Christmas in Quartet: “Mark’s Melody Line

A sermon based upon Mark: 1: 1-11

By Rev. Dr. Charles J. Tomlin, BA, MDiv, DMin.

Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership, 

Sunday, Nov. 29th, 2020 Christmas in Quartet: 4 Part-Harmony of the Christmas Story

 

My wife and I still watch American Idol.  

 

We especially like that most contestants are young---still close to their roots.

 

We like the Stories they tell, especially how many of the contestants learned to sing in church.   I did too.   The hymns of that mill-town church choir still play in my head.

 

I sang in both church, high school, and college.  With a Baritone-Bass voice, I seldom sang solos.  Most of the times I sang in a choir, sometimes in a small advanced group, and at church in a small quartet.    In college, I learned that Quartet music goes all the way back to the classical music of the Renaissance, where 4-part music was written, both for voices and for instruments.

 

During this Advent and Christmas, I want us to consider the Christmas story in Quartet too.  That’s how the gospel has been handed down to us, in 4-part harmony.  Although each gospel has it’s own voice, with a different voice and different parts to sing or play, when put their basic music together, they make some beautiful gospel harmony.

 

Today, on this first Sunday of Advent, we consider Mark’s part.  I can’t decide whether he sings lead, soprano or bass.  He gives us the main part, which makes me think he is singing lead. Which part he actually is singing this metaphor doesn’t matter.  What does matter is that we understand the unique voice and part Mark has in telling us the good news.

 

THE BEGINNING OF THE GOOD NEWS... (1:1)

When you read Mark’s version of Christmas, the thing you immediately notice is that there is no baby.  There’s no manager, no Shepherds or Angels, nor any other dramatic birth stories like found in both Matthew and Luke.  John doesn’t sing a traditional Christmas carol either, but since he comes last, John has another reason we’ll address later.

 

Why doesn’t Mark give us any ‘birth story’?   All he tells us that Jesus is from Nazareth.   He says nothing about Bethlehem.

 

Scholars give us a lot of educated guesses, but I find that Mark’s unique, early, and very brief gospel story is already noticeable in the very first line he uses.   In chapter 1:1, Mark entitles his gospel,  ‘The Beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”

 

 But what does this mean that this gospel is ‘The beginning of the good news’ about Jesus?  Did Mark not know anything about Jesus birth?  Did he not have time nor skill to give more details?   Why is it that the gospels don’t tell us the story in the same way?

 

This word ‘beginning’ can mean many different things, but what is most important is to realize there was a good reason for this.  And it’s probably the same kind of reason people don’t sing the same part in a quartet.  We each have different kinds of voices, different ranges in our voices, and we have different parts to play and sing.  Isn’t music much more beautiful when it comes to us in different parts.  How dull it would be if everyone sang the same part, or in the gospel’s case, everything said exactly the same way.

 

So, these 4 gospels come to us in 4 part harmony, with 4 voices, singing 4 ways, seeing from 4 different angles the same kind of truth about Jesus.  While they are all singing the very same song--sharing ‘good news’ about Jesus Christ---they are singing different parts.

 

And Mark sings the first part, the main part, or we might say Mark sings the lead part.   And the this is about Most crucial key to the gospel isn’t how Jesus was born as a baby, but it was who Jesus was as a man, as the Messiah, the Christ,  which is who all about what Jesus came to say and do.

 

We, today, must be especially careful not to miss this main, lead part.   

We all love the story of Jesus’ birth and it’s so much fun to tell and to share, especially with our children, that we might overlook that Jesus the baby, became Jesus the man.   Like comedian Will Ferrill’s character in the NASCAR Racing Movie, Ricky Bobby was a stereo-typical southern, religious fellow who prayed, but he prayed only to the ‘Baby Jesus!’.   He could not get passed this childhood, infantile understanding Jesus.  

 

In a similar way,  we too can get hooked by the sentimental, homogenized, and commercialized part of the Christmas season,  by either only thinking about Jesus as a sweet little Baby, or by getting lost in all the Christmas parties and festivities, so that we fail to consider our own continued commitment to who Jesus was, and how he should be our living Lord today.  

