The Rev. John F. McCard, Rector

The Power of Words

Advent 2B December 4, 2005

O God be in my mouth as I speak for you and fill this place with your great grace that we may leave this place less of what we use to be and more of what we ought to be, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. How does a writer use words to give stories a good beginning? One of my favorites has always been the following: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Can the English majors name the book?? I do have to give Charles Dickens credit he always seemed to know how to get a story off to the right start. He did same thing in the seasonal favorite “A Christmas Carol”. Remember the spooky first line: Marley was dead. Instantly as a reader you are curious. Who was Marley? Why is he dead? This good beginning gives the reader the desire to want to find out more. Whenever I find myself working on newsletters, essays or sermons, I always struggle with that opening sentence. How do I find the right combination of words that will capture people’s attention? And even when I think I have it, there is that dreadful lingering fear that my opening will be less Dickens and more Snoopy sitting on his doghouse, typing the much parodied lines, “It was a dark and stormy night.” When you have a point to make finding the right words can prove to be elusive. A good friend once described this problem by comparing words to little children. They are, he told me, always in motion and never stay still for long. He used the following story to make his point. Back in 1675, just nine years after the terrible fire of London, Sir Christopher Wren laid the cornerstone of what was to be his most ambitious undertaking, the rebuilding of St. Paul’s Cathedral. He worked on the project for over thirty-five years and the experts say he poured more of his genius into this edifice than any other building he ever designed. Upon its completion, Sir Christopher conducted the reigning monarch Queen Anne on a personal tour. When it was over he waited with bated breath for her reaction. With typical British terseness, she used three adjectives to sum up her feelings: “It is awful, it is artificial, it is amusing.” Can you imagine how he must have felt to hear these words, to have his magnum opus described in such a manner? Yet a biographer tells us that upon hearing these words, Sir Christopher let out an audible sigh of relief, sank to his knees, and thanked her majesty for her graciousness. How could this reaction have been possible? Words are as I said before always in motion and constantly changing. In the year 1710, the word Awe-ful meant awe inspiring, the word artificial meant artistic, and the word amusing meant amazing. As Christians, this story reminds us that our vocabulary about Jesus’ birth particularly around the Christmas season may at times demand that we re-energize the language of our faith. To put it another way, we must insure that our religious words don’t lose their power to change people’s lives. This is one reason that the church calendar gives us the season of Advent. These four Sunday’s give us the opportunity to make sure that Jesus’ story is not just a Christmas pageant in bathrobes. Advent gives us all a chance to have a good beginning. With its strong emphasis on final judgment, a call to repentance and the stories about John the Baptist, and the announcement of Jesus’ birth to Mary, these examples of God’s power breaking into ordinary people’s lives insures that the church has a way of communicating its message of hope to people that suffer. At their core the Advent and Christmas seasons celebrate Christianity’s most intriguing and radical doctrine, the Incarnation; God’s decision to enter his creation and to live a human life, and to die for our salvation. There is nothing dull or familiar about this story and our gospel writer, Mark does not waste time or words with shepherds or wise men. St. Mark, like Dickens, wants to get his story off to the right start. The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. There you have it. All contained in one sentence. English teachers should give St. Mark an A+ for having the best topic sentence in the New Testament. St. Mark gives his story the ultimate good beginning and he wants the reader to know that this is the good news about Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Certainly Jesus Christ is one of those phrases that are almost too familiar to us. Sometimes we make the assumption that Christ is just Jesus’ last name. But it is actually another word for Messiah….someone who was God’s anointed. The roots of this word stretched all the way back to the time of King David, 1,000 years before Jesus’ birth. It described for the people of Israel, a leader that God had chosen especially for a certain task, an important mission. Our gospel writer makes it clear that Jesus is the anointed leader that everyone has been waiting to arrive on the scene. When we hear the beginning of his story today, it is important that we take seriously Mark’s claim about Jesus’ identity. More importantly these written words call us to reflect on the ways that his story continues in our lives as a church. This morning, we baptize four new members of our community. In a visible way we connect their lives to the good news that Mark is proclaiming. We anoint them and give them that good beginning that comes as full members of our St. Martin’s community. Just as John the Baptist says, “prepare the way of the Lord.” we do the same as we proclaim our belief and commitment to Jesus Christ as our Messiah and God’s son. This is where we see our gospel story meeting our present day. This is that wonderful incarnational moment, I spoke of earlier. The words we use at Baptism have the power to connect earth to heaven, and heaven to earth. Mark tells us that his gospel is only a beginning. Jesus’ story continues in our lives today. To borrow from Queen Anne, the Advent/Christmas season invite us to have the kind of life that is awful, and amusing. Are you ready for that good beginning?