“The Time Is Fulfilled”
Mark 1:9-15
Allen Huff
Jonesborough Presbyterian Church
2/22/15
“The time is fulfilled…the Kingdom
of God has come near.”
We hear those
words through ears conditioned by 2000 years of Christian tradition and
metaphor. First century Jews hear those words through theologically-conditioned
ears, as well. However, foundering beneath the weight of Roman rule, Jews of that
era crave and even expect something quite literal. That makes their culture a kind
of petri dish for would-be messiahs. Men claiming to be God’s Anointed pop up
everywhere, and one after another fade into oblivion through either irrelevance
or execution. John the Baptist himself has to deflect the hopeful projections
of messiah hunters.
Don’t
look at me like that, he says. “The one who is more powerful than I is
coming after me.”
Of all unlikely people, a carpenter
from Nazareth shows up and begins to claim Jesse’s lineage. He begins to live
the life of David’s heir. People come to recognize this when their tangible
experiences of Jesus find foothold in their spiritual memory:
“The spirit of
the Lord
shall rest on him,” declares the prophet Isaiah. “The spirit of wisdom and
understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the
fear of the Lord…Righteousness
shall be the belt around his waist…The wolf shall live with the lamb, the
leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling
together.” (Selected
verses from Isaiah 11:1-6)
From his
identification of John as the voice crying out in the wilderness, to the coming
of the Spirit at Jesus’ baptism, down to the wild beasts peaceably surrounding Jesus after his forty days of
temptation, Mark helps to shape the remembrance of Jesus as Isaiah’s suffering
servant, the servant who says, The time
is fulfilled.
Isn’t it
interesting? It takes Jesus years to mature into and to earn lasting
credibility as God’s offered messiah
of reconciling Love rather than the
world’s desired messiah of military might. And it takes Mark only fifteen
verses to make all these connections and to turn Jesus loose on the creation.
For Mark there is no reflective “What Child Is This,” no soppy “Away in a
Manger,” not even any rousing “Joy to the World.” Refusing to sugar coat his
proclamation with candy canes and eggnog, Mark begins his telling of the Good
News not with the happy celebrations of Christmas, but with the urgent belt-tightening
and the rigorous self-examination of Lent.
The Lenten idea
of time being “fulfilled,” captures a lot of attention. Unfortunately, many of
the loudest voices talking about the fulfillment of time are really obsessed
with the end of time. Doomsdayers pour
their energy into wailing at all that they consider wrong with the world. Now, I
do not argue that in many, terrifying ways the kingdoms of hell seem to have
the upper hand on the kingdom of heaven. And the truly disturbing question is:
When has this not be the case?
In first century Palestine, Roman
rule, and perhaps more accurately, local rule under Roman control, depends on a
fear and brutality equal to that of ISIS, and Boko Haram, and even of those “Christians”
who sympathize with a certain, unaffiliated Baptist church in Topeka, Kansas. Institutional
violence and parasitic greed continue to be demoralizing realities in the
world. Yet, as pointless and absurd as it may sound, God continues to call people
of faith to proclaim and to live reconciling Love in the midst these horrors.
And we enter that life of Love through the Lenten discipline of repentance.
The very word repentance conjures up a variety of images. It evokes all manner of
reactions. For many it means turning from sins,
that is, from all those “bad things” sinners do, things that offend the
sensibilities of “good” people. But let’s face it. That’s low-hanging fruit,
isn’t it? Who among us isn’t offended by something
done by someone? We even offend
ourselves, don’t we?
While it will have its effect on
particular choices we make, repentance is best understood as a turn from the
overall condition that makes us feel not only defeated by, but beholden to the
seductive but destructive powers lying behind every Caesar and Pharaoh, every
Herod and Jezebel. To live inside the foolish notion that come what may, Love
will prevail in this world requires more than intellectual assent. It requires
a conscious, deliberate, and daring turn away from violence, greed, and fear
and toward gratitude, hospitality, and justice.
Taking up our cross and following
Jesus into this new life may make us feel like something other than good Americans
or good Presbyterians. But neither nationality, nor denomination, nor even goodness is the point.
The point of Jesus’
call to repentance is that now, in
this fullness of time when anxiety and despair overflow, now is the time to choose
to live according to the humbling and redeeming demands of Agape Love. The imperative
of repentance is indescribably bigger and more urgent than any one person’s
need to be individually “good” or “moral” so that when they die they can go to heaven. Caesar, Pharaoh, Herod,
and Jezebel have no problem with that kind of self-serving, legalistic religion
because it creates malleable subjects who are easy to influence with rewards
and threats. What the kingdoms of hell don’t want is people who intentionally, consistently,
and fearlessly acknowledge the kingdom of heaven as a present reality, because
they will find it, and they will reveal it, celebrate it, and steward it into ever-greater
conspicuousness for the well being of the entire creation.
Now, accepting
all of that is the easy part. The hard part makes repentance a way of life.
“You are my Son/Daughter, the
Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
Do you really hear God say that to
you? Do you really embrace the timely good news of God’s radical, unconditional
Love for you? The hard part is
accepting these words as words spoken directly to us – to you and me. This is
the hard part because we will know that we have accepted our own belovedness of
God only when we are able to celebrate the God-beloved-holiness of every other
human being, even and perhaps especially
the belovedness of those human beings whom we fear, envy, or just plain don’t
care about.
The hard thing about Agape Love is
that only when it we humbly share it do we fully receive it.
Do you still need to enact some
sort of Lenten discipline? For the next forty days, or forty weeks, or forty months,
or forty years, try greeting everyone you meet – everyone – with what my dad calls “ThankGodfulness.” Thank God for
each person, and ask yourself, what is the most Lovingly appropriate response
to him, or to her, or to them in the fullness of that particular moment. To
live our moments in gratitude and Love for one another and for the creation is
to live in gratitude and Love for God. It is to live in the kingdom of God,
which, thanks to Easter, is no longer simply “near,” but present and real.
Friends, we
cannot wait to live as God’s beloved children.
The time is fulfilled. The time is
now.
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