Have you been out to see the Christmas lights yet? It is time for the annual excursion, when you pack the car with people on a chilly December evening, and drive around to all the neighborhoods and parks made beautiful by cities or neighborhood associations with lights, lights, and more lights, in a variety of colors and hues. There are bright reds, blues, and greens; beautiful, pastel pinks and yellows; and of course the brilliant elegance of white. As you drive along, there are elves and carolers, Santa and his reindeer, a snowman or two, and maybe a tin soldier. The decorations are eye-catching, breath-taking, and often amusingly original. One house I saw recently was decked out in red and white lights, with a gigantic “OU” shining in the yard. I am not sure what that had to do with Christmas, but it sure looked good!
Of course, you will eventually see a nativity scene. There will be baby Jesus in a manger. Mary and Joseph will hover reverently over the holy child. Shepherds, three wise men, and a menagerie of animals will give fullness to this sacred reminder amidst all the glitter.
There is always one person missing. Correct me if I am wrong, for I imagine that collectively we have seen a tremendous amount of Christmas displays. So if you have found him somewhere, please let me know. But have you ever seen John the Baptist in any of the nativity scenes? He would be this hairy, unkempt, wild-looking guy wearing camel’s hair. There would be a piece of locust caught between his teeth and dried honey in his beard. Louder than any Santa says, “Ho, ho, ho,” you would hear the automated voice of John the Baptist screaming, “The kingdom of heaven is near.” Has anyone noticed a figure like that in any of the nativity scenes that are traditional to our celebration of Christmas?
I love receiving Christmas cards. I especially like Christmas cards with good Christian artwork on the cover. The lion with the lamb; the three wise men and the message, “Wise Men Still Seek Him;” the Madonna and child; or the star piercing the darkness over stable and manger; all are beautiful depictions of the Christmas story. Again, I am positive that as a group we have all perused thousands of Christmas cards like these. Yet I do not recall ever receiving one with John the Baptist preaching in the desert. Do you? I can picture it in my mind: a card front marred by the dead, barren wilderness of Judea out by the Jordan River, with this animated, prophetic figure as the focal point. But I have never read one that even closely resembles such a scene. Have you?
No? There is a reason for that, of course. John the Baptist is totally inappropriate for the way we celebrate Christmas. Christmas is about the birth of Jesus as Matthew and Luke report that holy night many years ago. Mary, Joseph, angels, manger, shepherds, wise men; a child is born unto us. Glory to God in the highest! That is what Christmas is all about. Jesus is the reason for the season. So we honor sweet, little Jesus boy, get warm fuzzies, and hug our family members. What does John the Baptist have do with Christmas?
For Mark, everything. Instead of Bethlehem and choirs of angels, he begins the story of Jesus’ coming with a prophet blaring and baptizing in the wilderness of Judea. In so doing, he adds a new figure to the good news about the incarnation and coming of the Christ. It is John the Baptist. Throughout the centuries the church has recognized Mark’s unique contribution through its observance of Advent in preparation for the celebration of Christmas.
Advent means “coming.” Two thousand years ago, in a place called Bethlehem, lying in a manger, God came to us in the weakness of a baby. God entered our world, put on our shoes, and lived, breathed, and walked among us. He taught, loved, died on a cross, and rose again. God came to us; Advent.
God does not come only “once upon a time,” and then the story is over, “happily ever after.” It is not something the Lord did “one and done.” Nor is the coming of God a once, and then only again at the end of time, reality. God continually comes to us. Every moment of every day, whether we realize it or not, whether we sense it or not, whether we can see or hear or touch Him or not, God comes to us. The presence of God bombards our lives, sweeping over us like waves in the ocean. “Amen?”
The Scriptures give us image upon image of the Lord as the One who comes. Coming to humanity is a reflection of the very nature of God. His nature is love, and love comes, love gives, love can’t do anything else. God is constantly coming to us. Our hope, that makes all the shadows in our lives and the world lose their bite, is that He comes; has come, is coming, and will come again; Advent.
