Isaiah 40:1-11; Mark 1:1-8
It's a bit confusing having John the Baptist popping up at this time of year, considering that Jesus, whose way he's preparing, is a grown man in our second reading, but that we've not yet celebrated Jesus' birth. It would make more sense to come across John in the Judean desert, taking up Isaiah's words and preparing God's way, once we're on the way into spring, at the beginning of Lent. But this time I can't blame the lectionary writers; they had no more material to work on this year. For, as you'll be aware, Mark's Gospel begins with Jesus at the age of 30 or so, at the start of his adult ministry.
Mark's Gospel is the first. It was written when being Christian was a dangerous matter - synagogues were beginning to think Christians were heretics, and Rome considered them atheists, because they wouldn't worship the Emperor. The stories about Jesus had to be written down, because the eyewitnesses who had been alive to tell them were dying out. But it wasn't possible for scholars to sit down in the comfort of their studies to put the whole thing down reflectively from beginning to end. This illegal document, passed from hand to hand, had to be a summary of the most important parts of Jesus' story, so that people new to the faith could find out who he was. So in the first verse of the first chapter of the first Gospel, Mark sets his stall out clearly: The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
People who read Mark's Gospel later asked themselves, But Jesus must have had a birth - what was that like? And from their different points of view, Matthew and Luke answered that question. John, of a philosophical turn of mind, went back even further, to the beginning of time. But I reckon Mark's Gospel still counts as a good beginning to the good news about Jesus.
It's not always easy to tell when things begin. Last week we thought about the time when it was decided to build a Presbyterian church in Sheffield - that was one of our beginnings. This week I've extracted part of the record of our church's history, from the sermon preached when the church's foundation stone was laid. That's another beginning, one which speaks to our theme today.
Mr Breakey evidently saw those starting work on our church's foundations and those who would sit in its aisles as partners in God's work; labouring for eternity, looking towards the time when this world would be no more, but the work they had done with God would last forever.
I suspect we rarely put our own work in this church into such a grand context. The idea of our coffee, talks, breakfasts, suppers being part of the work of eternity seems faintly ridiculous - as if grass were to boast of flourishing forever. Even our songs, our prayers and our sermons are heard, echo a little while, and then fade into silence. Yet just as Mr Breakey's words foresaw our own coming: we shall pass away and other men, women and children shall sweep into its porches - mingle their devotions, pour forth their praises, then look back with gratitude to this day and generations yet unborn will bless God, who first put it into our hearts to build this house - I believe that what we say and do today matters as part of God's work.
Firstly it matters because just as some here are nearing the end of their life's journey with God, others are at their beginning. We cannot tell what of our work and worship will remain with our fellow worshippers in memory, but what we say and do can have an effect far beyond our imagining. Twenty years ago I was a student and a member of the West London Chaplaincy; my faith today is built on those foundations, and I am grateful to mature Christians then who generously shared faith and life with me.
But secondly it matters because whether or not our building lasts, whether or not our work is remembered, our partnership in God's work is always of value. There is a Jewish idea called tikkun olam, or repairing the world, which calls Jews to work both within Judaism and in the wider world, through prayer and through action, large or small, to bring God's world closer to perfection. Though I doubt my Jewish colleagues would see it that way, it seems to me that John the Baptist took up that challenge when he heard Isaiah's words about preparing God's ways and, rather than leaving them in Scripture to be admired, looked for their fulfilment in his own day and even in his own cousin.
And tikkun olam is not only a Jewish possibility. Whenever we show kindness to a lonely neighbour, when we sign a petition for justice or buy fairly traded produce, we too are helping to repair the world.
Of course, the danger of all this, from a Reformed point of view, is that we start to think that by our work we can control God's actions or earn God's gratitude. But that would be a mistake. God can do whatever God chooses, with or without our aid. Our invitation to work with God is for our benefit, not God's, helping us to grow into that image of God which is our true identity.
What, then, might be the beginning of a Gospel we wrote, our own insight into God's work? Each of us might answer that question differently, whether because we understand God's work beginning from different points, or whether we ourselves are starting out from different points in time.
But in one particular way all of us here this morning have a common beginning: here and now, as we prepare to share bread and wine. For each encounter with God is a new chance to build up old gaps, break down old barriers and smooth out rough patches in our lives and the life of the world. And the invitation to God's table gives each of us individually, and all of us together, the opportunity of just such an encounter.
As we eat and drink, we can call to mind the times when Jesus ate and drank with those whose moral lives had gone wrong, with those who doubted or misunderstood his leadership, with those whose high hopes in him had been dashed: with all his friends, even the one who betrayed him. And Jesus eats and drinks with us again this morning. Baptism comes only once, but this sacrament of communion is given to us time and time again, as year by year we await his coming and the revealing of God's glory.
‘The revealing of God's glory' - it sounds a grand and glorious phrase, too much to apply to human affairs. Yet God's glory was revealed in the birth of a baby. God's glory has been revealed in the laying of a foundation stone. And if we keep a lookout for God at work, glints of God's glory will be revealed in our neighbours, and even in ourselves; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it.