The four gospels each have very different ways of introducing the story about Jesus. Matthew begins his gospel with a long genealogy, tracing Jesus' lineage — "son of David, son of Abraham" (Matthew 1:1-16) from the time of Abraham through fourteen generations, through the line of Mary's husband, Joseph, all the way to Jesus.
Luke's gospel begins differently, first with stories of the foretelling of the birth of John the Baptist and of Jesus, the more familiar portions of what we think of as the Christmas story, but Luke also gets around to including an even longer genealogy of Jesus than Matthew, traced back in an opposite fashion to Matthew, starting instead of ending with Jesus, and moving back through the generations even further than Matthew, all the way back to Adam, the first human (Luke 3:23-38).
But John trumps Matthew and Luke in writing about Jesus' beginnings, foregoing a genealogy altogether, he moves back to the time before time in his gospel introduction: "In the beginning was the Word ... All things came into being through him ... And the Word became flesh and lived among us ..." (John 1:1-14). We'll say more about John's take on the beginning of the gospel of Christ next week in the second part of this little two-part series. But for now, it is worthwhile to notice that John understands Jesus as having been present at the beginnings of the whole, created world, before Abraham, before Adam, before generations, at the very edge, the very start of the world, one with God. Now that's a pedigree!
When it comes to making choices about gospels to read in the weeks leading to Christmas, I suspect Mark would come in last in most people's books. How can we resist Matthew and Luke, who I suspect would tie for first? And John would likely place third, with so much more about John the Baptist than we have here in Mark. In contrast to the desire of the other three gospel writers to place Jesus solidly in the history of Israel's most important figures, Mark begins his economical little gospel — a presentation of the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, Son of God — with a quotation from Isaiah and the arrival on the scene of John the Baptist. Without so much as a tip of the hat to a question like, "Where did he come from?" Mark briefly quotes the prophet Isaiah's words about a voice yelling itself blue in the face in the wilderness that it is time to get the Lord's way ready. That's it. Then, "Boom!" here comes John with his camel suit and strange diet, saying his only job is to point toward the one they have all been waiting for, like the announcer on a late-night talk show warming up the audience for Jay or Dave or Conan.
I remember a few years ago, going with my daughters and my son-in-law to New York after we had attended their cousin's wedding in Connecticut. What would we do with our three days together in New York City? I left two of the days up to them, but told them the price for that liberty was that on the third day, they would have to do my bidding and visit old family haunts with me. To my surprise, before almost anything else, they wanted to go stand in endless lines to get into a taping of the Late Show with David Letterman. So, that's what we did. And, as things went, we all managed to get in.
If you've ever been to anything like this, you know that the audience for a show being recorded live fulfills what is mainly a supportive role for the program. Nothing in the program is really aimed at the live audience, many of whom can only see the show with difficulty because of all the cameras and the support staff wandering around just off camera. Many wind up watching it in progress mainly on the monitors, which isn't all that different from watching it at home, except the people in the show are really in the room with you. The big guest for us that day was Christopher Walken, who, I became even more convinced than I already was, is a really scary guy. But that's another story.
The first stage of preparation to be in the audience comes as you stand in a series of lines, hoping to be chosen to receive tickets. Once chosen, you have to come back in a few hours for a short interview with staff. These are the folks who separate the sheep from the goats, enthusiastic, happy, smiley people are sheep who get to sit close to the stage. Frowny, morose, Eeyore types are the goats who get seats in the rear of the balcony. You understand right off that your best bet for a good seat is a cheerful willingness to serve as an enthusiastic prop. Then, after a couple of hyped-up youthful interns work your portion of the audience into as near-hysteria as they can, you are ushered into your seats, while loud music is playing and everyone is clapping in rhythm and cheering on cue — this is all rehearsal, so even when the show is a total dud, you would think the audience is on speed, they are so giddy with enthusiasm over moldy jokes, and in our case, a really bad musical guest, formerly a smashed pumpkin, and if you don't know what that means, don't worry, your children or your grandchildren do. Then, a comedian comes on stage to get everyone laughing and all but promise the entire audience a close, personal relationship with Dave. He introduces the band, which kicks everything into the highest gear, they are really fantastic musicians. And at last, the announcer, Alan Kalter, shouts above the din, "And noooooow, heeeeere's DAVID LETTERMAN!" as the audience erupts into a frenzy of cheering and clapping that competes with the band for sheer volume.
