Worship at Home – 6 December 2020

2^nd Sunday of Advent

Introduction:

Today's service is the one that Dalwyn is leading for Kempston East.  It will be live on Zoom and the log-in details can be provided if you request them via email.

The traditional focus for the second Sunday of Advent is the prophets and we often meet John the Baptist in our Gospel readings both this week and next.  This week we meet him as the last of the Old Testament prophets and next week as the Messenger who prepares the Way for Jesus. 

God’s faithfulness is demonstrated in the ministry of the prophets as through them God consistently calls God’s people to repentance.  The consistent message of the prophets may be summed up in a verse from a book that is not, in itself, prophetic: 

⁵ Trust in the Lord with all your heart
    and lean not on your own understanding;
⁶ in all your ways submit to him,
    and he will make your paths straight. [Proverbs 3.5-6]

Hymn – StF 157 God has spoken by his prophets

 

Advent Liturgy

In the Psalms, David meditates on God’s steadfast love.

‘Bless the Lord, O my Soul,
and all that is within me,
bless his holy name!

The Lord works righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed …
The steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him

(Psalm 103.1,6 and 17)

As we call to mind God’s deeds
we give thanks for his mercy in forgiving us, healing us and redeeming us.

Bless the Lord, O You his angels,
Bless the Lord, all his hosts,
Bless the Lord, all his works,
Bless the Lord, O my Soul.

(Psalm 103.20–22)

We sing verse 2 of Tell Out My Soul and the second candle is lit

2          Tell out, my soul, the greatness of his Name!
                        Make known his might, the deeds his arm has done;
            his mercy sure, from age to age the same;
                        his holy Name, the Lord, the Mighty One.

 

Prayers of Confession:

this prayer of confession is based on Michael Card’s song – Recapture Me – if you would prefer to listen to the song as you offer your own prayers of confession, it can be found here: https://youtu.be/K6OxDCJ5iXQ

Through the words of the prophets,
God has shown mercy and lovingkindness
by exposing our human stubbornness and rebelliousness
and calling us back to pathways of righteousness and faith.
Those with ears to hear have been recaptured by God’s goodness and grace.

Instead of allowing you to embrace me in your love
I have fled from your presence.
Recapture me,
Recapture me.

Instead of listening to your word,
I been caught up in the wisdom of this world
Recapture me,
Recapture me.

Even though your glory fills the earth
I have walked blindly away from knowing your presence
Recapture me,
Recapture me.

I am tempted to dismiss the prophets’ words
Allow me to hear your wisdom in their strangeness
Recapture me
Recapture me,

When I drown out your peace with my busyness
Draw me to the place where I may silently rest with you
Recapture me
Recapture me.

Come and knock on the door of my imagination
Come and renew in me your purpose for my creation
That I may see you more clearly,
love you more dearly,
and follow you more nearly,
recapture me
day by day.  Amen.   

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow you
all the days of your life
and you shall walk in the knowledge
that in Christ Jesus
God forgives your sin and bids you go free.  Amen

Hymn Stf 183  Praise to the God who clears the way

 

Reading: Mark 1.1–8

1 The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God, ² as it is written in Isaiah the prophet:

‘I will send my messenger ahead of you,
    who will prepare your way’ –
³ ‘a voice of one calling in the wilderness,
“Prepare the way for the Lord,
    make straight paths for him.”’

⁴ And so John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. ⁵ The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him. Confessing their sins, they were baptised by him in the River Jordan. ⁶ John wore clothing made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt round his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. ⁷ And this was his message: ‘After me comes the one more powerful than I, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. ⁸ I baptise you with water, but he will baptise you with the Holy Spirit.’

Reflection:

She stood in front of us, drew a breath and without hesitation launched into her prepared speech:

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. …

We recognised it as the opening words of Pride and Prejudice, but I am still not sure. whether we were surprised because we had not asked for the recital or because she was 7 years old and her stage was the school playground and her audience a couple of teachers trying to stay warm during their playtime duty. 

That day she surprised us, but we were not at all surprised a couple of years later when she was cast to take the lead role in the school play.  The authority of her performance was only what we had come to expect …

Just as the opening words of Austen had been etched into her mind, so have her stage skills remained with me all these years. 

I indulge in the anecdote both to illustrate the importance of first-lines of books.   We may feel that compared to the other Gospels, Mark’s opening is pretty unremarkable.  Matthew launches into the great genealogy that places Jesus in David’s line, Luke opens with a personal preface addressing his book to Theophilus and John, of course opens with the poetic philosophical meditation on the Word.  Mark, though, just launches straight in:

The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God.

WHAT IS GOOD NEWS? (The Euangelion – Gospel)

Whilst Mark’s opening seems plain and straight-forward, it is another one of those instances where some digging into the original significance of the words may throw a different understanding on the text.  Rowan Williams wrote a short book on Mark in 2015 and in it he explains the possible impact of Mark’s opening sentence.

A book called, ‘The Good News about Jesus’ would not have been too surprising for a Christian of that era.  But if you didn’t happen to be an insider and you came across a book with a title like this, what would you think?  Euangelion (the Greek for Gospel) is actually a piece of political jargon.  Euangelion, literally ‘a bit of good news’ or ‘a pleasing message,’ was the word you would have used in the ancient world as the routine official designation for an important public announcement.  An euangelion was a press release from the Buckingham palace or Downing Street of the day announcing a significant event of public interest …
An euangelion, a ‘gospel’, a good message, is a message about something that alters the climate in which people live, changing the politics and the possibilities; it transforms the landscape of social life.               (Rowan Williams – Meeting God in Mark – p6)

WHAT IS MARK’S GOOD NEWS: the Good News of Jesus ?

