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The Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary
O God, who by the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin prepared a worthy dwelling for your Son, grant, we pray, that, as you preserved her from every stain by virtue of the Death of your Son, which you foresaw, so, through her intercession, we, too, may be cleansed and admitted to your presence. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
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The Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary
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Scripture citation(s): Mark 1:1-8
A Sermon by
Fr. Mead
on
Mark 1:1-8
✛
Preparing the Way
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The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God…John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
In the Name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. Amen.
The Gospel according to Saint Mark is probably the least beloved of the four gospels of the New Testament among the faithful. Yet Saint Mark’s Gospel is of the utmost importance for those seeking the origins of the gospel accounts.
In the early church, there was a broad and deep consensus, stemming from the late first and early second centuries,¹ that Mark (the kinsman of Barnabas and sometime missionary companion of Paul; whose mother owned the Upper Room used by Jesus in Jerusalem) was the secretary and interpreter of Saint Peter in Rome.² His Gospel therefore represents the teaching of the chief apostle himself.
Even with the digging and back-hauling of modern biblical scholarship, that traditional view of the early church fathers, in one form or another, continues to command respect (if not always agreement) among modern biblical scholars. In any case, most of those same scholars regard Mark’s as the earliest of the four gospels and a significant resource for Saint Matthew and Saint Luke, which are, with Saint Mark, the three so-called synoptic gospels. [“Synoptic” means that these evangelists view Jesus from a similar standpoint.]
If we assume that Saint Mark provides us with Saint Peter’s view of Jesus, it is striking that the narrative, after a brief reference to the words of the prophets Isaiah and Malachi, begins not with Jesus’ birth and youth, as do Matthew and Luke, but with the ministry of John the Baptist. If we consult the Fourth Gospel, that of Saint John, we learn that Peter was a follower of John the Baptist who turned to Jesus. (Jn 1:35-42) For Peter, the “beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ the Son of God” most certainly starts at that very point.
John the Baptist was a figure of enormous importance for the first disciples of Jesus (such as Peter). John the Baptist was popularly regarded by first century Jews in general to be a prophet, and, if so, the last of the prophets, since in 70 AD, after a great Jewish Revolt, the Romans destroyed the Jerusalem Temple and dispersed the Jews from the Holy Land throughout the Empire.
The first Christians, people like Saint Peter, saw John the Baptist as a representative figure who finished and personified the prophets of Israel. Jesus himself had said that if his hearers were willing to accept it, they should know that John the Baptist was none other than “Elijah who is to come,” the sign of the advent of the Day of the Lord. (Mt 11:13-14)
John the Baptist’s message was pure and simple: The Day of the Lord is at hand. Prepare yourselves immediately. Repent of your sins. Live honestly. Fear the Lord, for his judgment is upon us. The sign of this straightforward message was a rite of baptism, symbolizing the washing away of sin and rebirth to a faithful life. John went further. “After me comes he who is mightier than I, the thong 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.”
Saints Peter, Andrew, James and John, the inner core of the twelve apostles, followed John the Baptist’s lead and turned to Jesus. They had been spiritually prepared to do so. I want to devote the rest of this sermon to show that the preparation they received from the Baptizer is still relevant. It is Advent season, the time when the Church bids us once again to prepare the way of the Lord and make straight his paths. The occasion is the coming celebration of Jesus’ birth, the beginning of a new year of Christian worship. The place of preparation, of course, is in our hearts. How, practically, can we do this? Let me make three suggestions.³
1) Watch and pray. When you wake up in the morning, thank God for the gift of another day of life. That gives your spirit the right start for the whole day. Pray constantly, not with formal prayers, but in the knowledge of God’s presence every moment of the day. At day’s end, when you lie down to sleep, commend yourself to God, for you don’t know if you will rise again; one day you will breathe your last and your soul will go to God.
2) Know your need of God and be correspondingly kind to others. Make an effort to see and feel how dependent you are all the time for God’s grace. Keep aware of your sins and shortcomings and ready to see how you stand in need of every drop of mercy that flows from the cross of Christ to heal and cleanse you from these deficiencies. Therefore go softly and be quick to sympathize with others as standing in the same need and under the same divine tender-mercy. Let this become a healthy habit of mind that creates gratitude for the God’s grace and his providence over your life.
3) Be a whole, not a partial, Christian. Show yourself to be a true member of Christ, not only in the general calling of being a Christian and a member of his Church, but more particularly in the vocation and station of life in which you are placed. It is not enough for a lawyer or a businessman to be a Christian; you must be a Christian lawyer or businessperson. It is not enough for a member of a household – father, mother, wife, husband, child, companion – to be a Christian. You must be a Christian father, mother, wife, husband, child, companion. You are not a good Christian unless you take your church faith into your daily professional and private dealings and affairs. Christianity is not a compartment of life; it is all of life.
If your conscience is bothering you in some way about any of these things and you need some pastoral help, including the possible making of a sacramental confession, come see one of us priests. That is what we are for. Don’t be afraid to do it. We are, like you, sinners who are grateful for the salvation of Christ and glad to be on the pilgrimage of redemption.
If you do these things, you will find you are better able to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God. You will have, like those very first disciples, have prepared your heart and mind not only to receive Christ here and now, but, when the time comes for the supreme moment of your life, to face him when he shall stand before us as our Judge.
In the Name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. Amen.
__________
¹From Papias (c 60-130), Bishop of Hierapolis, quoted in Eusebius’ The History of the Church.
²There is an excellent summary of the biblical references to Saint Mark in The Lesser Feasts and Fasts of The Episcopal Church in the vita for Saint Mark the Evangelist.
³I acknowledge my indebtedness for these three points to the Elizabethan Calvinist writer William Perkins (1558-1602) in “Daily Discipline,” in Love’s Redeeming Work, compiled by Geoffrey Rowell, Kenneth Stevenson and Rowan Williams, p. 122. I have paraphrased, modernized and expanded Perkins’ insights.