 

Perhaps this is the great value of putting Mark right up front to sing the lead melody line of Christmas.  While the gospel music wouldn’t  be as beautiful without these added details about Jesus’ birth, this still isn’t the main part. The story of the manager could only be told because of the other part, that is the main part.

 

It’s this main part that Mark gives us first. 

This isn’t is how Jesus was born as a baby, or what kind of childhood he had, but who Jesus was as a man.   The man Jesus was is the message and music of Christmas which must not be overlooked.

 

And, like all the other gospels too, we can’t fully understand who Jesus was as a man, until we prepare our hearts to know and understand him.   Each gospel tells us how John the Baptist prepared the way for people to meet this Jesus who was God’s man. It is John who connects the man Jesus with the voice of God in the rest of the Bible, especially as he relates to the rest of the Prophets. John wants us to know that Jesus has come as God’s Prophet too,  but not just as any other prophet.  John prepares us to hear a whole new sound, that this Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, God’s Man with God’s final message.   If we don’t prepare our hearts for him, we’ll be singing the wrong tune.

 

REPENTANCE FOR THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS (1:4)

The preaching of John goes before Jesus, preparing people for Jesus, because people needed to hear that Jesus was a man with a message unlike any other in God’s story. This is the part that Mark is focusing on. What Mark puts right up front is that you only get right man, because your heart is prepared to get the message right.

 

When I used to sing in choirs and concerts, whether in high school or college, one thing you learn about singing, is that people need to be prepared for the kind of music you are singing, and the kind of message you are singing about. 

 

If you go out on the street corner and sing, which we sometimes did, you need to sing songs that are upbeat, and get people’s attention.   If you sing a concert, you sing to show your skill, your preparation, as well as to entertain.   Even when you are singing for a church, there’s a certain song that fits an a certain occasion and there’s also songs that don’t.  You certainly don’t normally sing, ‘’Joy to the World’ at a funeral service.  You don’t sing nearer my God to thee on Christmas Eve, or day, even it is about God coming near.  You see the right tune, with the right message, you get the picture.

 

In the same way, to understand heart of the message of Jesus you need to sing the tune that is closest to God’s heart, to the deepest meaning of Christmas.  According to each of the gospel’s, at the center of John’s preaching, and Jesus’ preaching too, was the call to Repentance and Forgiveness. 

 

These two acts; what we do, and what God does points to the heart of Christmas.   Everything Jesus did, everything Jesus was, and everything Jesus means, even still today, means nothing unless these two acts become real for us and in us:  God with us, which is the Christmas message of what only God can do for us, but only this becomes real because of what we do for a God, how we draw near to God, and how we respond to what God has done for us.

 

This is the focus of John’s preaching.  Without preparation to receive what God wants to do in us, the message of what God has done in the world, or for the world, doesn’t actually accomplish what God intended.   John the Baptist’s preaching was a call for people to draw near to God, so that God could become real in them.   Until people are ready and willing for sing God’s tune, and prepare to meet God, here and now, what does the music mean anyway?  A song is only as good as the people who are willing to sing it,  hear it, listen to it, join in and make it their own.

 

HE WILL BAPTIZE YOU WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT  (1:8)

When Mark tells us about John’s preaching, he’s pointing straight to who Jesus is.  And this Jesus will not be fully understood until people are baptized with the Holy Spirit, and with the fire of God’s redeeming truth.   And what is the truth?  What is the most basic truth in the part Mark sings?

 

Eventually, when you read this entire brief gospel, you’ll notice that Mark is in a hurry.  In fact, he uses the word ‘immediately’ more than any other. 

Why?  Because Mark knows that the Spirit of Jesus will enter our hearts, not by singing about the manager, but by singing about the cross. This whole, brief, short and sweet gospel makes a beeline to the cross.

 

Mark is in a hurry, because it is only at the cross, that the identity of Jesus becomes clear. We don’t receive the Holy Spirit simply by learning about Jesus.  We don’t receive the Holy Spirit only by hearing about his miracles or his teachings. 

