Sermon for Sunday, February 18, 2024 || Lent 1B || Mark 1:9-15
On this First Sunday in Lent, we always hear the story of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness. If you’re wondering if you nodded off during the Gospel reading and missed the details of the temptations, don’t worry. You didn’t nod off. The Gospel According to Mark skips the details in favor of moving the story along quickly from one beat to the next. And that gives us the opportunity to focus on a different element of the story this morning. As Mark moves us swiftly past Jesus’ forty days in the wilderness, the Gospel writer tells us, “Now after John was arrested, 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.”
I’d like to spend our sermon time today breaking down this single sentence because there’s a lot in it. By the time we’re done, I hope you will have an understanding of the concept of “good news” as Jesus is using the term.
The sentence begins on an ominous note. “Now after John was arrested…” Half a chapter into the story, we’ve already met John the Baptist. He came out of the wilderness preaching about repentance and renewal. He offered his fellow Israelites a ritualistic action for them to take: they confessed their sins as he ceremonially washed them in the River Jordan. People flocked to the river for John’s baptism, and this catapulted John into religious stardom. Even Herod, the puppet king who was propped up by the Roman occupiers, was intrigued by John’s popularity. But when John commented on Herod’s lascivious private life, Herod imprisoned him, and then Herod’s wife tricked Herod into beheading John. So we, the readers of the Gospel, know, from this verse on, that fame for a religious teacher is fraught with danger.
And still, Jesus steps into the spotlight vacated by John, and starts proclaiming the good news of God. But, perhaps because he knows the danger, Jesus begins in Galilee. Jesus starts his public ministry on his home turf, which happens to be in the backwoods of Israel, about as far from Jerusalem as you can get and still be in the territory. Along the shores of the lake, Jesus gathers his first followers, heals many people, and proclaims his message of God’s reign coming near. At the same time, Jesus seems to be trying to keep his growing fame under wraps. He often tells people not to talk about him, and he disappears at times to be alone. Beginning in the boondocks and attempting to keep his star from rising too quickly tells me that Jesus truly understands what his mission means for himself and his followers.
Jesus understands that his mission is a threat to the established powers of the day, both religious and political. He knows that the moment he starts speaking out he’s on borrowed time. And so Jesus spreads his message as far and wide as he can before heading to the main city of his country, where he will assuredly come into contact with those established powers. For those powers certainly would not like the message Jesus shares in the last line of the sentence we’re examining this morning. Jesus says, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” Another translation (CEB) says, “Now is the time! Here comes God’s kingdom! Change your hearts and lives, and trust this good news!”
Trust this good news. With these words, Jesus sets himself against the imperial power of Rome, and by extension, all the death-dealing powers of the world that seek to dominate and oppress. Trust this good news. The words sound innocuous to us. But in Jesus’ day, this message was a challenge to that established order because the term “good news” was reserved for Roman propaganda. Ancient Roman press releases would resound throughout the occupied territories of the empire, including Israel, with “good news” from the emperor. “Good news! The emperor has won a major victory. Good news! The emperor’s heir has been born.” Stuff like that.
Now, the emperor of Rome stylized himself the son of God, an incarnate deity of worship for Roman subjects. So when the true Son of God took the emperor’s propaganda tool and started using it to speak the truth and gained a pretty big following…you can see why the religious leaders in Israel got worried about their safety. Rome cared about only two things: extracting resources from its conquered lands and keeping those lands as pacified as possible.
But Jesus is living in a bigger story, with a bigger villain than Rome. Rome is simply an earthly manifestation of all those death-dealing ways that pull people away from the abundant life that God desires for all creation. So Jesus proclaims: “Here comes God’s kingdom! Change your hearts and lives! Trust this good news!”
And Jesus continues to proclaim this invitation down through the ages through the words of the Gospel and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. We hear Jesus’ challenge to the established powers of our own day, powers that still cling to death-dealing ways of domination and oppression. When we accept the invitation to live the good news, we pick up this challenge. And this makes the good news inherently “political.”
Let me put my political science major hat on for a second and remind us all what that word means. “Political” comes from a Greek word that means “of the city.” Small-p “politics” is concerned with public conversations about things that matter most. When we hear the word “Political,” we often substitute the word “Partisan” in our minds because so much of politics in the United States is divided as a matter of course. But Jesus’ mission seeks reconciliation, not division. When we live the good news, we participate in public life (that’s small-p politics) from a place of faith in God and the values that following Jesus instills.
These values are many and they spring from the breadth of Holy Scripture: care for the poor, welcome for the stranger, justice for those with their backs to the wall, and love that spurs new relationships for the thriving of all people and all of creation. Living these values in our public life makes our faith small-p political in the same way that Jesus’ mission was political when he stood out as an alternative to the death-dealing establishment of his day.
In this season of Lent during another divisive election year, I invite you to meditate on how Jesus invites you to enter into the good news. How will you change your heart and life to mirror more closely the life Jesus calls us to live? How will you be an emblem of God’s kingdom coming near? My prayer for each of us this Lent is to accept God’s grace and courage to live out our faith in public and in private as we proclaim the good news.
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash.
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