The Rev. Canon Leonard L. Hamlin, Sr.: Good News in the Wilderness

I invite you to join me in a word of prayer. Father in heaven, we come humbly before you on this beautiful day, and once again, we are grateful for your presence with us and your love towards us. We ask now that you would hold us, that you would continue to draw us, that you would cover us, keep us and unite us. But we ask that you would fill us, for all of the places that you are preparing to send us. This we ask in your wonderful name. Amen. You may be seated.

We find ourselves on this second Sunday in Advent listening to the opening words found in Mark’s gospel, knowing that we who have pressed our way and who are present here today, and many more who are joining us online as well as gathering in certain places and spaces around the world, are excitedly and progressively moving toward that day when we will both remember, celebrate and reverence the birth of our savior Jesus Christ. As all of us are able to note, the season of Christmas is upon us. It does not take much to notice the ever-increasing number of decorations being set in windows, hung on doors, placed in the most obvious and sometimes discreet of places

Does not take much to note the familiar songs and melodies we hear being played and sung, along with the increasing intensity of the bright and flashing lights that we have been able to take note of in windows, on lawns and spread throughout the landscapes all around us. All of this being done to hopefully call us to reflect upon and to remember the real reason for the season. But even as we have come on this day listening to the gospel that has been read, out of all the ways that Mark could have opened his gospel, he chose to begin in a pronounced and profound manner by shining a light on the ministry of a person that many have come to know as John the Baptizer, for others, simply as John the Baptist. Our gospel writers have provided us a vivid picture of John as a rough, prophetic, camel hair sackcloth wearing individual, that even bound his garments with a leather belt. He was, however, a man way ahead of his time, as he existed on today what would be considered an organic diet, a diet of locusts and honey.

However, Mark’s gospel being accepted by most scholars as the earliest of the four gospels, characterizes John as “a voice of one crying in the wilderness”. Wilderness, when you’re wondering about what tomorrow holds. Wilderness, when there are those who can recognize the division that is all around you. Wilderness, when wars seem to consume the atmosphere and trouble seems to rumble under all of our feet. Wilderness, when the sick can’t afford to pay for the medical care that they need. Wilderness, when families have become so divided that even in their homes, they have to line up on one side or the other and cannot close the division in the middle. Wilderness, when the stock market can rise yet there are those who cannot pay their bills. Wilderness, when there’s so much trouble that sometimes you’re worried just about going outside of your door. Wilderness. Here’s a voice who is crying out in the wilderness. It is so much so, that many of us don’t have to look back. We can only look to this moment and how important it was for John’s voice to be heard in the midst of a wilderness.

Writer and professor J.W. Shepherd stated many years ago, “That one of the most palpable evidences of the greatness of Jesus is the extraordinary character and lasting impression of the personality of and the work of John who prepared the way before him”. It is however the opening words of Mark that capture me and I invite you to hear those opening words once again on this day as Mark penned, “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ”. The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ. Isn’t that why we’ve come today? Because all of us have gathered on a Sunday, first day of the week, on the Lord’s Day. Because we are in need of something fresh, something new. Isn’t it why we’re here today, because all of us want to get some good news?

That I’ve heard enough all week long, I’ve been filled with all of the destruction and the tearing down and hear the division, but I’ve gathered in this place, I’ve joined online, I perhaps will be watching in a later moment, where what I need to make it, is someone who will cry in the wilderness and yet tell me about some good news. John expresses himself in a manner that excites the imagination. It challenges our thoughts about what is coming next. These are words that move us through the portals of the past and the weights of the present circumstance and invite us to consider what comes next. The beginning of good news. When I think about how Mark opened his gospel, I remember oftentimes being captured and captivated in the moments when hearing opening lines of certain books. There’s something about the expression in the opening line that makes you wonder about what is yet to come.

Perhaps one of the most famous that many of you can identify with and have read yourself in opening lines have been the notable, of course, Charles Dickens line of A Tale of Two Cities that says, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” But throughout my life I’ve been captured by opening lines in many books that I continue to grab and have continued to invite me to ask what comes next. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, written by Zora Nell Hurston, the first line of that novel says, “Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board”. In Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man he wrote, “I am an Invisible man”. In George Orwell’s 1984, which I was forced to read in high school but enjoyed nevertheless, it said, “It was a bright and cold day in April and the clocks were striking 13”. In The Color Purple, written by Alice Walker she wrote and put it this way, “You better not never tell nobody but God”. In Elie Wiesel’s, whose relief hangs in this cathedral, in his work, The Messengers of God, it begins, “In the beginning, man is alone”. In Martin Luther King’s Strength to Love, he quoted a French philosopher, by saying, “No man is strong unless he bears within his character antithesis strongly marked”.

