriers.” “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.” If those words sound familiar, it is because they are sometimes quoted as the unofficial slogan of the United States Postal Service.
The Romans expanded this early postal system with engineering work that forged lasting roadways along ancient trade routes that dated back thousands of years. The Romans employed military messengers who brought news to and from the battlefield. A messenger with good news carried a laurel wreath, heralding victory. A messenger with bad news attached a feather to his spear, indicating the need for haste. In the year four, when Gaius Caesar, the heir to the Roman throne, died in Lycia, a military messenger bore the news home. Bad weather forced the courier to travel the 1,345 miles overland. His journey took thirty-six days, averaging more than thirty-seven miles a day.
Of course, scripture tells us that there were religious messengers in the ancient world. When God’s word came to the prophets, they felt compelled to speak uncomfortable or surprising truths to humanity. God sent the reluctant Jonah to Nineveh to preach repentance. God sent the Prophet Elijah to trouble King Ahab and Queen Jezebel by denouncing their idolatry. Messengers from God never knew what to expect. In Jonah’s case, his tough message was welcomed and the whole city returned to right living. In Elijah’s case, he spent most of his life on the run or battling the prophets of Baal. It’s a whole lot easier to tap out a text, make a call, send an email, or resort to snail mail. Isn’t it?
Mark’s gospel bypasses our beloved stories of Jesus’s birth. There is no babe in a manger. No shepherds guarding their flocks by night. No wise ones from the east bearing royal gifts. Instead, Mark gives us a messenger: John.
Like a royal messenger, John conveyed a message from the Kingdom of God to the people of occupied Israel. Mark introduces John with the words of the Prophet Isaiah, “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” When Isaiah first spoke those words, they heralded coming liberation for the Hebrew people. God would soon bring Israel’s time of exile in Babylon to an end, and the Israelites would return to their promised land. It may be lost on us, but to the Israelites, John’s introduction sounded like a promise of coming freedom from Roman occupation.
John’s urgency was that of a military messenger. The battle between good and evil had been won in heaven, but the battle was coming to an earthly battlefield. The one coming after John would confront the forces of empire and temple. Those forces would send God’s champion to his death on a cross. But just when it seemed that the forces of darkness had won the battle, a resurrection miracle would win the victory for God and for us.
John was also a religious messenger. With a camel-hide tunic, unappetizing diet of locusts and honey, and tense message, John fit the description of an Old Testament Prophet, like Elijah, who was expected to return to herald the Messiah. John brought good and bad news, a laurel wreath and the feather. The good news was that the messiah was coming. The bad news was that the people weren’t ready. They needed to repent, to turn their lives around and return to God.
John visits us every Advent. He’s the messenger who stirs a little bah humbug into our Christmas cheer. God sends John into the midst of our shopping and baking, our parties and pageants. John reminds us that we are meant to serve another Kingdom. That Kingdom is coming, whether we are ready or not. John is a timely reminder that our holiday preparations are always best when tempered by our spiritual preparation. John invites us to turn things around, to be centered in God with worship, prayer, study and the desire to be good news for the world around us.
The Apostle Paul characterized Christians as messengers. Paul and his friends would make at least four missionary journeys across the Roman Empire, covering thousands of miles by foot or by sea. In the course of those travels, Paul suffered stoning, beatings, imprisonment, shipwreck, and rejection. In the course of those travels, Paul also established more than twenty churches and launched a tide of caring and good news that today spans the globe. In his second letter to the church in Corinth, Paul wrote, “We are messengers for Christ. God is using us to call people. So, we are standing here for Christ and begging people, ‘Come back to God’” (2 Cor. 5:20-21). It’s a message worthy of John the Baptist. It’s a message worthy of the second Sunday of Advent.
What might it look like for us to be messengers? I’m not suggesting that we put on John’s camel pelt and dine on locusts and honey. I’m not recommending that we saddle up and ride the Royal Road from Susa to Sardis. We don’t need to tie a laurel wreath or a feather to our spear and rush off with news from the battlefield. But I do believe that the world needs messengers. The world needs faithful people who will listen for God’s voice and speak God’s word. I’d like to suggest three messages that the world needs to hear.
The first message is that we are loved. In this hectic holiday season, not everyone is merry. Christmas for some of us raises painful memories of holidays past. Or, it may make us mindful of who will not be at Christmas dinner: the beloved ones lost to death, the family scattered across the miles, the son deployed to the middle east. Some of us may not feel we have much to celebrate this year: we’re sick, we’re broke, we’re depressed, we’re alone. Amid the merry Christmases, there will be blue Christmases. We are called to bear the message that God chose to be born into our suffering with limitless love. We can share that message with cards and calls, dinner invitations and small gifts, or by welcoming a neighbor to our Longest Night Service on Friday.
The second message worth bearing this Christmas is that God longs for peace on earth. Amid the falling bombs in Gaza, as rebel fighting intensifies in Congo, and the war in Ukraine grinds on amid worsening humanitarian conditions, God longs for peace. The angels heralded Jesus’s birth with the words, “Peace on earth. Good will among all people.” The risen Lord greeted his grieving disciples with the word, “Peace.” The biblical understanding of peace, shalom, means wholeness in body, mind, and spirit. We are messengers of peace when reconciliation puts an end to our family feud, when we bridge divides in community conflicts, and when we walk the tough path of bi-partisan work. We share the message of peace by standing against hate, working to stem the tide of gun violence, and seeking equal justice for all.
The third message that God might have us bear this holiday season is that we are not alone. The heavenly kingdom comes in the midst of this troubled world. Jesus proclaimed that the Kingdom is all around us. God is here. Christ is alive and still at work in the life of the world. The Rev. Tracy Daub, author of our Advent Study Holy Disruption, reminds us that Jesus works within the world’s chaos. Daub uses the story of Jesus stilling the storm on the Sea of Galilee to remind us that amid the forces of chaos that disrupt our lives, Jesus is powerfully on our side. We remind those around us of the presence of Christ when we share an Advent devotional, or invite a friend to a worship service, or we serve Christ in our vulnerable neighbors.
On this second Sunday of Advent, John the Baptist strides out of the wilderness and reminds us that the world needs messengers. The world needs faithful people who will listen for God’s voice and speak God’s word. We are loved. God longs for peace. We are not alone. How will we share the message this Advent, my friends?
Resources
Paul S. Berge. “Commentary on Mark 1:1-8” in Preaching This Week, Dec. 7, 2008. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.
Mark Alan Powell. “Commentary on Mark 1:1-8” in Preaching This Week, Dec. 7, 2014. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.
Karoline Lewis. “Commentary on Mark 1:1-8” in Preaching This Week, Dec. 4, 2011. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.
Barry J. Beitzel. “Travel and Communication” in The Anchor Bible Dictionary, ed. David Noel Friedman, vol. 6 (New York: Bantam, Doubleday, Dell, 1992).
Tracy S. Daub. Holy Disruption (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2022).
Mark 1:1-8
1The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
2As it is written in the prophet Isaiah,
“See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way;
3the voice of one crying out in the wilderness:‘ Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,’”
4John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5And 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. 6Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. 7He 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. 8I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
Joann White 