'The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, Son of God'

 

A sermon preached at the Parish Eucharist at Croydon Minster on the Second Sunday of Advent. Mark 1.1-8

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Where did it start? What are the origins? Where did all this come from? Detecting the beginnings of something is always an intriguing exercise.

 

Explorers have long sought out the source of great rivers, to discover the beginnings, the very spring from which a trickle becomes a stream, which becomes a mighty river.

 

Astronomers follow the dream of the ancients to gaze into the heavens to uncover the very beginnings of the universe.

 

And what of the beginnings of Jesus Christ?

 

St Matthew begins his gospel with a genealogy detailing the generations of ancestors of Jesus, ‘who is called the Messiah’ (cf Matthew 1.1-16), and he then tells us that after his birth in Bethlehem Jesus is visited by the Magi.

 

St Luke sets out, in his words, an orderly account, ‘from the very first’, and - after telling us of the birth of John the Baptist - takes us to the beginnings of Christ’s earthly life through the Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary, when the Most High overshadows her to be the Mother of the Lord.

 

St John in his magisterial opening to his gospel declares: ‘In the beginning was the Word’. He connects who Jesus is with the Creation itself. He echoes the opening of Genesis en archē, ‘in the beginning’. Jesus Christ is the Word who was in the beginning with the Father: he is God and not a creature, begotten, not made.

 

St Mark does not give us a Nativity account: there is no Bethlehem, no star, no shepherds or wise men: not the beginnings we’re used to!

 

St Mark simply states, ‘The beginning (archē) of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God’ (Mark 1.1).

 

He tells it in punchy form. This is the beginning of the gospel and this gospel of he who is ‘Son of God’.

 

The Son of God, the Son of Man, the Son of Mary comes to fulfil the promise made through the prophets and heralded by John the Baptist preparing the way.

 

Christ is the source; Christ is the beginning and Christ is the fulfilment. From this beginning, rooted in God’s timeless promise, the gospel unfolds.

 

This gospel is of liberation from the constraining powers that obscure our vision of God, that impede our growth in holiness embodied and fulfilled in Christ and that draw us into the very presence of the Most Holy Trinity.

 

John the Baptist’s ministry - of calling hearers to a baptism of repentance and forgiveness of sins - is a necessary preparation, a preparation for something already begun from the heart of God.

 

John’s preparation is, in the terms of the prophet Ezekiel, about receiving hearts of flesh in place of hearts of stone (Ezekiel 11.19; 36.26). Repentance is a movement and reorientation of the heart: oh, for warmed hearts ready to receive Jesus Christ and the gospel!

 

So it begins here and we are invited to begin afresh the journey with hearts and minds renewed and set on the way of Jesus Christ: this is our Advent journey of expectation.