Year B, Lent 1
Good Shepherd on the Hill—Austin, TX
Jonathan Hanneman
February 18, 2018
“The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”
Many Bible scholars tell us that the Gospel of Mark was originally a play, a piece of oral folk art about the life of Jesus that storytellers passed on until someone wrote it down in the middle to late first century CE, likely around the time of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans. Although it isn’t the oldest book in the New Testament (that honor likely belongs to one of Paul’s letters), that does make it the oldest of the four Gospels, with Matthew and Luke coming roughly twenty years later and John another twenty years after that.
Like any good play of antiquity, how a person introduces him- or herself is extremely important, revealing the core essence of their character and being in their opening actions and statements. And Jesus’ first words in the Gospel of Mark, and therefore his oldest recorded words in the Bible, are, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” It’s a simple statement, one that’s easy for us to skip over. But as the first revelation of Jesus’ message, I’d like to take some time reflecting on it this morning.
“The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”
One reason I think we skim over Jesus’ first words is that we as a culture aren’t too fond of the word “repent.” We tend to associate it with melodramatic TV courtroom dramas or with strange old men standing on corners waving signs and shouting about the end of the world. Apart from those situations, it rarely, if ever, shows up outside of church. But “repent” really shouldn’t be a high drama or heavily emotional word. It doesn’t have to involve crying or screaming. In fact, its meaning in the Bible is as simple as “turn around.” That’s it—just “turn around.”
I was in Tokyo for three weeks in January, and, not speaking Japanese or being familiar with their various alphabets, I go lost several times, most often in subway stations. The stop nearest to my hotel was a very simple station with limited exits. The same was true for the station near the church where I was working. Any exit would take you to roughly the same area, and once you were used to the stop, it was fairly easy to remember which one would get you closest to where you wanted to go. If you did make a mistake, it wan’t too hard to get reoriented once you were outside. In my limited exposure, I assumed all the subway stations in Tokyo were like that. Then one day I got off the train at a different stop. Imagine my surprise when instead of finding two or three exits, I suddenly saw what appeared to be dozens of them. I took the closest one, still thinking they all led to the same place. Was I wrong! It turns out, the bigger the station, the more exits, and the more distance between those exits. That day I realized how important it was to pay attention to the signs.
That’s basically the same thing Jesus is saying here. It’s like he’s one of the exit signs telling us, “Hey, look behind you—you’re going the wrong way.” So if you think about it, my time in Tokyo was full of repentance: “turn around—the exit’s that way. Nope, turn around! You missed it again.” While I suppose I could have screamed and cried if I wanted to, repentance doesn’t have to be big and dramatic. Most of the people in the station probably never noticed I was lost. I didn’t make a scene about finding the right exit. I just stopped to look at where I wanted to go, paid closer attention to the signs, and “turned around” whenever I discovered I was going the wrong way.
After he tells us to repent, Jesus says to “believe in the good news.” “Believe” is another word that tends to trip up American ears. We normally think of “belief” as a form of assent, a type of intellectual agreement with what one has read or heard, like when it’s a hot day but the weatherman tells us that tomorrow will be a lot colder. “Yeah,” we might say, “the clouds look like they’re moving in pretty quickly. I’d believe that.” But the Gospel isn’t about intellectual assent. It isn’t about knowing the right information or being able to understand some sort of secret teaching. That isn’t the kind of “belief” Jesus is talking about. If you trace the roots of the English word “believe,” you’ll find it runs back into a meaning of fealty or loyalty. It’s actually a form of love toward someone or something. To “believe in” isn’t to agree with or even necessarily to trust something intellectually. To “believe in” is to faithfully love. Today the idea is probably closer to the phrase “live into.” Belief isn’t about your brain or your thinking. It isn’t having correct knowledge. It’s about your being and living.
So when we hear Jesus say, “repent, and believe in the good news,” although we may imagine dramatic confession and intellectual assent, what he’s really saying is, “Hey—turn around and live into the good news!” Which leads us to a different problem: what, exactly, is “the good news”?
The Greek word translated “good news” is the same as the word “gospel,” as in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. We often assume “repent and believe in the good news” means “confess dramatically and assent to the truth of the Bible (especially the New Testament).” But once again, centuries of drifting language have caused most of us to lose the meaning and intention behind this word, too.
Back when the Bible was written, “gospel” was a dangerous word. It was used to announce important news celebrating the state, like the victorious end to a war or, especially, the crowning of a new emperor. Today we might associate it with the election of an important government official or last year’s formal announcement of Prince Harry’s engagement to Meghan Markle. During the Roman Empire, someone proclaiming a gospel was announcing official, government-sanctioned, national-level, geo-political “good news.” Any other “gospel” would have been considered anti-state propaganda, and its herald would most likely be executed for treason.
“Wait,” you’re probably thinking, “Jesus talks all about love, peace, and forgiveness. You’re saying Jesus is committing treason?” And the answer is, honestly, yes. In his time and place, Jesus was risking his life with this gospel proclamation. And his sedition was real; he wasn’t speaking in metaphots. He actually was announcing a new empire! To see it, all we need to do is look at the first part of his statement.
“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near.”
And that, in its most basic form, is the good news, the gospel. “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near.” That is Jesus’ seditious, world-changing message. That is the good news that devoured an empire and led to the birth of the Church as we know it today. But once again, either because of the flow of time or the deafness of over-familiarity, it’s hard to hear the glory of Jesus’ words or to feel the raw power behind them.
“The time is fulfilled” basically means “now”—as in, this is happening right now. “And the kingdom of God has come near,” is Jesus’ way of saying, “God’s kingdom, God’s rule, is here!” We would say, “Now, right now, God is already the true ruler!” So Jesus’ whole introductory statement, the summary of who and what he is, is, “Turn around—God is your genuine king! Now live into that reality!”
It was hard for people to hear then, and it’s still hard to hear today. “Don’t rely on your government. Don’t rely on your job. Don’t rely on only those things in front of your eyes. Human systems of power promise peace but, just like the Roman Empire, can only maintain it through violence, hidden or overt. God is the true emperor—everyone else is an imposter. Trust the real king and follow his commands. If any of these shadow governments try to force you down a different path, stay loyal and live like the citizen of Heaven that you already are. Let the All-Knowing, All-Powerful Emperor handle these usurpers—just stay true to the King above all kings!”
As Christians, we believe that the Kingdom of God has come in the presence of Jesus Christ. The country we were born into doesn’t matter; he is our true and only king. He is both God’s representative on earth and the presence of God on this earth. Jesus is the one who deserves all our loyalty. He is the true power behind all powers. Although other passages in the Bible remind us to respect our earthly leaders, we must remember that safety doesn’t come from any national government. It doesn’t come from weapons. It doesn’t come from economic strength. It comes from the Reality behind what we see, the Kingdom of God where life is lived in love, peace, and security, no matter what may be happening to us and the world around us. We, as Christians, both wait to enter the realized Kingdom and carry it with us wherever we go. Wherever you see kindness and gentleness, whenever you respond through patience and goodness, whatever you do to plant acts of faith, hope, and especially love, that is the Kingdom of God breaking into this world. Just turn around and see: God’s Kingdom has come in Jesus Christ. Now, inspired by the reign of the true king, live into it!
“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news!”