Advent 2- Year B- 2Peter 3.8-15- Mark 1.1-8- The Spring Clean
We have begun our journey through the gospel of Mark as we begin our new year in the Christian calendar. And our new gospel companion is keen to get going. He sets off with the pace and trend he keeps up for all 16 exhilarating chapters! And they move fast- you got to be on your toes to keep up with this one!
He starts off where every good writer should start ‘The beginning’ an echo of the Hebrew book of Genesis that the other gospel writer Matthew would have been proud of and spent ages talking about, only Mark ignores that, skips it entirely, goes straight to good old reliable Isaiah, trots off a quote and before you know it we’re all in the Jordan with some geyser named John thinking of our sins and why he had wild locust and honey sandwiches for his lunch waiting on the bank of the river!
Phew... what a ride already! Long story short the whole point of Mark’s opening gabble is to say- ‘We’re still waiting’ Someone is to come whose going to make sense of all this, someone for whom the water pouring over our heads today as we repent will be a figure of meaning, as deep gushes of cleansing wholesome spirit rush away the cobwebs and the fluff from our lives and aids us to step into the fullness of all who are meant to be, heads held up high and praising with joy!
But that is yet to come.. (by the way, Mark is so impatient in telling the story of Jesus- he even skips the story of Jesus’ birth entirely and leaves us scrabbling for gospel fragments from the others until the middle of February!)
Mark, rattling on as if tomorrow won’t come, in his account of our saviour, is in complete contrast to our New Testament reading. There we find Peter writing a letter of reassurance to the believers, that they can trust God will come, he isn’t being slow as they think. The promise is real, trust it. Time, from God’s perspective is very different to how it is for us, he says. Any delay in God’s coming again, if indeed it is a delay, is for our benefit, for more folk to be given the chance to experience, not just the water of John’s baptism as we think upon our brokenness, but to experience the gust of life-changing wind that is the baptism of the Spirit, brought by Christ’s presence himself. And Peter tells us, what more do you need for a reason to live prepared and holy? Live like Mark, Peter is telling us, live as if there is no tomorrow, and there we find the two writers united in their experience and wisdom.
One careful, plotting out slowly for the benefit of frightened survivors of persecution, that God would come. The other living as if there was no tomorrow, because that keeps us focussed on the One we love and are waiting for.
And so we wait,... and Advent is all about waiting.
We wait for others to come and have the chance to taste that the Lord and all her providence is good.
I wonder though what the experience of being blessed with Spirit would be like? I wonder what it is that we would hope to invite people to, so that during this almighty Advent we find ourselves in across the many years of its lasting in this creation, we will know and recognise when it happens in one another, and give thanks that God has indeed Given us time to find her.undefined
Who here, still practices the ancient art of the Spring Clean?
I do keep meaning to.. But I do remember it. Every Spring, just as the air outside is still a little bit on chill side but the birds are chirping and the flowers nodding in reassurance that the warmer is stuff is coming. Mothers (as it usually was the mothers), would be opening windows, letting that still cool air flow through the building, rugs would be chucked on the line to be beaten of their dust, window sills wiped of any smudge until they gleamed, with every ornament being picked up and dusted and set down with micron precision back into location, cobwebs would be swept, hoovered even, into oblivion and every piece of furniture would have been moved not once but several times as an ornate dance of the household ensued that heralded the freeing of all corners from their dusty gains in the year.
The Spring Clean, we hate the prospect of it- all that work. And yet, isn’t the result so good and satisfying! Aren’t the bedsheets afterwards, feeling full of that fresh spring air? Don’t we start feeling more alive?
As an allegory of the baptism of the spirit that Jesus will bring, and that Mark told us of today, I think the Spring Clean does it to a T.
And I think Mark the gospel writer himself, is evidence of what the that spiritual Spring Clean would do. Look at him! Full of life, rushing through the anecdotes he heard of Jesus and writing down only the ones that really got to the pithy stuff, so desperate was he to communicate. You can feel the heart-beat as he rushes, not quite sure of which episode of his Saviour’s life to tell next!
There are no cobwebs on Mark, that’s for sure!
Wouldn’t it be good if we recognised that we’re in this waiting time for our Lord and Saviour, not for Christmas, not for ourselves as if we’re waiting God to arrive and affirm who we are. We’re waiting for others to come join us, while there is still time, so that when Christ does come, all of us will feel the fullness of that motherly Spring Clean in the midst of our lives, that one that God has promised in the renewal creation with the this New Beginning.