Monday, November 26, 2001

"the voice of one crying out in the wilderness." Mark 1:3

Punctuation can be everything. I still remember an Advent program years ago, where the children in the Sunday School gave weekly presentations during worship. They were grouped by grade levels, and shared skits, songs, readings, which were to lead us through the four weeks. One particular week we were to hear a portion of the annunciation story, read aloud by Nellie, a fourth grader. The first service she did a great job, but by the second service she was getting tired. The story was somehow paraphrased as: "Mary was going to have a child by God." There was no comma before the last two words of that sentence, but a weary Nellie read it as though there was a comma there, drastically changing the meaning of the phrase and creating an opportunity for good-natured laughter from the congregation.

In these first verses from the Gospel of Mark, we encounter the phrase: "The voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord ." I've long wished for an added comma after the word "crying", (the Isaiah 40:3 reference seems to support this idea.) I believe the wilderness is two-fold. It's the locale for John the Baptist, the gutsy fellow who came to bring a message of repentance, getting people ready for Jesus, the main act to follow. He appeared in the wilderness of a desert. In addition, I believe John is speaking to people who may be in their own particular form of wilderness.

In what we might describe as the wilderness of our world, we find people left out and overlooked because of their economic status, race, gender, sexual orientation, age, and class. To prepare a way, calls us to be the voices that cry out for these people. If we don't speak up, the wilderness may continue to be a dangerous place for those who live there.

FOR REFLECTION: Archbishop Oscar Romero said: "Some want to keep the Gospel so disembodied that it doesn't get involved at all in the world it must save." How can you best embody the Gospel?

Sue Burwell

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