February 25 2024
Mark 1:1-15
It is hard to believe how early Easter is this year. March 31st is barely at the end of winter. This means that we are, right now, in the season of getting ourselves ready to be impacted by what Jesus has done for us through the cross and resurrection. The church calls this season which lasts forty days, Lent, because it occurs during the time of the year when the length, or lent, of the days is getting longer. Personally, Lent is always one of my favorite times because this is when the church seems to waken from her winter slumber. In the church I grew up in, Lent was always when there would be something special planned to help people get closer to Jesus, to walk with him on the way to Golgotha. This is also when people often choose to fast as a way of uniting ourselves, in a small way, with the sorrow associated with the sacrifice of Jesus upon the cross. Lent’s importance, then, is to help us get our lives focused once again on the mighty acts of Jesus which have been done on our behalf.
You see, when we are forced out of our everyday, ordinary, way of doing things during this season of Lent then we can continue to grow more like Jesus. I can recall that when I was in the eighth grade that the pastor of our church invited the youth of the church to come before school every Wednesday during Lent, for doughnuts and a Bible study. I also remember that it wasn’t very pleasant to wake up extra early and face the gospel of Luke first thing in the morning. But the doughnuts help persuade me to tough it out and while I came for the breakfast, I stayed for the Jesus. The pastor got us into the gospel of Luke and we followed Jesus as he put his face like flint toward Jerusalem. This special time with Jesus, this is what this season of Lent is all about and this is why I enjoy it like I do.
Well, as I think about that study of the gospel of Luke I couldn’t help but wonder if everyone I share that story with knows what I mean when I speak about the gospel. This is why this series of messages is called, ‘Gospel say, what?, because just because we think we know what the gospel says doesn’t necessarily mean that we actually know what the gospel really is all about. When we speak about the gospel of Luke we are talking about Luke’s account of the story of Jesus. Luke’s account is found alongside the accounts of Matthew, Mark and John, yet even so, is that all that the gospel is, just the story of Jesus, or is there perhaps more that makes up what we call the gospel? As we prepare to walk once again with Jesus as he heads toward Jerusalem, I want us to think about just what do we mean when we speak about the gospel.
We are confronted with our need to know what this gospel message is right here with these first few verses of the first chapter of Mark. The story Mark is telling to us starts out stating right here, this is the beginning of the gospel, or good news of Jesus Christ. Now, it isn’t too hard to figure out that the gospel is more than just a story about Jesus because there in the fourteenth verse of this first chapter we find that the gospel is the one and only message of Jesus. So, the gospel is more than the story of Jesus, it is rather the story that Jesus told. Right here, if we say we think we know what the gospel is then we might not really know at all what the gospel is all about. I say this because for most folks, when we speak of the gospel, the story we tell is that Jesus went to the cross for our sins and through his death our sins are forgiven and we are set free from the power of sin. To secure our salvation we must place our faith in Jesus, acknowledging that he alone is the assurance of our righteousness. What we receive in exchange is eternal life which is ours by faith through his grace. Yet if this is all of what the gospel is about how can Jesus here, at the beginning of his ministry, be proclaiming the gospel when the cross is some three years in the future? What is also unusual about this gospel proclamation of Jesus, is that he offers nothing in return for a listeners faith in his message. I mean, don’t most gospel messages we have heard promise something in exchange for placing our faith in the grace of Jesus? We have perhaps been told that if we believe on Jesus in our hearts, we are released from hell, we have the assurance of heaven, we are given the status of righteousness, or we receive forgiveness of our sins, or we are given freedom from the power of sin, or we are promised a reunion with God. Yet, listen again to what Mark records in this first verses of the first chapter, “Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel, the good news, saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” So, upon hearing that the kingdom of God is here at last, we are to repent and believe, and there the message abruptly stops, and we are left wondering, is that it, is that all you have got to tell us Jesus? What is so good about this message, I mean, just what incentive do we have to cast our lot with this guy and buy into what he is saying if there appears to be nothing in it for us?
This is why if we think we know the gospel we might not really know what the gospel is all about. We have to listen with fresh ears, hearing once again just what it is that Jesus is saying. Listen close this time, hang on every word, see if you can catch what Jesus is trying to say in these, his first words spoken to us, “The time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe this good news.” Every word that is uttered is overflowing with meaning. When Jesus speaks of the time being fulfilled, he is speaking about the very promises of God. Time is used by God to prove to us of his faithfulness. God tells us what is going to happen and when it will happen and we know that God in his faithfulness will make it so. We remember the promise God made with David that his house and his kingdom would be secure before the Lord, that his throne would be set up forever. Then in the second Psalm, we hear the writer say, “I will tell of your decree: The Lord said to me, You are my Son; today I have begotten you. Ask of me and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession.”Again from the one-hundred and tenth Psalm, “The Lord says to my Lord: ‘Sit at my right hand , until I make your enemies your footstool’. The Lord sends forth from Zion your mighty scepter. Rule in the midst of your enemies!” These and many other scriptures, tell of the hope of a king who would be out of the lineage of David, one who would come and be highly exalted, the very Son of God, the Lord to whom all other lords bow down to. This coming king is called at the beginning of the second Psalm, the anointed one of God which in Hebrew gives us the word, Messiah, and in the Greek, Christos, where we get the word, “Christ”. We have to remember that when we refer to Jesus Christ, the word, ‘Christ”, is as one author put it, more a claim then a name. To say Jesus Christ is to say that Jesus is the highly, exalted, king that God promised would come and rule over us. This is what Jesus was shouting to the world as he suddenly appeared there in Galilee.