Now, you see John the Baptist is all about one coming. He is the forerunner, the one who comes before another to prepare the way. So when we celebrate not just a birth long ago, with all the nice, beautiful things we associate with Christmas, but celebrate Christmas as the coming of the Christ to us, John the Baptist becomes an appropriate figure for that celebration. Thus Mark starts not with Zechariah and Elizabeth or Mary and Joseph, but with John the Baptist. Mark declares to us, “Do you want to understand the good news? Do you want to know what God is doing? Well, it starts right here with John the Baptist.”
Mark introduces John the Baptist and the coming of Jesus Christ with a statement about beginnings. This is “the beginning of the gospel (good news) about Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” Does the concept of “beginning” ring a bell with you? The Scriptures talk about “beginnings” in a variety of places; none more prominent than Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” God spoke and there was light; waved His hand and put the sun, moon, and stars in place; blew the sea back and created dry land; and sculpted the living creatures into existence. In the beginning, God created, and it was good.
Now it is the beginning, all over again. This is the beginning of good news, about a whole new creation God is creating for you and for me. It is not a creation that involves sand and sea. It is not a creation that requires billions of tons of gas burning up in the sky or the right mixture of oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide to sustain life. This new creation doesn’t birth another universe. It births a Kingdom and new lives.
God is creating salvation, a restoration of everything sin has stolen from us and broken in us, a remaking of who we are. He is creating an opportunity for healing, forgiveness, and freedom. The Lord is making a road for those far away to become sons and daughters. He is unleashing grace that can redeem everything sin destroyed, making all things new.
This new creation is all wrapped up in this person called Jesus, the Christ, the promised one. Christ is the one the prophets foretold and about whom they kept saying, “God is up to something.” This is the one through whom God changes everything. How we think about God changes. No one has seen the Father, but God has made himself known in Christ (John 1:18). In Christ, God shows himself to be love, a love that heals, and forgives, and sets the captives free! How we think about salvation changes. God doesn’t just deliver and give victory over warriors like Goliath, but over the monstrosity of sin that has towered over us for so long, leaving us trembling in its shadow! All this and more; the new creation of God springs forth in the person of Jesus. In Him all the promises of God—everything God has ever communicated to a prophet, everything He has ever planted into the heart of a spiritual leader—all the promises of God are “Yes!” Not maybe, not possibly; God’s new creation is “Yes,” in Christ Jesus, the Son of God.
In verses 9-11 we read that Jesus comes to John the Baptist to be baptized. As He is baptized, there is a bodily indication that the Spirit falls upon Jesus, descending on Him like a dove. Then a voice is heard from heaven, saying, “You are my son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”
This is God’s chosen one! This is the very expression of God bringing His salvation to humanity. Jesus is God’s mighty right hand stretched out to make all things new. So much so that John the Baptist will say, “After me will come one more powerful than I, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie . . . he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
A quick reading of Old Testament prophecy lets us know how awesome this saving and transforming gift of the Holy Spirit is. God often directed His people, showed them the way, or spoke to them through spiritual leaders, wanting Israel to pay attention and follow where He would lead. As the Lord would do that, there would be a few souls who would stand up and say, “Oh, I’m going to follow God.” People like Joshua, who would say, “As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord” (Joshua 24:15). In contrast, the witness of the Old Testament portrays the majority of folks saying, “Yeah, I’ll serve God,” while they served Baal as well; or, “I’ll serve God,” and bring a blemished sacrifice; or “I’ll serve God,” and rebel against His law and sin against Him.
Needless to say, this was a problem. The prophets began to describe the problem as a heart condition. The human heart is like a stone tablet, chiseled with an iron tool and etched with a diamond point into the contours of sin (Jeremiah 17:1). Israel blew it, humanity blows it, we blow it time and time again, because sin is deeply written into the nature of who we have become. We cannot get away from it, we cannot stop it, and we cannot change it.
The prophets, however, didn’t leave humanity to languish in despair over that piece of news. They offered a message of hope: “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my laws” (Ezekiel 26:26-27). “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts” (Jeremiah 31:33).
