The Second Sunday of Advent Year B

Advent 2 Year B December 7, 2014 Advent is a time of new beginnings. The liturgical “new year,” it can be a time when we make resolutions about how we live our moral and spiritual lives. Our gospel reading for today emphasizes this with its opening line: “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” Scholars think that this isn’t necessarily the beginning of Mark’s gospel, but it is, rather, the title. And interestingly enough, Mark begins, not with Jesus or even Mary and Joseph but with Isaiah, with God’s messenger, and with John the Baptist. So what does John the Baptist have to teach us about new beginnings this Advent season? In and through John’s ministry, we see that new beginnings are born out of repentance and humility. We only begin anew when we realize that our old ways are no longer working. We only begin anew when we are open to change and when we open our hearts in willingness to leave behind that which no longer fits us, that which separates us from God’s love. I’ve learned something about this repentance and humility this week. On Monday, my husband invited me to join him in reading Morning Prayer on a daily basis. I will confess that I haven’t read Morning Prayer regularly since seminary, but because he invited me to join him, I did. I appreciated the broader exposure to scripture (especially the Psalms) over the course of the week. But what really struck me was the power in doing daily confession as a part of Morning Prayer. I found that my failures were much more present and real when I was examining my life daily as opposed to only weekly (in making confession only on Sunday). I found it was both more powerful and more freeing, when I asked myself daily “in what ways did I fail God and others yesterday?” But, strangely enough, I also found in making daily confession, that my blessings and my gratitude were much more present as well. When we reflect upon our lives daily, then it becomes a rich time of repentance, and humility and also for new beginnings. And so I invite you to join me in this exercise this Advent season. If you do nothing else, say the confession of sin daily and assure yourself of God’s pardon as it is found in the BCP on pages 79 and 80. But it is also important to remember that this is so much more than some sort of spiritual New Year’s Resolution. Going back to the gospel, when we remember how the gospel of Mark doesn’t really end, it means that we also get to participate in the “beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ.” How we live our lives matters in the story of God’s redeeming of the world. We then become emboldened to look beyond our own individual lives at other parts of our society, our church, and our world that need repentance and redemption. We are an important part of the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ I read a poem this week that was posted on Parker Palmer’s blog. He was writing about living out fully the questions of our lives and he ended with this poem. I think it is a different kind of confession-a way to examine our lives and the world around us daily to assess where we need to repent and where we have encountered God’s blessing already. Questions Before Dark by Jeanne Lohmann Day ends, and before sleep when the sky dies down, consider your altered state: has this day changed you? Are the corners sharper or rounded off? Did you live with death? Make decisions that quieted? Find one clear word that fit? At the sun's midpoint did you notice a pitch of absence, bewilderment that invites the possible? What did you learn from things you dropped and picked up and dropped again? Did you set a straw parallel to the river, let the flow carry you downstream?i i http://www.onbeing.org/blog/the-questions-we-ask-ourselves/7075