This understanding that Jesus is the Messiah, or the Christ, the anointed king, promised by God, this is vital to us grasping just what is so good about this good news of Jesus. Yet, once again, if we think we know what it means for Jesus to be our king we might not really know at all what it means for Jesus to be our king. You see, God spoke through the prophets so that we might get a clearer picture about this coming king. In the eleventh chapter of Isaiah, the first five verses, we are told, “There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit. And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by what his eyes see or decide disputes by what his ears hear, but with righteousness he shall judge the poor and decide with equity for the meek of the earth….” Knowing this, can we catch the connection between this proclamation of good news and the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan? It was there, down by the riverside, that the heavens opened up, the Spirit came down upon Jesus, and there Jesus was anointed, the Father announcing that this one called Jesus was indeed his beloved Son. Jesus is called the Father’s beloved Son yet he is also God’s anointed king as well. What we need to know about Jesus our king is that Jesus is unlike any other king. You see, Jesus is the king on whom the Spirit rests, and this means that he is a king who rules with the power of life. We know this to be true because the one who tests Jesus in the wilderness is none other than Satan, the one whose power is found in the fear of death. This same power, the power of the sword, the very fear of death, is the power of all of the rulers on earth. Can you begin to understand, how Jesus who rules in the power of life, is a king who is both radically good and radically new in the way that he rules?
How wonderful it is that into this world where the fear of death grips our hearts so tightly comes Jesus saying that here with him is something new, something good. Satan using the fear of death as a power of control must then be considered evil if good is Jesus using the power of life to bring life and ever more life to the world. This is the fullness of the gospel message of Jesus. You see, even here at the beginning of his ministry was the destiny of the cross for it was there at Calvary that Jesus gave his life in order to defeat death and the fear of death, the very power of evil, all so that we might have life. This is good news!
When we have a better understanding of what this good news is that Jesus is offering to us then Jesus calls us to, “Repent.” Again, if we think we know what is meant by repentance we might not really know what repentance is all about. We might believe that repentance has to do with condemnation and judgment however when Jesus tells us to “repent”, he is speaking of something very different. Jesus calls us to come to him and through our encounter with him, we are to have a change of mind. How often do we get repentance out of the order we are supposed to have, telling people that they, first, need to repent, change their ways, before they can even think of having an encounter with Jesus. As Paul tells us at the beginning of the second chapter of Romans, “Or do you presume on the riches of God’s kindness, forbearance, and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?”. You see, it is only after we experience the kindness of Jesus that our thinking changes as to how the world actually works. This word, “kindness”, is in the same group of words as the word, “kindred”, which speaks to the experience of being in the same family. Perhaps this kindness of God is that he took it upon himself to become kindred with us, taking on our flesh, all so that we might know God as one of the family. To say that Jesus is our kin folk means that he is one who shares life with us, one who binds himself to us by cords of love, always doing what is best for all. Do you get how very strange this is that Jesus in his kindness welcomes us, of all people, to come on in and take our place at the table set in the royal palace. Yet Jesus does exactly this so that we might experience the power that there is in seeking the very best for each other, the power experienced when we offer ourselves in service to each other, the power of a life which is the very definition of good. Jesus gives us this experience so that we might change our minds about how God changes the world. Instead of living in a world controlled by fear that is rooted in death we, in this newness of life, discover a faith in the good, a faith which overcomes the world.
So, after we start to think through just what is this good news Jesus is announcing we have to decide just what are we going to do with this message.We could be skeptics refusing to accept that there might be another way to live in this world than what we already know. Or we could accept that Jesus is on to something, being the very God who became one of us all so that we could know God as our kinfolk, and life could at last be lived in the power and service of life. This acceptance of what Jesus is teaching us is our faith. And again, if we think we know what faith is then we might not really know what faith is all about. Just what does it mean to have faith? Is faith saying the sinners prayer, as a one off statement of faith? Or perhaps we might think that to have faith means that we stand before the congregation and state that what the church holds to be the truth is exactly that, the truth? Is this really what it means to believe? I think that Jesus would say that the truth of whatever we believe is going to be found in the way we live. We will either live as those who accept the status quo or we will live true to this new announcement of the goodness that is ours to be found in this one called King Jesus. When we come to Jesus and through the Holy Spirit we are to be convinced that the true way to live is life in the family of God, a life where each member seeks the very best for each other. If this is what we say we believe then this is the way we must live. This is the truth that Paul teaches us in the fifth chapter of Galatians that faith always works itself out in our love for one another. Only through extravagant love will the world know that we are good news kind of people. To love is to live by the power of life, being life givers, and life supporters, and life affirming people. This is the new way to live and this is the good way to live because it is the Jesus way to live. You see, again, just as we found with our understanding of what the gospel is, you know, we may think we know Jesus but the truth is that we might not really know Jesus at all. So, in this Lenten season, let us press on to know who King Jesus really is, and let us live by faith in the good news he came to give to us. To his glory! Amen!
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