The prophets picture a day when the Lord will send his Holy Spirit, and through the Holy Spirit reach into the beings of humanity and grab that heart of stone etched with the diamond stylus of sin, and rip it out! Then through the power of the Spirit, the Lord will give a new heart of flesh. Upon that beautiful heart of flesh, God will write a new thing, not with sin’s diamond stylus, but with His love. He will write His very character upon the hearts of human beings, so we may be His people, and He may be our God.
John declares, “This one coming will baptize you with the Holy Spirit. He is the fulfillment of the prophetic message of hope. He is God’s salvation enacted. He will literally change you from the inside out! And He is coming! Jesus is coming to create a new beginning in human hearts . . . a kingdom of God in this world.”
John was the one designated to prepare the way for the coming of the Christ. Not that he had to make a way for God. God is about the business of taking every mountain and making it low, seizing every valley and raising it up. Wherever the road is rough—like Oklahoma roads with all their pot holes—God makes level ground, smooth and plain. The Lord makes a way for His salvation. John the Baptist is a part of that way. He is a prophesied, designed-by-God means of getting the way ready. So here stands John the Baptist, a voice of one calling in the desert, “Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.”
John is calling out to all who will hear, “The Lord is coming. Let’s get ready. The Lord is on His way. He’s coming in the fullness of His salvation. He’s coming in the form of the promised Christ, the Son of God in whom all the promises of God are, “Yes!” Everything that would be life for us, healing for us, restoration for us, redemption and forgiveness for us, He is creating. The Holy Spirit that can literally change us from the inside out, He is bringing. He is coming. Let’s get ready to receive the gift of His coming.”
In order to receive the coming of Christ, John invites us to get ready by coming out to the wilderness. That is the locale where John is baptizing. That is arena in which he carries out his prophetic ministry. So he invites us to get ready by journeying into the wilderness.
Wilderness is not simply a geographical concept in the Scriptures. Wilderness represents an aspect of relationship. Wilderness is the place where the people of God get back in touch with God. Deuteronomy 8:2-3 is the text for this understanding,
“Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and test you . . . He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with Manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.”
The Lord takes His people into the wilderness so they may orient their lives once more around His presence and mercy, revelation and law. The Lord pushes His people toward the desert to unclench fingers and set prisoners free. The Lord calls His people into the barrenness of wasteland, so worldly distractions might fade into the rear view mirror. The promised land is good and on the horizon, but cannot be experienced until we journey into the wilderness. So John the Baptist calls us to get ready for the coming Christ by making the trek out into the desert.
Brother and sister, if there has ever been a generation that needs to hear and respond to John the Baptist’s call to the wilderness it is ours, isn’t it? Diluted focus: we scurry here and there, conforming to pressures, lacking the purpose to rise above the rat race. Deceived beliefs: the media moguls have done it; convinced us abundant living can be measured by how many presents are under the tree or how big the light display is outside the window. Dangerous choices: we compromise with culture, inflict on ourselves pathetic attempts at improvement, and chase after every voice that offers us the promise of a better tomorrow. If we have any doubts about the diagnosis, all we have to do is observe the way we celebrate Christmas these days, with plenty of distractions, misplaced priorities, meaningless pursuits, and very little Christ.
So John the Baptist invites us into the wilderness. If we are going to receive Christ’s coming, we must be made ready by stepping away from distractions and stepping out of the pace and pattern of Christmas as it’s celebrated by our culture, and going out into the stripped-down simplicity of the desert, where we learn again that we live not on bread but on the word of the Lord; not on stuff, but on His presence.
The wilderness prepares us to be an alien people, different from the world. A journey into the wilderness will change how we celebrate Christmas. It will be a change for the better, but others may not understand our decision to worship instead of party on Christmas Eve, or to choose simplicity over pushing the limit in our planning and scheduling. To them, we might look like some bug-eyed prophet, chewing on locust and honey. Christmas wouldn’t be a box in which such changes would stay stored either. They would ripple out into the way we lived all of life. We would become counter-cultural enigmas, choosing the calm of His presence over scurry and noise, valuing relationships over money, position or power, and taking the attitude of a servant over driving to be in control. Christ is coming. John calls us into the wilderness to step away from the temptation and distractions, and turn our focus on receiving Him.