 

And even his Virgin Birth, doesn’t have any meaning all by itself.  There were all kinds of virgin birth claims in the ancient world.  Paul never mentions it.  It wasn’t because it didn’t matter at all, but it didn’t matter unless the cross mattered.  And the cross mattered more.  Paul said he chose to know nothing except ‘Christ and him crucified’.   To Paul this was the heart of the matter and the melody line of the gospel. Mark followed Paul.

 

The heart of the Bible’s message about Jesus is how God sent Jesus as a baby to be born in a manger, but how God sent Jesus to earth to die on the cross.  Until you’ve come to the cross, until you sing the cross, and until you live the cross too, you’ll never fully understand or sing the true meaning of the music of Christmas.

 

I doubt that even John the Baptist understood that the cross was coming.  But Mark did.  He wrote his gospel after Jesus died, was raised from the dead and had ascended to heaven.   That’s why he jumps straight into the story about Jesus the man and gets to the cross before any other gospel writer.  Mark knows you can’t understand Christmas until you’ve been to the cross.

 

This is how the Spirit of Christmas really comes into our hearts too.  This is how we are baptized with the Holy Spirit fire,  John and Mark talk about.  The baptism by fire, was the suffering and death of Jesus Christ. 

 

Other gospels, following Mark, ultimately get to the cross too.  They even hint about the cross in their birth stories too.  Matthew tells us how Herod tried to kill the baby so that Mary and Joseph had to escape to Egypt.  Luke tells how Jesus was born in a stable and how the poor surrounded him, not the rich.  Even John, who doesn’t follow Mark so closely, tells us that Jesus came unto his own, but his own rejected him.

 

But it’s Mark who immediately, in the most hurry, takes us straight to the drama of the cross.  And Mark’s gospel melody line is followed by all the other gospel singers, Matthew, Luke, and even  John.  The cross, not the birth, is the gospel melody of the gospel.   Jesus is the Christ, not because he was born in a manager on Christmas, but because he the Christ who died on a cross.

 

Finally, it’s hard to sell the cross.  It’s easy to commercialize a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes.  How can you commercialize a suffering, screaming dying man on a cross? 

 

Of course, we try that too, by taking him off  and making it jewelry.  But the awful truth and the gospel truth of the cross can’t be put on a pendant and hung around your neck.

The real cross was cruel.  It was a form of execution.  To hang the reality of the cross around your neck is like hanging an image of an electric chair around your neck.   

 

The real cross is about suffering, sin, and death, which are things we don’t really like to think about at Christmas, in this time of ‘good cheer’.

 

Still, if we don’t get to this cross, then, all our other celebrating will become empty and useless? You can dress up and go to all the Christmas parties you want, but you are still going to die.  You can get all the Christmas presents you want, but if you miss the gift of Jesus Christ and why he had to suffer and die, you’ll also die without the any real hope.  

 

And finally, if you go through all the activities of Christmas, and you forget that Jesus came to forgive your sins and make you a better person, then why and what are we celebrating at church any way?  Only the cross takes us to the heart of the matter, or nothing matters much at all.

 

And when we get to the cross, it’s the real reason we can sing, the reason we can decorate, and it’s the reason we can turn on the lights, share the love, and care for others.   We can do this because Jesus is not just a beautiful decoration or a nice image in our minds, but Jesus is the king of kings and lord of lords, who not only came to die for us, but also come to live in us. 

 

This is why Mark is in a hurry to get us to the cross as the center of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  God’s Love and God’s resurrection power make the good news!  And the good news  isn’t that Jesus was a pretty baby or a another person born in history.  No,  Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the true King who rules the hearts of those who take up the cross, following him, wherever he leads.

 

  This is the melody line of Christmas.  Jesus came and died so that you and I can live now, and then, one day, one that day, to live again.  That’s the gospel melody Mark sings.

 

Lord Jesus helps us not to miss the main melody of Christmas, which is the song that begins at the cross.   Amen.