But there was this one book that always seemed, and I must admit now captured my attention, as my parents would sit on the bedside next to me growing up, and even as I in my own turn sat at my son’s bedtime, when I would open that book that ought to be precious to us, that book called the Bible, and turn to the first book of Genesis and simply in the beginning it said, “In the beginning was God”. I’m sure Mark was familiar with the text and was even inspired that when he began writing his gospel, Mark opens his gospel by stating, “The beginning of good news of Jesus Christ”. We’ve all come together on this day, this first day of the week, the Lord’s Day, because we’re all searching for something new, hoping for something fresh, looking for a new beginning. There was a need for good news at that time in writing the gospel, and there is a need today for good news.

There is a need for us to raise our voices. There is a need for us to speak in the wilderness of this day. There is a need for us to use our voices, not just to inform, but to facilitate the forming of new life, new community, and a new world. Because what I’m afraid of is that many of us get confused in thinking that being informed is the same as being formed. And just because you are informed doesn’t mean that you are formed. I can quote Bible, but it doesn’t mean that I know who they’re talking about. I can know the name of my next-door neighbor, but it doesn’t mean that I will love my neighbor as myself.

I can hear even, and Lord help me, in a moment I can even know the text, but still not preach the sermon. Here in this today there is a problem with many of us who believe that information means that I have changed. And we have come today, not so that we might be informed, but so that we would be formed. So that we would be the witnesses that are needed in this generation. John understood that there was work that needed to be done to prepare the way for the fullness of life in Christ to be experienced. John was a voice crying out at a time when might was substituted in place of righteousness.

And I’m afraid that we are once again experiencing a moment in human history when the power that is being valued above all is political power and military power. This power is often though, and these powers are often lacking something, and sometimes they’re even in opposition of something essential for life itself. This type of power, or these type of powers, are often the result in certain individuals and groups being marginalized, disallowed, and even disinherited. In its extreme, we are left divided or even experiencing the continued and unnecessary loss of life, because no matter what position you’re on, there is something about whether it’s military or political power, that sometimes is lacking moral power.

There is moral power. John was speaking about a power that could operate in the lives of the committed and in the repentant. A power that would come not by might but would come by spirit. A power that helps us to hold high such things as love, forgiveness, compassion, justice, and see the worth of those who experience being poor in spirit, the meek, the merciful, to value the peacemakers and those who hunger after righteousness. There is good news even in the wilderness. There is good news to tell even when we face difficult circumstances. There is good news that we are called to share, and when we share it, that good news can be the spark that is needed to start a fire of redemption. Because great fires start with just a simple spark. And those fires spread when a great wind blows. And here John reminds us in this that here someone greater is coming who will not just baptize us with water but who will baptize us with fire. A fire that needs to be spread from heart to heart, from breast to breast, from hand to hand, here from mind to mind, from body to body, from community to community. A fire that lets the world know that we serve a savior who is here. I want to encourage everyone today to share some good news, no matter what circumstances you are facing. To share some good news, no matter the burdens on your back.

We don’t have to talk out loud, but I know there are those who have come today because truth is, we might look like we’ve got it together, but I’m praying for my family. I’m struggling with loved ones. I’m looking at the world wondering what will be. There is good news even in the wilderness, and I invite us to smile at your neighbor, to speak to your neighbor, to welcome the stranger, to love your enemy, to be able to lift those who are hurting, be able to open doors for those who those would not welcome on an ordinary basis, to be able to lift up those who have been knocked down and help those to move forward who have been pushed back. There is good news when we’re telling the story of Jesus Christ. Sometimes I can feel as if we’re in the wilderness, but we are invited to lift our voices. We can be like John today preparing the way and letting the spirit have its way. We can be like John today, setting some things in order so that God can go to work. We can open up a window, we can let the spirit in.

Today is a day to share some good news. And I must admit there are times where I’ve got burdens on my back, but I I’m reminded that the hymn writer, that declared there was a balm in Gilead also felt this way, but he said here in a portion of that hymn that said, “Sometimes I feel discouraged and I think my work’s in vain, but then the Holy Spirit revives my soul again”. There is a good moment when we are telling the story and I don’t know about you, but today I invite you to start spreading the good news, to start raising the good news, to start here telling others about the birth of Jesus. Not in a few days, but on this day because I love that hymn writer that said, “I love to tell the story of unseen things above, of Jesus and His glory, of Jesus and his love. I love to tell the story because I know it’s true. It satisfies my longing like nothing else can do”.

Amen.