John the Baptist calls us into the wilderness to hear a message. It is a message particularly suited to the wilderness. It is a message of repentance. No, repentance is not typically what we think of when we think of Christmas. We love to talk about hope and love and joy and peace. We tend to focus on exalted concepts that make us feel good. Yet John the Baptist invites us into the wilderness to consider a message of repentance. It is a message at the heart of what it means to receive the coming Christ, who has come, and is coming, and will come again. It is a message central to how we move from hopelessness to hope. There can be no good news about Jesus Christ for us apart from the message of repentance.
Repentance is one of those exalted religious words with has a simple meaning. Repentance means we do an “about-face.” We turn away and turn toward. We make a 180-degree change in direction.
When John the Baptist calls us to repentance, what are we turning away from and turning toward? The writer of Hebrews gives us some help here. Hebrews 12:1-2 tells us to “throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles,” and “to fix our eyes on Jesus.” We “turn from” everything that hinders and from the sin that entangles, and “turn toward” the Jesus who is coming to us. This is repentance.
Notice two categories come under the heading of “turn away from.” First, there is everything that hinders. Throw it off! Does it surprise you that the writer of Hebrews doesn’t have sin as primary in the order of address? Instead the first order of repentance is to turn from hindrances. Hindrances might be wonderful things, good things, “fine for someone else” kind of things, but they create an obstacle in our relationship with Christ. Therefore, we must throw them aside. A hindrance might be the amount of television we watch, or another activity that eats up so much of our time we fail to read the Scriptures or pray. Or it might be our poor diet that weakens our health and limits our effectiveness as the Lord’s instrument. Whatever it may be, are we willing to remove such hindrances?
Throw “off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles.” The second category is sin. John the Baptist’s preaching, with its call to repentance, focused more on this second emphasis. Scripture is clear here: we will never receive Christ in the fullness of His coming when we entertain sin, remaining entangled in its web. We must turn away from envy, selfishness, unforgiveness, disobedience, promiscuity, and every other act that violates the Creator’s intent that we love Him and love others with all we are. All the wondrous things the Scriptures promise to us, we will never receive until we have made this “about face.” Until we do, the highway of holiness is too cluttered with roadblocks. There is a dam cutting off the flow of the Spirit. The Lord desires to come to us, but there is no access ramp, until we repent. So John the Baptist calls us to repentance.
We need to hear his message well. You see, we can preach all the wonderful messages we want to about Christmas, Jesus, and what He’s done for us; but if we aren’t ready to receive—if we aren’t prepared through repentance to receive—then we will go through this holiday season and miss His coming. We will enjoy the lights and the greenery, we’ll have a lot of fun with gifts, but we’ll miss Christ, who’s coming to us. Brother and sister, I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to miss Him.
Not only does John the Baptist call us into the wilderness to hear a message, but he also calls us there to show us a lifestyle. When we follow the progression of Mark’s gospel story we read that Jesus comes, is baptized, the Spirit descends, and God’s voice speaks. Then the Holy Spirit sends Jesus out into the wilderness, where temptation comes as the evil one assaults. Jesus overcomes this bout with temptation and is ready to call His first disciples and begin His public preaching ministry.
Right before He gets started, though, Mark tells us about John the Baptist. Verse 14 states, “After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee.” Now Mark doesn’t tell anything more about what is happening with John the Baptist for several chapters. There will be a time and a place in Mark’s gospel (6:14-27) when we will find out John the Baptist was arrested by Herod, why Herod had him arrested, what happened, and how he lost his life. But at this point, we are given this simple statement about the Baptist’s arrest. Seems almost out of place, doesn’t it?
