C-19 Reflection #5: Working With What We’ve Got - Ghost Town

Theme: “Working With What We’ve Got”

Topic: Ghost Town

Scripture: Mark 1:1-12

Mark's description of the coming of Jesus is sparse and quiet. Overall, Mark's gospel is comparatively basic and this becomes obvious right at the very beginning, the very place where the other gospel writers strive to make important contributions to describing the birth of Jesus in their own unique ways. For Mark there is no astronomy and international travel like Matthew, no detailed family histories and birth stories like Luke, no creative cosmic connections like John. 

This should not be surprising since this is the gospel that describes Jesus wanting to keep his identity quiet so that there is no mistake about his mission. Very early on, Jesus is pictured by Mark as making it a priority to go to the lonely, quiet place to pray. (Mark 1:35) Silence on identity, sparseness of style and simple spirituality seem to fit together for this gospel writer.

Mark’s immediate focus is describing John the Baptist, the preacher and prophet of the Coming One. For Mark, it is important to stress, basic things about John - context, identity, dress, food, clothing, attitude, message, ministry. John's habitat in the desert and his association with Isaiah's lonely voice of the wilderness holds particular fascination. The desert / wilderness is the dry place, the lonely place, the quiet place, the empty and isolated place, the humble place, where food is the basics (no stocking up), outfits lacks complication ( medical people and their scrubs) and the place where God  seems to work to clarify our identity as beloved, dependent and called. It is the place where God seems to strip you of your own resources as a gift. As you reflect on John, think Moses and think Jesus, who follows John’s example immediately in Mark’s story.

 For John, everything is stripped down to the central message of repentance and forgiveness as getting a fresh start, becoming who you really are, because honesty with God won't destroy you like trying to hide will. You can try to escape to the wilderness, but you can't hide. It is the very place where you are found and where you find yourself. 

To top it all off, John uses water. That's all he needed. Do you realize how beautiful and powerful this is? John knows who he is and who he isn't. He is so comfortable in his own skin and his own unique wardrobe and he is confident in the essential tools of his ministry. That kind of confident peace in people is more rare than it should be, because we rarely go to the desert place.

The desert is not an easy, idyllic, tantalizing, dreamy place. It is not a place of no consequences. Far from it. But it is the place where God often comes and works. Oh my, does he ever deal with us there. Loving us and caring for us with angels (v12). John was nurtured, trained and disciplined in the empty place, in the lonely place. This is why he is so impressive.  The isolated place was a great gift to John. This is why he could stand up to the powers of the day without fear and lose his life in the process. No wonder Jesus kept going to that quiet place to pray himself. He was in good company there. With Isaiah, with Moses, with John and with his Father.

Downtown Toronto is like a ghost town these days, as are most of our neighborhoods. The emptiness, the sparseness and the quiet are a bit disturbing and destabilizing for busy, distracted, noisy people like us. The discipline of isolation is testing our emotions, our relationships and our communities and maybe even our faith and confidence.

Despite the negatives which many are experiencing, I wonder if we can imagine that we have all have been somehow invited to the wilderness, to be emptied, quieted, nurtured and trained by God, who wants to restore us and renew us by clarifying our identity as beloved, dependent and called people. Our salvation history reminds us that wilderness is the place where God seems to strip us of your own resources as a gift. It is the place where we learn to walk again in the world without fear.

I think that at some point we are going to be grateful for the ghost town.