Williams goes on to refer to a Gospel as an official proclamation and furthermore, Mark’s official proclamation of the beginning of the ministry of Jesus who is titled ‘the Messiah’ and ‘the Son of God’ as a radical announcement of regime-change. 

It’s an announcement that God is taking over.  And so the reader is warned from the very first verse of Mark’s Gospel that she or he must look and listen in the Gospel for all the things that change the state of affairs in the world.  This is going to be a book about change, a book about how the world came to look different, under different management… this is about how a particular person’s life altered the shape of what was possible for you and me, the readers. (Williams – p7,8)

Mark’s good news, then, is that in Jesus, God has come into the world to change the world. 

Mark’s good news is that the change Jesus brings is a change for the better, and is a change (to quote a recent political slogan) for the many (in need) and not the few (who are already comfortable.) Jesus calls ordinary people, including respectable fishermen and disreputable tax-collectors and the sinners they hang around with to become followers and co-workers with him in bringing about this transformed world.  And throughout, Mark reminds us that all that is required to see and be part of this new transformed world is faith: faith that believes that Jesus IS the Christ, the Son of God. 

 

The faithful ones who follow Jesus will, see for themselves the change that Jesus brings.  And readers of Mark’s breathless announcement of the Good news will come to understand that in God’s transformed world,

those troubled by demons will be set free,
   the sick will be made well,
those paralysed in body and spirit will be forgiven and raised up to walk again,
   the blind ones calling out for mercy will receive both mercy and their sight,
the hungry will be fed and
  furious storms of life will be ordered to be calm.
They will see and they will be amazed.    

IF THIS IS ONLY THE BEGINNING …?

But more than that, by declaring that he is recording only the ‘beginning of the good news,’ Mark hints that the work of Jesus does not end with his account.  He invites his readers, both in the first century and now, to believe the possibility that they might experience for themselves God’s transforming work in our world.  The good news is for us too and reassures us that the world is not always going to be like this!  In Jesus, God came to turn darkness into light, death into life and sorrow into joy and by the Holy Spirit, God is still doing it!

The coming of Jesus, the Messiah: Jesus the Anointed One, Jesus the Son of God is Good News for us too!

By declaring that he is telling us about ‘the beginning,’ Mark’s invites us, to join those first disciples in repenting and believing the good news!’(v15) 

Literally, of course, for them this was the act of going into the river to be symbolically washed through John’s baptism.  For us, baptism marks our entry into the church.  But, both then and now, it is more than that! 

The baptism of repentance is an immersion in a new way of living that begins with a washing away of the stains and scars of the old ways.  Through baptism, we are invited to become immersed (since that is what baptism means) in a different way of seeing the world (which is what repentance means).  The Good News Jesus offers is the possibility of finding a different way of being in the world and a different way of living altogether.  The Good News of Jesus begins with the declaration that our sins can be forgiven and the offer of a new start.

Jesus comes to takes away everything that prevents us from taking our place in God’s kingdom through the forgiveness of sins.  But more than that, as the more powerful one coming with the baptism of the Holy Spirit, Jesus comes to immerse us in the presence and knowledge of God.   Our whole lives can be immersed with God’s presence as we submit ourselves to God’s rule and reign.  

And this is the ongoing Good News.  The Message of Advent is not just that Jesus once came two thousand years ago at that first Christmas.  It is not even just that Jesus will come again once more to fully usher in God’s rule and reign.  It is that through the ministry and presence of the Holy Spirit, Jesus comes anew in each generation to declare that there is Good News in every age.

Our watching and waiting is not only confined to history or postponed until some unknown future date.  It is very real in this day and in this age.  As the Faithful people of Christ we are called to the continued task of prayerful watching and waiting for signs of Good News around us.

As we prepare for a Christmas vastly different, we are not called to a sorrowful waiting for things to return to ‘normal’ so that we can do it properly next year.  We are called to an active waiting that holds onto the hope that Jesus will be properly with us THIS year. Amidst the sorrow, amidst the pain and amidst the difference that none of us has chosen, Jesus’ is still Good News, because Jesus’ coming declares that God is with us, here and now.  And as we faithfully continue to allow God’s rule and reign in our lives, so we can faithfully declare with confidence that God has come to bring about a change in the state of affairs and in Jesus that will be a change for the better. 

So if we are tempted to wallow in self-pity, let us change our mind, and instead invite God to immerse us in his presence.  And the very possibility that He will, is not just the beginning, but is the continuation of the Good news of Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God – to whom be all glory both now and in the age to come.  Amen!

As you reflect on the Good News of Christ’s presence – listen or sing StF 405 – Great is the Darkness - 

Prayers of Intercession

Rather than providing written prayers this week, I invite you to spend time in prayer for yourself, your family and friends, the church and the world. 

As you sit quietly and bring to mind those in each category and their needs, pray that they would experience the Good News of God’s presence in their lives.  You may wish to simply name them and their need aloud and after a brief pause say, “Come Lord Jesus”

The Lord’s Prayer

Hymn – StF 503 Love Divine, All Loves Excelling – note I have chosen a version that includes the verse beginning, Breathe O Breathe …