First Sunday in Lent (Year B)

Mark 1.9-15 (TIB; adapted):[1]

It was then that Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized in the Jordan River by John. 10Immediately upon coming out of the water, Jesus saw the heavens opening and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. 11Then a voice came from the heavens: “You are my Beloved, my Own. On you my favor rests.”

12Immediately the Spirit drove Jesus out into the wilderness, 13and he remained there for forty days, and was tempted by Satan. He was with the wild beasts, and the angels looked after him.

14After John’s arrest, Jesus appeared in Galilee proclaiming the Good News of God: 15“This is the time of fulfillment. The reign of God is at hand! Change your hearts and minds, and believe this Good News!”

Other readings: Genesis 9.8-17; Psalm 25.1-10; 1 Peter 3.18-22

Gathering Prayer:

God, you know better than we the temptations that will bring us down. Grant that our love for you may protect us from all foolish and corrupt desire. Praise to you our God; you answer prayer. Amen.

A New Zealand Prayer Book

                                   

As this is the first Sunday of the Lenten season, we’re expected to focus on Jesus’ forty day temptation in the wilderness. The Gathering Prayer (traditionally known as the Collect) even points to this. And I know we’re supposed to be preparing for Holy Week but our Gospel reading is just too good to focus on that bit!

Other than the momentous example of Trinitarian theology in verses 9-11, the part that sticks out to me are the last two verses — “ … Jesus appeared in Galilee proclaiming the Good News of God: ‘This is the time of fulfillment. The reign of God is at hand! Change your hearts and minds, and believe this Good News!’” There is so much crammed into these short statements that we need to unpack them like suitcases.

First, we’re told that Jesus proclaimed the “Good News of God” or “God’s Good News.” This is quite telling. We’re used to hearing about the Gospel or Good News but it’s usually the Good News about Jesus (or through Jesus). In other words, there seems to be a shift or change between what Jesus said and what the rest of the New Testament said concerning the Good News.

Or is there?

I propose that the two are the same thing and we’ll get to that in a moment. 

But what is God’s Good News? That’s in the second statement. Jesus said, “This is the time of fulfillment.” A better translation would be, “The time is fulfilled” (NTE)[2] or “Now is the time” (CEB).[3] I personally like the way the New Living Translation puts it, “The time promised by God has come at last!”[4] Ah! There it is. “The time promised by God has come at last.” But what is this promise whose time had come? It’s nothing short of God ruling creation.

While we could pull from many passages in the Jewish scriptures, we’ll just look at a few. Way back in 2 Samuel, God promised David that David’s heir would be enthroned and that his reign would last to the ages of ages (2 Samuel 7.8-16). Isaiah picks up on this stating that a child would be born upon whom all authority would rest upon his shoulders and he would reign from David’s throne to the ages of ages (Isaiah 9.6-7).

Daniel continued this idea of a never ending realm. Israel had been conquered by Babylon and taken captive. Nebuchadnezzar, Babylon’s king, had a dream of a giant statue made of different material but a stone cut from a mountain, “not by human hands” shattered the statue. Daniel interpreted the dream and told Nebuchadnezzar that the statue represented the future ruling world powers and each different element represents the next conquering world power. The stone, however, represented an “everlasting kingdom” established by “the God of heaven” during the “days of those kings” (Daniel 2.31-45).

Later, Daniel has a similar dream. In his dream, he sees four beasts representing the same four world powers Nebuchadnezzar saw. It was during the reign of the fourth beast that Daniel saw “the ancient one take his seat” on a throne. Finally, the beast is killed and the authority of the other beasts is brought to and end. But suddenly, “one like a human being” came to the ancient one and all “rule, glory, and kingship” were given to him and “all peoples” worshipped him. “His rule is an everlasting one — it will never pass away! — his [reign] is indestructible” (Daniel 7).

This is the promised time that the Jews were waiting for. This was God’s Good News — the time when Yahweh would come and rule the world. Jesus stated that “the time promised by God has come at last!” Or, to put it another way, “Now is the time! Here comes the [Reign of God]” (Mark 1.15; CEB; adapted). We’re no longer waiting for this to happen; it’s already begun!

But there’s something that needs to happen. Jesus said people must, “Change [our] hearts and minds, and believe this Good News” (the old word is “repent”). What do we have to change our minds and hearts about? I don’t think it’s what we normally think of when we hear “repent.” As Tom Wright puts it, for first century Israel repentance meant “turning away from the social and political agendas which were driving Israel into a crazy, ruinous war.”[5]

But what about for us? 

I think it means changing our hearts and minds about God’s Realm — that it’s already established! For so long we’ve been told to expect a physical kingdom to overthrow the natural world powers in our own time. But that’s not what Jesus’ message was or is. He said, “God’s Realm is coming now,” not thousands or millions of years in the future but right then. We have to turn from our own “social and political agendas” and recognize — by faith — that God’s Realm is already a present reality. As St Paul would write, “So then, if anyone’s in Christ, that person is part of the new creation. The old things have gone away, and look, new things have arrived” (2 Corinthians 5.17; CEB; emphasis added).

But, as I said, it takes seeing things through the eyes of faith. As the New Testament states again and again — 

2 Corinthians 5.7 (CEB): We live by faith and not by sight.

Hebrews 11.1 (CEB): Faith is the reality of what we hope for, the proof of what we don’t see.

Romans 8.24 (CEB): If we see what we hope for, that isn’t hope. Who hopes for what they already see?

Our Lesson today stated that Jesus came proclaiming God’s Good News — that the promised Realm of God had finally come and it was starting, somehow, through Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus said people should “change their hearts and minds” — change their understanding and thinking — about what God’s Realm is and start trusting that it’s already started. As we’re here on this first Sunday of Lent, let’s lean into this idea of walking by faith. Of changing our hearts and minds into “seeing” that God’s Realm is already here.

~~~

In the Love of the Three in One,

Br. Jack+, LC

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[1] Scripture quotations marked (TIB) are taken from The Inclusive Bible. Copyright © 2007 by Priests for Equality. Used by permission.

[2] Scripture quotations marked (NTE) are taken from The New Testament for Everyone. Copyright © Nicholas Thomas Wright 2011. SPCK Publishing.

[3] Scripture quotations marked (CEB) are taken from The Common English Bible. Copyright © 2011 by Common English Bible. Used by permission.

[4] Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright ©1996, 2004, 2007, 2013, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation, Inc. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

[5] Wright, N.T., (2001). Mark for Everyone (The New Testament for Everyone) [Kindle version]. Retrieved from Amazon.com.