Mark 1:1–8

¹The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

²As it is written in Isaiah the prophet, "Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way,

³the voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight."

⁴John appeared, baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

⁵And all the country of Judea and all Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.

⁶Now John was clothed with camel's hair and wore a leather belt around his waist and ate locusts and wild honey.

⁷And he preached, saying, "After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie.

⁸I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit."

Advent is all about Jesus. The Book of Hebrews tells us that "Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son" (1:1–2). All that speaking of God in the Old Testament, beginning with the sermon that God preached to our first parents in Eden down through the patriarchs, the prophets, and the poets, comes to a point, culminating in the great preacher of Advent, John the Baptist. Standing there in the Judean wilderness with one foot in the Old Testament and other in the New, John is that voice crying in the wilderness. He does not preach himself but the coming One, Jesus. John's preaching shows us that

Here as There, Now as Then, It's Really All about Jesus.

That voice crying in the wilderness prepared the way for Jesus. Because of sin, Adam and Eve were exiled to live in the wilderness; that desert place where a hot sun and desert dryness meant death to all who go there. Under God's judgment, they were consigned to live in the wilderness. It was a harsh life, complete with sibling murder as Cain slaughters Abel. There is death in the wilderness. The dust from which Adam is taken finally claims him and all of his descendants, including us. We too live in that wilderness; that wilderness of a sinful heart and a fallen human nature. That wilderness of death and corruption.

But even there, in that wilderness, God was preparing the way for the Redeemer who would redeem the wilderness and sinful mankind; buying it back; restoring it to a New Eden; a new garden of live and incorruption. There in the wilderness was God's promise. For there, at the foot of the tree, God spoke to Satan and said, "Cursed are you because of what you have done. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed. Her Seed shall crush your head, and you shall bruise his heel."

Let's examine that statement further. It's the first promise of a Savior, Jesus, who would come to restore the wilderness back into a garden and to renew our hearts and restore the image of God in us. What does God say in this first sermon? He tells Satan that the Seed of a woman would crush his head. The word Seed here refers to a descendent; a Son; born of a woman who would crush, kill, destroy Satan and completely undo his work, sin, corruption, and death and restore all things a mankind to its original goodness and beauty so that man would once again walk in fellowship and harmony with God.

It is about the Seed; the Son of a woman, that God speaks to us in all Scripture. It is about the Seed that God made the covenant with the patriarchs; Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It is about the Seed that the prophets spoke; Moses, Samuel, David, Elijah, Isaiah and John the Baptist. John the Baptist was the "voice crying in the wilderness, 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.'" The whole Old Testament is about the promised Seed. It is the promise of the Seed that forms the golden thread all through the Bible. Indeed, it was the promised Seed who spoke to the Patriarchs, who spoke to Moses in the burning bush, who delivered the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, who led them in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night and who brought them into the promised land. It was the Seed who is is non-other than the pre-incarnate Christ, the Son of God, the Second Person of the Trinity. The Seed was the Second Person of the Trinity who became incarnate, born of a virgin, suffered and died on a cross and rose again. It is that Seed who comes to us today in Word and Sacrament, who washes our sin away in baptism and gives us His very body and blood in the Sacrament of the Altar. That same Seed who is our Savior and Redeemer; our nexus with God, was also the Savior and Redeemer and the nexus with God for the people of the Old Testament as well.

From God's first sermon in the Garden when he promised the Seed; that Seed accompanied Israel in the wilderness. Now John the Baptist appears in the wilderness to prepare the way for the Seed, the Messiah. John's ministry of preaching and baptizing begins right there where Adam and Eve found themselves—right where we find ourselves—in the wilderness. The wilderness brings back not only old memories of a lost Eden but also of the children of Israel wandering int eh wilderness around Sinai for a fort-year-long Advent season, as God prepared them to enter the Promised Land.

The preaching of John the Baptist finds us here, now, where we live—in the wilderness. Not the desert of Sinai or the wild haunts around the Jordan, but here in the wilderness of our own sin, in the arid places where we attempt to go it alone, to live as if God didn't matter and I mattered most. Here in the midst of our selfishness and greed and pride. Here where we have affluence and abundance; where we think we are rich, but we are poor. Our affluence and abundance are but fleeting things which will soon disappear and burn.

It is here in the wilderness, the wilderness of the Jordan as well as in our wilderness of sin and greed that John the Baptist preaches repentance. He announces that you and I have no future in the wilderness. There is no exit, no way of escape. John is the voice crying in the wilderness. He is God's road crew of one, making straight a royal highway for the Seed, the Messiah. A road in the wilderness. A road into the wilderness of our sinful hearts. A road into the wilderness of our death and corruption. Why a road into our wilderness?

Because it is into our wilderness that the Seed comes. It is here in our death and corruption; here in our hearts and sinful lives and empty, useless thoughts and desires that Jesus comes to make us new; to change our desert into a garden. When we honestly examine our lives we find that we are not really the people we wish we were. We don't have the love for others we know we should. We lack joy, peace, and faith. Our hearts are not thankful and we wonder just what good is it to live, what are we really doing here, what purpose do we have, what good are we accomplishing, or what is really the meaning of it all.

It is into this wilderness of loneliness, sorrow, self-centeredness, and emptiness that Jesus comes. He comes to change it into a garden of meaning, fellowship with God himself, joy and peace. He comes to restore the image of God in us.

John prepared the way by preaching repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Repentance is also the work of the Holy Spirit. Jesus gives us a penitent heart and he also gives us faith, just as he also works sanctification in us and renews us to the image of God. Yes, the Seed, promised long ago to Adam and Eve, born of a woman was God made man, come in the flesh to restore and renew us to fellowship with God. It's all about Jesus, the Seed.

The ministry of John is fulfilled in Jesus. John confesses that he is not preaching himself, but the coming One. He points away from himself to Jesus. He says, "After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit." John is pointing to Jesus. It's all about Jesus, the Seed of woman who comes into the wilderness to crush Satan and turn it back into a garden.

Medieval artists often portrayed John the Baptist with an out-or-proportion, larger-than-life finger pointing to the Lamb of God. That is John's office. He gets out of the way so that we see only Jesus. John said, "He must increase, but I must decrease." John points the way to Jesus; preparing a highway in the wilderness for him to come to us on.

John's Baptism anticipates the fulfillment that comes in Jesus' baptism. John's baptism is with water. It was for repentance and the forgiveness of sins. But it would be fulfilled and rendered obsolete with Jesus' death and resurrection. Jesus' baptism is with the Holy Spirit. The Spirit given with the water and the Word now unites us to Jesus' death and resurrection for the forgiveness of sins and the gift of eternal life.

It really is all about Jesus! All of Advent is focused on him and his coming to be our Savior. John the Baptist stepped there, then, into the wilderness to point the way, preaching repentance and forgiveness of sins. That voice is still ringing out here, now, today/. Repent and believe the Gospel in the One who is proclaimed by John.

Amen.