Punctuation and Prophecy - A Sermon for the Second Sunday in Advent December 10 2023

Gospel: Mark 1:1–8

The holy gospel according to Mark.

Glory to you, O Lord.

The Gospel of Mark does not begin with a story of Jesus' birth but with the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord.

The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

2As it is written in the prophet Isaiah,

"See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,

who will prepare your way;

  3the voice of one crying out in the wilderness:

'Prepare the way of the Lord,

make his paths straight,'"

  4John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  5And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.  6Now John was clothed with camel's hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey.  7He proclaimed, "The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals.  8I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit."

The gospel of the Lord.

Praise to you, O Christ.

Punctuation matters.

We Remember all who have served hot breakfast.

Punctuation Matters.

Let’s eat Grandpa. Let’s eat, Grandpa.

Punctuation can save lives.

Toilet only for disabled elderly pregnant children.

Here we learn that punctuation

can keep many people from using the bathroom.

I don’t know about you, but

I have never met a disabled elderly pregnant child.

Punctuation matters.

I share these with you because

we have a bit of a punctuation discrepancy

in our texts:

From Isaiah: 3A voice cries out:

"In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD,

make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

From Matthew & Mark:   

3the voice of one crying out in the wilderness:

'Prepare the way of the Lord,

make his paths straight,'"

It matters where that punctuation goes -

“A voice cries out in the wilderness”

or

“A voice cries out:

in the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord.”

The message changes with the punctuation.

So, the question is raised -

is John the baptist

the one who is foretold

to prepare the way of the Lord,

or is he some lunatic

crying out in the middle of nowhere?

This is a picture of Papyrus 46,

an ancient manuscript from 2nd Corinthians.

Both the Greek text in the New Testament,

and the Hebrew text of the Old Testament -

even the Hebrew’s translation into Greek,

looked like this.

There were no spaces,

there was no punctuation.

The Hebrew didn’t even have vowels.

We don’t have access

to those original hand-scribed tablets

written by the memory of the scribes,

and even in the best manuscripts,

we need to use context

and educated guesses sometimes

to determine what they read.

The bible that John the Baptist knew

was most likely the Septuagint.

The Septuagint is the Greek translation

of the Hebrew Bible - the Old Testament.

It’s a good translation,

but translation is hard without knowing the punctuation.

So which is it?

The Hebrew says “The voice of one crying out:

in the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord”

The Greek says

“The voice of one crying out in the wilderness,

prepare the way of the Lord.”

Critics of Christianity are quick to point out

that we believe John the baptist

was fulfilling a prophecy,

when the Isaiah text was not foretelling John’s role,

but rather making a call

to the people of Israel in that time,

to prepare the way.

Isaiah and the prophets

are less about predicting the future,

and more about telling the truth of the present.

Having said this,

the prophets did point to God’s hopeful future:

a return from exile,

a Messiah.

At the time of John the Baptist,

Judaism was longing for a prophecy revival.

It seems prophecy had been silent for hundreds of years.

I don’t believe God was silent,

but it sure seemed silent.

All the people went out to see John,

not in Jerusalem,

not in the synagogue

but out in the sticks,

in the wilderness.

That’s how much they longed for prophetic revival,

They didn’t have the 1-2 hour drive

from Jerusalem to the Jordan,

it was perhaps a 25 hour walk,

one way.

And it’s not just any prophetic revival,

John the Baptizer

sounded like the second coming of Elijah:

They wore the same clothes,

camel’s hair and a leather belt,

They ate the same food,

locusts and wild honey.

They proclaimed the same message:

Repent.

Return to the Lord.

Elijah’s & John’s clothing and food in themselves

proclaim trust in God to provide.

They are not dressed in elegant robes,

no suit and tie,

but earthly attire,

won in the hunt in the wilderness.

Like Manna,

you can’t hoard wild bugs and honey,

you can find enough for today.

That’s part of the truth they declare:

trust God will provide.

So why cry out in the wilderness?

I don’t think it is so much to fulfill prophecy,

but more like a pilgrimage.

God saved the people Israel

from their captivity in Egypt,

journeying with them in the wilderness for 40 years,

preparing them for the promised land.

Returning to the wilderness

reminds the faithful Hebrews

of God’s work in the past.

Jesus himself will go into the wilderness,

to be tempted,

a time of preparation for ministry.

Here’s where John fulfilled scripture,

fulfilled prophecy,

not so much by where - in the wilderness,

but in what:

calling people to repentance,

to return to God.

To change your mind.

To change your direction.

That’s how you make a straight path in the wilderness for God,

Repentance.

Repentance itself, like faith,

is a gift of God.

Repentance is not a prerequisite for forgiveness,

but by God’s wisdom,

repentance is good news,

turning away from self and returning to God

is good news.

The ability to repent in itself

comes from God.

In our own wildernesses,

repentance is Good News.

Some say folks just went out to see John

because he was a spectacle.

As much as John was a spectacle,

an idea bigger than himself,

a prophet,

a charismatic preacher;

All John really did was point to Jesus.

“I am not worthy to stoop down

and untie the thong of his sandal.

He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

In our own Advent,

in our own time of preparation for the coming Christ,

as we join Israel in longing for the Messiah,

as we look to the manger

and to the second coming,

We too can prepare the way of the Lord,

Like John,

we can point to Jesus in word and deed,

we can trust God to provide in word and deed,

we can turn around,

we can change our minds,

we can repent.

And we can tell the truth.

John the Baptizer was a truth teller,

perhaps that’s what being a prophet is really about,

proclaiming truth.

The truth sets people free,

except it landed John in jail,

and eventually killed

for speaking the truth to power.

Even so, we too can prepare the Lord’s way

by speaking truth to power,

when it corrupts,

when it oppresses.

We might be afraid to do this,

Prophet’s aren’t always popular.

we might be afraid of the outcomes,

but like John and Elijah,

we can trust God to provide.

I believe the church today, the world today,

needs more John the baptists.

Most churches already have someone

standing up at the front,

baptizing people,

wearing odd clothing

and telling people to repent.

We don’t need to all live John’s bizarre lifestyle,

but the church needs more truth-tellers.

So here’s a truth for the Advent season:

Some say that hockey is our national sport and religion,

but I don’t think it’s hockey,

It’s consumerism

that is our national sport and religion.

This cultural shift of massive Christmas spending

is still relatively new in the grand scheme of things.

Truth has a way of passing the test of time -

in the long run, by God’s Spirit,

people will see through it -

but not without truth tellers,

and I believe we need more truth tellers:

Truth tellers that declare that

it is not the presents under the tree that fulfill,

but it is God’s presence that fulfills.

The spending, the debt, the keeping up

is anything but gracious.

God is gracious and merciful,

slow to anger,

abounding in steadfast love.

Truth tellers expose

the false security and false happiness

that materialism and commercialism offers.

Truth tellers declare that

the decisions we make with our money

can either help or hinder

systems of economic abuse

that make the rich richer and the poor poorer.

Most importantly,

We need truth tellers that say that

what we need is Jesus,

that forgiveness awaits all those

who call on the name of the Lord.

The banks wont forgive the debts that you owe -

that’s a bind that you have to get yourself out of.

But the truth is that,

for the average person in Canada,

we don’t need more stuff -

what we need is Jesus.

My friends in Christ,

What we heard today

is just the beginning

of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

May God’s Spirit call us to repentance,

to prepare the Lord’s way.

May we trust in God to provide

in word and in deed.

May God give us courage to be truth tellers

in this wilderness.

Thanks be to God. Amen.