Advent 2B (Mark 1:1-8)  12/04/2011

“Are we there yet?” I don’t want to keep bothering you, but I was just wondering – “Are we there yet?” Imagine you are driving down the road and there is a voice coming from the back seat of the car, “Are we there yet?” I always wondered to myself; why do young people ask that question all the time, especially on particularly long journeys. Perhaps they ask because they do not know how long the trip will take; or maybe they ask because they are not familiar with important landmarks along the journey or cannot read road signs that would help them determine where they were and how long they had left to go. But that familiar question is not limited to the young ones among us; adults have their own way of wondering, their own way of asking, “Are we there yet?” We like to know certain bits of information in advance of the journey, so we ask others to tell us what the journey will hold for us and what the place is like when we get there. We might investigate our destination on the internet or go to the library to perform some research. We need to satisfy our curiosity. We need to answer our questions in order to demystify the mysteries of unknown places. After all, when we ask “Are we there yet?” and the answer is “Yes, we are here;” we do not want to be disappointed or unprepared.

“Are we there yet?” This morning, we hear the opening verses of Mark’s Gospel account and hear the story of John the baptizer. John was a prophet, a man chosen by God for a very special purpose before he was born. The vivid image of John the Baptist is how Mark chose to begin his Gospel account, and John stands as the first witness to the question “Are we there yet?” The people want to know; “Have we arrived at the time of the Messiah?” And like the parent in the front seat of the car, John says, “No, we are not there yet.” The people do not appear to be convinced with John’s answer; the people poured out of the countryside of Judea and from the city of Jerusalem (people coming from both the country and the city is fairly remarkable in biblical stories!). People were going to John and they were confessing their sins and they were being baptized. What a great feeling! “Are we there yet?” “We must be there!” John stands at the edge of the mighty River Jordan and says, “No, we are not there yet!” We are not there yet because John is not the Messiah; John is the one who will prepare the way for the Messiah. John is the first witness of the Gospel to the very different life that would be present when the Messiah arrives. John was sent by God to prepare the way; he was sent to prepare us for our lives with Christ.

As we wait and prepare for Christ’s coming through our journey of Advent, we wonder – what will the end of our journey bring? We hear the vision of Christ’s arrival in vivid language from the prophet Isaiah in our first lesson this morning. “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed.” (Isaiah 40:3-5a) Isaiah proclaims that all of God’s creation will respond to the Messiah’s coming in the same way. The mighty mountains will be humbled; the lowly valleys will be exulted; the twists and turns of the earth will be made straight, the uneven will be level and the rough made smooth. There is a beauty to the simplicity of Isaiah’s vision. The mountains are not to be despised; they are simply brought low to reach out to the valleys below. And the valleys are not exulted beyond the reach of the mountains; they are simply raised up in unity with the mountains. The wonderful unity of God’s creation is meant for God’s children as well. The Apostle Paul describes our unity through Christ as he speaks to the Galatians: “For in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male or female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” (Gal 3:26-28) As Paul proclaims to the Galatians and as John the Baptist told the crowds on the edge of the Jordan River – we are all made one through the Messiah who comes to reveal the power and love of God.

“Are we there yet?” No, but we continue on the way that has been prepared for us; we continue our Advent journey until Christ’s coming on that Holy Night in Bethlehem. We walk together in the way that has been shown to us; prepared for us by the witness of John the Baptist. Walk in love and prepare for the glory of the Lord, revealed to us in Christ Jesus. AMEN.