The Beginning of the Good News Preached for Wollaston Congregational Church on November 29th, 2020 Scripture: Mark 1:1-15 This Advent we will hear the origin stories from each gospel: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. This week we heard from the gospel of Mark, the earliest and shortest gospel. Mark has no birth narrative of Jesus. Instead he introduces John the Baptist first, the one who prepares the way for the coming of Jesus. The first half of the first chapter of Mark takes place in the wilderness, a frightening, desolate place. And yet, Mark proclaims this is “the beginning of the good news, about Jesus Christ, God’s Son.” Mark is not denying the desolation of the wilderness, he is defying it. In this first chapter we read of the way that John the Baptist and Jesus of Nazareth defied the desolation of the wilderness too. Mark writes at a time when Jerusalem is under siege. Radical Jews have revolted against the Roman occupiers. Jerusalem will not last long. These are the last terrifying days before the city is completely destroyed. And so, Mark tells the tale of John the Baptist who, had retreated to the wilderness area outside Jerusalem a generation before. John appears in the wilderness calling people to repent and be baptized: to turn toward God, to turn away from that which is not God. John sets up ministry by the River Jordan, far from Jerusalem, the city that is the religious and political center of this corner of the Roman Empire. Crowds of people from the country all around come to be baptized. They have had enough of the power and control of the Empire and the religious authorities who collaborate with power. They’ve placed their hopes for freedom in the coming of the savior for whom John is preparing the way. John is a vision of the hope that is to be found in the desolate places. John wears itchy uncomfortable clothing, reminiscent of the age-old prophet Elijah. He lives on a meager diet of locusts and wild honey. He tells the people that someone stronger than he is coming, his role is simply to prepare the way. He says that he, John, baptizes with water, but the one who is coming will baptize them with God’s own Spirit. Then Jesus arrives, from Nazareth in Galilee, a forsaken village on the northern margins of the Jewish territory. The crowds wonder who he is and why John is in awe of him. Then while he is being baptized, they see Jesus gaze to the sky, as though he’s seen a great vision and they hear a voice saying "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased." Then they understand that this is the one John has been talking about, the one for whom he has been preparing a way. And now Jesus is forced out into the wilderness too, into the shadow-lands where the wind whips his shivering body, and the wild animals scurry and howl. He is exposed and tempted to the point of despair by Satan. And at the end of 40 days angels come and tenderly care for him. John is arrested, but Jesus comes into his home territory, announcing the Good News of hope and joy: God’s kingdom is coming. Turn toward God and trust … this is good news indeed! The people of Prague in Czechoslovakia, as it was then, enjoyed a culture of music, arts and academia, until the beginning of the Nazi occupation in 1939. The Jewish community in Prague was one of the oldest in Europe, with a population of around 50,0000. As the Nazis took hold, the culture was destroyed. Jews were not allowed to perform in the orchestras or choirs and were subjected to an evening curfew. Then in 1941, very early on a cold November morning, they were taken by the trainload, from their homes in the city to the Garrison town of Theresienstadt. Family members were separated from one another, even small children from their parents. They were housed in barracks, sleeping in 3 story bunks. They were fed a meager diet of watery soup and forced into hard labor, as much as 100 hours per week. They were imprisoned. The Jewish people’s existence in the Theresienstadt ghetto, Terezín, was miserable and monotonous. Thousands continued to arrive and the camp became overcrowded. Diseases like typhus ran through the camp. The barracks were infested with fleas, lice, bedbugs, and rats. Older people died in droves, survivors say that death was around them all the time. And yet, there were artists, musicians, Rabbis, and professors among the community. One renowned Prague musician, Rafael Schächter had filled his baggage allowance with musical scores. He found an old piano in a cold, damp basement and so he began to assemble a chorus from the prisoners. The Rabbis created a hidden synagogue, the professors began to put on lectures, the artists created pictures. The vibrant culture of Prague was replicated, after hours of forced labor, in the camp. The 2012 movie “Defiant Requiem” tells the story of Schächter’s chorus and the hope they found in the midst of the misery and monotony of the camp. [1] Several survivors still speak with shining eyes as they recall the hours they spent rehearsing around the piano in the basement with “Raffy”. They lived for this time to focus on their music, and to forget the misery of their days. The music lifted them from despair to hope. In time it gave them the opportunity to defy the Nazis, singing words of judgment right in front of