Mark 1:9-15
Welcome to Lent dear friends, and today we will look at Jesus’ very first words, or command, to the disciples as recorded in today’s gospel from Mark and what that means for these newly called disciples and us.
Early in January we looked in detail at Jesus’s baptism. Mark then records Jesus’ Temptation with breathtaking brevity, but we’ll examine the Temptation of Jesus at another time, as it needs its own story. Today we are focussing on just two verses, vv.14-15.
So Jesus, after having spent forty days in the wilderness being tempted by Satan, now begins his public ministry.
As our text says, “after John had been arrested, Jesus went into Galilee.” According to Mark, the ministry of John the Baptist is completed, the announcement and preparations for the Messiah are completed, and now it’s time for Jesus to take centre stage.
And so Jesus appears and gives his first public words in ministry, which set up everything that he will stand for, everything that he would live and die for. In v.15, Jesus says this: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”
This is quite a difficult verse, because what does ‘come near’ really mean? Does it mean that the kingdom of God is here now, or that it is almost here, like a boat beyond the horizon we can’t see but know is coming?
The meaning of this verse is, I think, best understood by looking at the word used for time here, as in; “the time is fulfilled ...”
Here Mark does not use the word that refers to chronological time. In other words, Jesus is not saying that on this very day in history (this specific time and place, viz., a date on a calendar).
Instead Mark uses the word for time that gives an eternal quality possible in any given moment. We would mean this sort of ‘time’ if we were to say something like, ‘these are prosperous/difficult ‘times.’’
So Jesus does not announce the historical moment in time when the kingdom of God came to earth. Instead, he is alerting us that it is now possible to encounter the kingdom of God at any given moment in historical time, if we repent and believe.
Now whenever you repent, whenever you believe, the time is fulfilled in you, you, personally! That may start as a one-off moment, a date marked on the calendar when you became a Christian, but it is a lifelong practice.
Today is also the First Sunday of Lent. A wonderful season of repentance and turning back to the Lord. So our repentance is continuous as we daily turn away from selfish living and return to our first and true love – Jesus Christ.
Does this mean that all our earlier repentances were worthless. Not at all, we are constantly being renewed! But as Jesus reminds Simon Peter, “yes you are already clean the moment you believe, but because you walk in the world, you will get dirty feet that only I can wash” (John 13:8-10 my paraphrase).
As we do this, daily, an amazing thing happens. The kingdom of God is fulfilled in us as we enter more deeply into the eternal truth of God in our Saviour Jesus.
The Kingdom of God in fulfilled in us personally and most fully of all in the body of Christ – which is in the process of becoming the light of the world.
These are the ‘times’ now possible and the ‘times’ we live in. This ‘time’ was inaugurated by Christ Jesus – all of time is now different.
Jesus, having proclaimed the essence of this eternal encounter and put his entire ministry life in the context of the coming time of the Kingdom of God, is now in a position to make approaches to individuals and ask them to live out that call in their own lives.
And so we see this first such encounter in the coming verses 16 and 19 with the calling of Simon, Andrew, James, and John.
And what are they called to? What does Jesus call us to? Well, the same thing as he told us before he ascended, to make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:16-20).
What made the disciples say ‘yes’ to Jesus?
These first disciples would probably have heard of Jesus: he was, after all, walking round Galilee (which is not very big) proclaiming the kingdom of God and as Galilean fishermen, they would probably have either seen him in action or at the very least have heard about him.
They would also, perhaps, have heard of John the Baptist’s proclamation that Jesus was mightier than he was, that Jesus was a mighty judge, maybe those that followed him can share in that sort of power and authority. And a right to judge others.
Now from the word go, the disciples failed to understand Jesus’ ministry until after his death resurrection and ascension, and the gift of Pentecost.
I think the early disciples saw Jesus in terms of themselves and access to power and authority that was unimaginable in their lives.
They would not have articulated it and it that way, just as we would not I think. Most of us could well fail if our own vain desires were tested before the Lord!
And, of course, that was a fundamental misunderstanding that stayed with them throughout the rest of their time with Jesus, resulting in real spiritual struggle for them.
Spiritual struggles such as: fighting over who would be sitting on Jesus’ left and right in heaven; refusing to serve others but wanting to be served; not understanding that they had to die in order to live; shooing away the children from Jesus so they could have more time with him; and more, and worse.
We are just like that, dear friends!
Yet the disciples persevered and remain the best models of living the penitent, joyous life in Christ. All the spiritual struggles they went though, we do too. This is what our Lord uses to form us and fill us with new life, which in itself proclaims that the Kingdom of God has come.
Jesus very rarely takes us where we expect to go because he is (and has been in every age) completely counter-cultural. He truly turns our whole world on its head.
There is a certain ‘violence’ (for want of a better word) and shock involved in this new spirituality to which we are all called. At the baptism of Jesus, heaven and earth have been united in him, the heavens are ripped apart in a most unexpected way, just as the curtain in the temple will apart in the most unexpected way a few years later.
Jesus was then driven out into the wilderness where he had to encounter emptiness and solitude, caught in a place between the beasts and the angels.
John the Baptist was violently taken out of the story so that Jesus can announce a ‘moment of crisis for each one of us as we have to choose to engage with this moment of fulfilment in our lives that will ultimately turn our world upside down too.
We want to experience power and authority and be respected for who we are, but we will be taken the way of the cross instead and will be called to die in order to live.
This part of Mark’s Gospel should leave us feeling very uncomfortable about what it means to be a Christian. It is a wonderful passage for Lent.
This Lent, let’s let our Lord have his ‘violent’ way with us. We will find him so amazingly gentle with us, but everything false that we may have relied on is destroyed, and all that is left is our dear and beautiful Lord, looking at us with a love that takes our breath away. Let me pray...