MIDWEEK LENT 3
MARCH 23, 2011
THE REV. MARK P. BRUESEHOFF
ST. JOHN, OCEAN CITY, NJ
CHRIST IN THE STRANGEST PLACES: FORESHADOWED, FULFILLED, FOREVER + MARKED
His name is Rob and he is a walking piece of literature. On his left wrist he has a rather strange tattoo.
QUOTATION MARK – the word BACK – PERIOD – QUOTATION MARK . It looks as though it was taken from the end of a sentence. Well, in fact it was! A few years ago Rob joined a worldwide effort to help author Shelley Jackson tell her story on people’s bodies. Appropriately titled “SKIN” the book has only
2,095 words. And a different person has, on his or her body, just one of those words.
The author explains her reasoning, “It’s not that everything I do has to be tricked out with gimmicks and games. I’m just interested in exploring the range of what a text can do.” Rob heard about it in a literature class at the University of Missouri. He said, “I always told myself that if I got a tattoo, it had better be important.”
At last count, Shelley Jackson was still looking for 400 people to be tattooed with the final 400 words her book. Just think, we could contact her after worship, offer ourselves and our skin to her publishing effort and be a part of this alternative publication! How many are ready to line up for a one-word tattoo? That’s just what I thought. And, truth be told, I’m not all that eager to get a tattoo, either.
The Prophet Isaiah also wanted people to be marked with a word. He writes in our Old Testament lessons for today, WRITE ON YOUR HAND, “THE LORD’S.” It meant that one belonged to the Lord. But the Children of Israel, in exile in Babylon, did not line up to be tattooed. They were not interested in being marked by their God.
Because, you see, there was another game in town. The Children of Israel saw the pomp and the pageantry of the Babylonian religion and they liked what they saw. The Babylonian religion began with a program that changed people’s name. Just ask Hannaniah, Mishael, and Azariah! Oh, you don’t recognize those names? Maybe you know them better by their “VEGGIETALE” names: “RACK, SHACK
AND BENNY.” But in Daniel chapter 1 verse 7 the Babylonians changed their names to SHADRACH,
MESHACH, AND ABEDNEGO.” Oh ya, those were the guys thrown into the fiery furnace. The reason behind the name change? To mark the Children of Israel with a new name, that would get them to worship a new and more exciting god.
AND ALONG COMES ISAIAH, with his plan to label the Israelites! But no one wants to line up to be marked “belonging to the Lord.” The Babylonians seem to offer so much more!
And the influence of the NEW BABYLON, otherwise known as the young and the beautiful, is all about buying what we do not need, with money we do not have, to finally be surrounded and identified with stuff that we really do not even like. On a typical day in America, we will be exposed to no less than
2,000 advertising images. And the message is clear: WE CAN BUY HAPPINESS! And we get all caught up in the pomp and pageantry of consumerism and materialism and a couple of other “isms” and finally we have a new name. “IT’S ALL ABOUT ME!” The devil is hard at work! He has changed our names and marked us with the label that finds happiness in THINGS!

And even though we were first marked with the Water and Word of Holy Baptism, it becomes so easy to be renamed as cheap and dirty and worthless. When Jesus says we are, “a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God,” the Devil comes back to say, “It’s fiction, it’s fantasy, it’s all a figment of your imagination.”
And so we are slow to line up, to be marked, BELONGING TO THE LORD. And besides, who wants to stand out in the crowd? Who wants to be uncomfortable? And besides, we have ourselves convinced, we can sell our soul to the American dream and still profess the name of Jesus! OH, REALLY?
AND ALONG COMES ISAIAH! In chapters 40 to 55 he takes aim at the Babylonian Empire. He starts out by saying they are nothing more than a drop in the bucket. He dares to write that their leaders are empty and their gods are little more than dust in the wind. And a couple of chapters later he hits them square in the face when he says, “SIT IN SILENCE, GO INTO DARKNESS, DAUGHTERS OF BABLYLON, NO
LONGER WILL BE CALLED THE QUEEN OF THE KINGDOMS.”
What a great job he does of pushing Babylon into the ABYSS. But now he has to bring Israel HOME. He writes, “Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her warfare has been completed. Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, God is doing a new thing! How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, ‘Your God is King!’”
And taking one more shot at Babylon, Isaiah says, “The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of our God will stand forever.”
ALONG COMES ISAIAH! With one more chance for the people. He says, “Write it upon your hand” NOT
“Belonging to Babylon,” BUT “Belonging to the Lord.”
AND ALONG COMES JESUS! It all points to the most awesome story ever told on human skin. Isaiah describes Him with these words. “His appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any man and His form marred beyond human likeness. Like one from whom others would hide their faces He was despised, and we esteemed Him not. We all, like sheep, have gone astray. And God has laid upon Him the iniquity of our sin.” Three nails, a crown of thorns and one spear left their mark on Jesus.
ALONG COMES JESUS! And people began lining up to be marked. St. Paul says, “I bear on my body the marks of Jesus.” Eyes marked with care and compassion, a mind marked with tenderness and truth, and a mouth marked with Jesus and joy, and faith and hope and love.
To stand out in this crowd all we need is one mark. The words: “THE LORD’S!”
But how does this happen? Recall the water, remember the Word, and hear the voice,
“Receive the sign of the cross, upon your forehead and upon your heart to be marked as a child of
God.”
Amen.
Sola Deo Gloria!