Advent 2 B Mark 1:1-8

Over the week of Thanksgiving I went to see the movie Australia. It is great, like a wild west cattle driving movie except set in the Australian outback, not the American West. In it there are two ranching outfits. The one whose side we're on, a little family run operation called Faraway downs, and a bigger stronger one who is trying to crush Faraway downs. So as the movie goes on it is time to make the many day long journey with the cattle to get them into town by a deadline to sell them off and save Faraway downs from being absorbed or bought up by the other outfit. As the cattle drive begins you are exposed to the outback wilderness, canyons and desert, cliffs, very little water and fewer landmarks. It is a hard road but they lead the cattle and plug along until they come upon some water that is bad.

The cattle can't drink, the horses can't drink, the people can't drink and it is hot and it is dry and suddenly the wilderness is not friendly at all. And then a man comes along calling in the wilderness. Not so much calling really as singing. He is a tribal shaman. An odd character, one that the non-native people in the movie don't trust at all. He is even rather off-putting in appearance, wearing natural things, living off the land. But he has a message, the message of life, of water, of salvation. He can get them to water in time for them to survive, soon enough that, though it will be hard, their bodies will make it, but they have to trust him and follow him and believe his strange call and song. He says he will sing them there because the native people put all things into song, even terrain, they memorize by learning it in song form. So he will guide them with song.

The tension comes from the fact that where he will lead them is the real wilderness. The really uncharted territory. Before it had only seemed like they were in the wilderness but there were landmarks, there were familiar things, there were well-known rules and policies, ways to go, paths to follow. There was shade and shelter, it was relatively easy going and certainly an acceptable route.

In order to be saved by this strange man calling in the wilderness though they had to let go of those things. Let go of the things that they had held as safety and salvation before. They had to walk away from the familiar and go forward into the unknown with only a promise. What they had to do was to repent, that means to literally turn around, away from the safe well beaten path that they were on to something new, untamed and unprecedented. And so they go, they need to live, they need to drink and so they need to follow.

There is great tension in the movie at this point as you see them walk into dead, cracked dry desert, all you can see are heat waves for miles in any direction and a whole herd of trusting cattle and a whole crew of innocent cattle-hands follow behind them. They move slowly and painfully and they are very afraid. And then you see them standing still. As if they can't go any farther as if they will surely die, but their guide, the strange man that they are following through the wilderness knows the way to new life.

He knows the secret, that the wilderness is the only place where they can find living water and so he pushes forward and they push on. And then finally as cattle stumble, barely able to walk, as people faint from the heat and the thirst, you see him, the guide, dancing in the water, dancing in new life and offering it to all.

We start our gospel lesson today right at the very beginning of the book of Mark where the gospel writer says that he is beginning to write the good news of Jesus Christ, the gospel of Christ. The whole story, from what happened there at the river Jordan all the way through the church on earth today, start, for St. Mark, with a strange man calling in the wilderness. He is dressed strangely, wearing a coat of rough fur and a leather belt-rather old-fashioned and odd for the time. And he has been living off the land. Eating locust beans (not the bugs) and wild honey when he can find it. But he knows the secret of salvation for the people.

The people you see are have been waiting for centuries to know God. To be close to God, to understand the laws and the love of God but they have run into obstacle after obstacle along the way. So they have created a familiar track. One that is safe with lots of landmarks. One that leads them to well known places. To worship in the temple and appropriate sacrifice. They know that their neighbors travel the same path. There is no danger and there is no chance of getting lost or hurt. There is even water for them. A little fountain by the temple where they can wash before worship. But John comes out calling in the wilderness promising them new living water and, even better, a new way to meet the living God.

But to get to this water and this God the people have to turn around. They literally have to leave the path that they take to get to God and take a new one. Instead of the temple they head to the wilderness and it is unknown to them and they don't know what to do but John is there ahead of them calling and promising that he knows the way and all they have to do is turn and follow. Then suddenly as people make it to the water and are baptized, Jesus comes down to the Jordan and says let me be baptized too. Let me enter into this water with you and give you new life.

Today is the second Sunday in the Advent season, we are moving closer with great anticipation to the birth of Christ. To the breaking-in of the kingdom of God all around us. And our lessons call us to wander in the wilderness. We get it in Isaiah too. For Isaiah it is promising the captive people, those forced to live in a foreign land, under the rule of a foreign king that the Lord will be their salvation. That just like in the days of the Israelites' slavery in Egypt when they were lead to freedom through the desert by Moses, God will make the wilderness safe and passable in order to lead His people home. The text says that a straight path shall be made in the desert as a highway for our God and that every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain.

A straight path through a land with no landmarks. A guided way through uncharted territory. That is what we as a congregation and we as a people of God are promised on this day in Advent. All we have to do is turn around. Turn from the familiar path that we are on that leads to nowhere, to the same old temple, to the comfortable social group, to the safe way that we worship and share our church and ourselves, that doesn't alarm the neighbors and be willing to walk through the wilderness to the manger. To the living Christ, to new life promised in the water of the little river Jordan.

We know that we have a guide better than any shaman with songs about the land, better even than any prophet calling us to repentance and baptism. We know that we have Christ himself at our side and we know that we are being called to face our fears and turn around.

So what would it look like if we as a society, as a people of the world
turned around and acted in entirely new ways toward our fellow women and men, following the
promise of Christ among us? What would it look like if your family turned around and did something entirely new in order to be centered in the call to follow Christ? What would it look like if we as a congregation turned around and did something entirely new in order to meet the living Lord? What would it look like, in your life, if you turned around and did something entirely new for the sake of experiencing the new life that you've been promised?

There is a man calling in the wilderness, turn, repent, follow, make straight the paths of the Lord, go in a new direction to a new place. Your God will meet you in that new place, he is there today. Amen