In November, the Revd Dr Simon Cross was one of ten new ministers welcomed at Church House, the United Reformed Church’s London office.
Now Minister of the Hull Area Team, Simon reflects on what will be his first Advent as a newly ordained minister:
As Advent approaches, I find that I am hopeful. Despite all the desolation, despite the challenges faced by so many in my community and beyond, I still, somehow, remain hopeful.
Over the past weeks and months, the Sunday gospel readings have led us through some of the highlights of Jesus’ ministry as told by Mark, whose breathless prose hardly leaves room for anything but action. Written sometime around the fall of the Jerusalem temple in 70CE, maybe even in the dramatic ”year of the four emperors” in 69CE, Mark comes from a time of political turmoil and desperate speculation.
Perhaps it’s no surprise, then, that the writer wastes no time on the sort of concocted nativity scenarios found in the later tellings by Matthew and Luke. His prologue lasts only six sentences and then he gets right into the action. He doesn’t bother with hero origin stories and just plunges the reader straight into the story of Jesus’ ministry.
Despite its ambiguous ending, Mark’s gospel remains, for me, one of deep-seated hope. Mark’s Jesus leads a social, political and spiritual revolution – encouraging the development of new communities of resistance in the heart of the Roman occupation, under the noses of the client kings and military governors.
It offers a vision of hope in the most testing of circumstances, hope that outweighs even the overwhelming force of military oppression and institutional corruption; hope that doesn’t rely on armies or governmental bail outs.
Even as our world goes through another period of escalating political turmoil and devastating warfare; even as lives are upended and people are ripped from their homes; even as power hungry leaders seek to dominate and their acolytes spread their own brands of hate and corruption, we are reminded not to despise the day of small things. Small things like a mustard seed, or a yeast particle, or a flickering lamp.
God wasn’t in the earthquake nor the fire, but in the still small voice, the whisper, a tiny baby born in a small town. Hope is still found in small things and out of the way places.
Image: Greyson Joralemon/Unsplash.