Okay, this has taken a while to describe, but nowhere nearly as long as it took to happen, believe me. By my reckoning, all tolled, we invested about four-and-a-half to five hours getting ourselves ready to see Dave and then doing our dead-level best to help make it look as though he was a reigning monarch just returned from the field of conquest. Once it was over, I thought that Dave should have sent each of us a personal thank-you note. The show wasn't all that great.
So, it took five hours to work us into a state of frenzy. The part of John the Baptist to Dave Letterman was played by more than one person, from the spunky interns to the warm-up comedian to the band introductions, all this to say, "Here's Dave."
Compare that to Mark's incredible economy of phrase: John the Baptist appeared; and people from all over went out to him to be baptized; and he said, "One who is more powerful than I is coming after me" (v. 7). And that was about it. Eight verses sum up all the preparation, then in verse 9 Jesus will show up for his baptism. The church sets aside four weeks each year during Advent to get ready for the arrival of Jesus, Mark sets aside eight sentences. It's as if Dave — not one to be compared to Jesus by any means — was to emerge from a random subway station and just start his show there after a brief introduction.
There is so much packed into this handful of words, we could almost miss it in its understated presentation.
- Isaiah is quoted, reminding us that the Jews of Jesus' own time emerged from a people who 500 years before had lived in exile in another whole country, forcibly moved there by a powerful emperor, and they had never forgotten it.
- John preached repentance and return, not to a land this time, as was the case with Isaiah, but to their God from whom they had become increasingly estranged.
- John foresaw a Messiah on the way whose shoes he had no right to stoop down and tie.
So when did the Jesus thing really start? It started with a calling: "In the beginning" God called the world into existence; God called the kings of Israel to rule justly over the people; God called the prophets to preach justice and piety to the people; God called John the Baptist to remind the people who they were and who was their God. It really starts, this work of God in the world, with the call of God. A call to people, to individuals, to leaders, but mainly to those who will listen, those who will listen and respond.
On the Friday after Thanksgiving in Orlando, Florida, customers in a national discount-chain store got into a brawl over laptop computers. The story was on the television news the other day: two men tackling another man, throwing him to the ground, because he had cut ahead of them in line. Pandemonium broke out. Laptop computers were tossed twenty feet into the air, and people collapsed on each trying other to grab them.
I wonder what Jesus would make of that scene? Why, he might have wondered, were those shoppers shoving each other around? To make a way for the Lord, to make his paths straight, or to be first in line to honor Jesus' birth?
A friend of mine reflected that the sort of holiday that brings about department-store riots has long since lost any resemblance whatsoever to the celebration of the Messiah's birth. How easy it is to get caught up in the rush, and end up "doing the very thing we hate" (see Romans 7:15). How much more important, in this season, to listen to the terse words of the baptist: "The one who is more powerful than I" — than all of us — "is coming after me ... he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit" (vv. 7-8). If only we will let him.
Novelist, Wendell Berry, once said, "The industrial economy's most marketed commodity is satisfaction, [but] this commodity, which is repeatedly promised, bought, and paid for, is never delivered."1 When the voice of the baptizer calls out in the wilderness, "Prepare the way of the Lord, make his path straight" (v. 3b), he is getting us ready for the coming of Jesus, the coming of God's Messiah, that all the decorated trees and cute cards and shopping trips and gift wrap and cozy fireside scenes cannot do by themselves. John's baptism lives in our own, washing out the stain of materialism and myopic self-concern, killing in us the old life, preparing us to be raised to a life that is new. Our preparation for Christmas is just such a preparation for the coming of the Lord, who comes to this world again and again and again, wherever there are those who will take up his cross and follow. Amen.
1. Wendell Berry, Resurgence magazine, June, 1998.