their faces. A major fear in the camp was of “transportation to the East.” As more Jews arrived at the camp, others were shipped out. No one knew where these people went, but they were never heard from again. The Nazis turned a blind eye as the prisoners entertained themselves, singing, praying, drawing and acting. After all their days were numbered. As the situation in Terezín became more dire, Schächter turned to a score of Giuseppe Verdi’s Requiem Mass. A Requiem is a “Mass for the Repose of the Dead.” The Requiem is a Catholic work, of course, and the words are in Latin. This was quite foreign for the Jewish singers of Terezín. The Rabbis of the community were troubled by the idea that they would perform this work. Still Schächter persevered. They had only one score and just a piano instead of a full orchestra. And so he taught the chorus each note and each syllable by rote, making sure that the singers understood every word. They would be singing a message of God’s great wrath and judgment to their Nazi captors. The verse that declares that “whatever was hidden will be revealed” resonated with their experience. The horror of the camps would be revealed to the world in due course. After hours of practice in the cold, damp, rat infested cellar, they put on 15 performances of the Requiem for the community in Terezín. The audience was stunned by their first performance. One chorus member recalls “Raffy put all of us, the singers and the audience into another world … this was not the world of the Nazis … it was our world!” The next day 5,000 prisoners were deported for “resettlement” including half the chorus. Schächter had to start over again and recruit more singers. In Spring of 1944 residents of the camp learned that Terezín was going to be used as a Nazi showplace. The International Red Cross was suspicious of what was happening to the Jewish people under the 3rd Reich and wanted to inspect a camp. Since Terezín already had a thriving artistic community, the Nazis decided it would be the perfect place to entertain the Red Cross. A delegation was brought through the camp to see a lively soccer game, little children playing on swings, or taking naps underneath the trees, adults sipping coffee, or participating in an outdoor exercise class. This was all completely phony, of course, the next week all the children were gone. And so Schächter and the choir put on the final performance of the Requiem. The chorus had been reduced to less than half the original size. This was not ideal but they would have no other chance. In complete defiance, they sang. One survivor said that the Nazis thought they were singing the Requiem for themselves, as they would soon be dead. They were not. They were singing judgment upon their captors. The survivors declared: “[The Nazis] had our bodies … but they did not have our souls.” Defiance is not the same as denial. The Terezín chorus did not deny their situation, but they defied it with their music. To defy is to confront. To defy death and despair is to go on living with hope. Our wilderness, in these times, is a pandemic and a holiday season that will look different from any other. With 90,000 people hospitalized in the United States this weekend, and 50 Americans dying every hour, this certainly is a desolate place. [2] Our wilderness is our loneliness. It is our fears for our family members, for our loved ones, and for our financial future. And our act of defiance is still to hope, still to proclaim the coming of Jesus to the world. Our defiance is to remember that Jesus can be witnessed among us all the more, in circumstances like these. Our act of defiance is to sing, even though this year we are singing in our homes. We don’t deny the pandemic, but we defy the power it has over us. We defy any ideas that pandemic makes our worship less worthy, that our singing is less vibrant, that our lights shine less brightly. These times are disheartening, of course. Remember when we closed in person worship for just 2 weeks? Remember when we thought we would re-gather for a late Easter this past spring? I had hoped for an outdoor in-person Christmas Eve service. But in light of an increased infection rate over the past few weeks in this state, we have decided against that plan. And still, using an online platform gives us the opportunity to extend our Christmas Eve service beyond the local area. It allows us to include those who would not drive in the dark, those who need to remain isolated, and those who could not be out in the cold. It is heartening to remember that even Jesus was exhausted when he was confronted with despair. It is OK to be tired. It’s OK to be done with this. It’s OK to take a break. This Advent time may we be on the lookout for angels and messengers, bringing words of support and encouragement. May we heed the call to raise our voices, in defiance of those who say that “the church is closed.” This is the beginning of the good news. May all God’s people say, Amen [1] https://www.amazon.com/Defiant-Requiem-Lindsay-Hopper/dp/B07BLRJKZ6/ref=sr_1_1?crid=DRTRGGB4TYRE&dchild=1&keywords=defiant+requiem&qid=1598832400&sprefix=defiant+req,aps,214&sr=8-1 [2] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-hospitalizations-top-90000-united-states/
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