There is a purpose, however, for Mark mentioning this change in the Baptist’s fortunes at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. Mark wants to remind us that from the beginning, death overshadowed the life of John the Baptist; and in turn, the life of Jesus. These two live out their lives in the shadow of the cross, embracing its sacrifice from the very beginning of their ministries. The cross is not something Jesus does at the end of His ministry. It is His way through His ministry. Sacrifice is not something John the Baptist experiences at the hands of Herod. Sacrifice is the lifestyle of the one who continually cried, “After me will come one more powerful than I.”
Here is the example we discover in the wilderness. John invites us out into the wilderness to join him, to join Jesus, in the way of the cross, where we discover that we really save our lives when we lose them. The way in which we realize that we find ourselves by denying ourselves. The way where we learn that we gain purpose, meaning, and significance in our lives when we stop trying to create our own way and receive the Lord’s will for us, which is the way of Christ.
This is a driving motif in the entire gospel of Mark, which climaxes as Jesus is going through the city of Jericho on His way to Jerusalem (10:46-52). Jesus passes by the beggars that line the way of a typical Judean city. There are men and women who are blind, lame, deformed, deaf and mute. Their handicaps cause them to be shunned. Their only means of livelihood is to hope for pity on the thoroughfares of the city.
As Jesus walks by, there is a man on the side of the road. We don't really know his name; just that he was the son of Timaeus. We do know this, however: we know he is blind. Blind Bartimaeus is what the people call him. A rejected waste of flesh left to beg on the side of the road, about whom no one even cared enough to know his name.
Somehow, blind Bartimaeus has received news about this Jesus and His teachings and miracles. So when he figures out that the sudden ruckus on the road is actually Jesus walking by, he makes a scene. He jumps up, shouting “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” The crowd tries to make him hush. Jesus is an important man. He doesn’t have time to speak with someone as insignificant as Bartimaeus. “Be quiet,” they say, “You will disturb the master.” But Bartimaeus is not quiet. He shouts all the more, “Jesus! Jesus! Son of David, have mercy on me.”
Jesus stops and calls blind Bartimaeus to him. “What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus asks.
“I want to see!” Bartimaeus answers.
Jesus then speaks a new creation into Bartimaeus’ world, “Go, your faith has healed you.” Immediately Bartimaeus can see. He can see the blue sky and the white puffy clouds as they sail pass. He can see the green grass, the beauty of the sun reflecting off the water, the birds flying through the air. He can see!
What I want us to catch, however, is this. When Bartimaeus sees, and Jesus turns to resume His trek to Jerusalem, Bartimaeus follows Jesus “on the way,” as the Revised Standard Version translates. In doing so, Bartimaeus shows he understands something we often miss. He can’t just experience the grace of Jesus, receive His coming, and then let Him pass by! He has to follow Jesus on the way, on the way to Jerusalem, on the way through the heart of the city up to a hill called Golgotha, on the way to the cross. That is Jesus’ way. Bartimaeus understands that experiencing the coming of Jesus, receiving all God wants to pour out upon us, will only be found in its fullness on the way with Christ. So he joins Christ on His way. It is the example of John the Baptist, the one he models for us in the wilderness. In his modeling he invites us to join him on the way with Christ as well.
Let me ask a question, one I have asked myself this week. Jesus is coming. He came 2,000 years ago as a babe in a manger. He is constantly coming to us, in His love, in His grace, and in His mercy. All the promises of God are, “Yes!” in Him. He will come again to bring all things to fulfillment. Are we ready? Are we ready?
John the Baptist has been provided for us. He calls us out into the wilderness to get away from all the clamor and distraction, so we might focus on Christ. He asks us to respond to a message of repentance, to pray about hindrances and sin and cry out, “Lord, deliver me from this! Forgive me of that! Help me to overcome! I am putting these hindrances, those sins aside. I am not going there anymore. Give me strength Lord!” He invites us to follow him on Jesus’ way, the way of the cross; the way of giving our lives away. John the Baptist enters the Christmas story to get us ready for the coming Christ.
Are we ready? Are we ready? Or do we need to answer the call of John the Baptist, join him in the wilderness, and get ready?
Jesus is coming. Are we ready?