Believe the Good News - Revisit, Repent and Renew.
Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news."
Mark 1.14-15
I was a big thing - for Andrew and Simon, James and John and later the others- to leave the familiar and go off into the unknown. Especially for these men who, it seems were not thrill seekers, nor prodigals but solid members of family businesses. They grew up fishing as their father’s had fished before and with them. Some people are filled with a wanderlust - looking to the horizon, always on the move and find it hard to call anywhere home. These disciples do not seem to be of this ilk. Even when Jesus calls them away from their boats he says he will make them fishers of people. He casts their new job descriptions in images they can understand. It cannot have been easy, even though Mark’s Gospel tells us that they left their boats immediately. The time was at hand for Jesus’ public mission to begin and that Andrew and Simon, James and John were part of it.
The significance of the call of these simple men is highlighted in a story about Jesus’ return to heaven. The archangel Gabriel is talking to our Lord after Jesus’ returned to heaven. "Lord" said the archangel you have suffered terribly. Do those humans know and appreciate how you love them and what you did for them?" Jesus replied,"Not yet. At the moment just a few people in Palestine know." Gabriel was perplexed: "Then what have you done to let everyone know about your love?" Jesus answered, "I have asked Peter, Andrew, James, John, and a few others to tell others about me. They will tell others who will tell still others until every person on earth has heard the story of how I gave my life for them." Gabriel frowned and looked rather sceptical. "What if they become weary, or forget, or others don’t listen? Surely you have made other plans?" "No, Gabriel," replied Jesus, "I have made no other plans. I’m counting on them."
"The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news." With these words Jesus launches his mission. A mission that was a concerted effort to communicate a message to as many people as possible. The message was not just one for our information. Like a memo a boss receives from a worker who merely wants to keep the employer abreast of what’s happening. This message was and is one that demands a response. Even more than a response this proclamation asks for commitment and in so doing requires that we revisit and if necessary repent and renew our commitment. Let us revisit, repent and renew our commitment to Christ this morning. Let’s do that by sitting a while with Jesus Proclamation: The time is fulfilled, the Kingdom of God is at hand, repent and believe the good news.
The time was fulfilled: there are at least three ways of looking at time. For some time cycles around with the seasons. Time is sometimes measured by the phases of the moon. As the phases of the moon and the seasons of the year appear to cycle around so history appears to march forward, human life has a beginning and an end, even though we talk about the life cycle, our time on earth is limited and constrained by birth on one side and death on the other. Some have spoken of the seasons of life - childhood, youth, adulthood and maturity all having discernible common characteristics.
The second way is to measure time in a linear way.The Greek word for this linear way of viewing time is chronos, from which we get chronological or chronometer. We all know this way of dealing with time. The alarm goes off in the morning, we have to be at work by a certain time. We race to meet deadlines and to pick up children from the school or sport . Many would feel ruled by chronological time.
A third way of viewing time has more to do with meaning than measurement. This is the time that Jesus is referring to in his proclamation. It was the right time the fullness of time. There is a Greek word for this time too - Kairos - the right time or God’s moment. In this moment all appearances of cyclic time and realities of linear time loose much of their significance.
Perhaps one of the starkest illustrations of this for modern people is Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. Presented with the setting along a quiet country road the audience is thrown into an agony of anticipation as the characters wait and wait and wait for Godot - who never turns up. Both the clock, and the seasons become insignificant, at least to the cast, if not the audience, compared to the anticipated arrival of Godot.
After hundreds of years of anticipation Jesus declares the arrival of God’s moment. It seems that many hoped the arrival of God’s moment - the kairos - would signal the end of the other streams of time. So have images from both Old and New Testaments of the end of natural time illustrated by the suspension of the natural order.
(Isa 11:6-11 NRSV) The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, [the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den. They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.]
(Rev 21:1 NRSV) Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. [And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away."]
Jesus claims the fulfilment of time, not the end of time. The completion of what Christians hope for has not yet arrived, but we are not "waiting for Godot" we are waiting with our Lord. That means natural cycles and linear time pale into insignificance in relation to what God has done in Christ. God’s moment is more like those times when we are so involved in what we are doing we forget the time of day and perhaps even the season of our life. What might those moments be for you: the garden, the children or grandchildren, the golf course, music, reading, the pets, tennis or maybe even worship?
That moment of Jesus proclamation signifies the nearness of God’s kingdom. Kingdom seems to refer too much to a geographic area it more helpful to speak of God’s reign - the reign of God within the hearts, minds and relationships of all people. Entering this kingdom we are asked to do two things - repent and believe.
To repent means much more than to change our minds or to give up a bad habit. To repent means to turn around. We are being asked to turn around and face God. To turn away from the direction we ourselves want to go, or at least think we want to go. Here I think Christianity suffers from an image problem. Many "freeze" when they hear the word "repent". Like so many of the words and stories sacred to our faith they have been misused by well meaning but over zealous groups. Not only is the faith presented in simple terms but they attempt to live it out simplistically. Many, I think, would understand repentance as an end to their enjoyment of life. Really it should be the opposite. To repent is to look for God’s purpose for our lives and to work out God’s fulfilment in us. There is a sense of Kairos about repentance - a sense of the right time that makes all else slip into insignificance.
A decision to repent does not mean that all is then "happy". A sincere decision to repent drives a person to the deeper regions of life. There are responsibilities that belong to the Christian that many would rather avoid. There was a man who every Sunday was bothered by his wife’s request to come to church. each time he would respond in the same way: "You go for both of us dear." Then one night he had a dream. He dreamt that he and his wife both died and found themselves at the pearly gates. St Peter opened the gates and the woman went in but St Peter stopped her husband, "She’s coming in for both of you," he said.
We are called to repent and believe the good news. Has anyone heard any good news lately? There are so many urgent and important things we need to know about drought, bushfires, accidents, murder and the threat of war there seems little room for good news. And anyone who chooses to stand up and proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ might be considered out of touch, insensitive to the spirit of the day, or irrelevant. But as many have said before it is during times of greatest suffering and need that the proclamation of Good News is no less necessary. To proclaim a loving God who cares, provides and sustains us in the midst of the worst drought in a century, with the threat of fire all about us and with war looming on the horizon may seem madness to some. But we know the rain will come, we know the fires will die down and that talk of war and even war itself will come and go. They are part of the seasons of natural life and of chronological time. However, if we miss Kairos, if we miss the chance to repent and believe the Good News, we miss our unique ways of being with God, through Jesus in the power of the Spirit. Let us revisit, repent and renew our lives before God.
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Illustrations
Wharton P. J. Stories and Parables for Preachers and Teachers, Paulist Press: New York, 1986, pp. 22, 61.
Beckett, S. Waiting For Godot, Faber & Faber: London, 1956.
