START WITH SCRIPTURE:
Mark 1:14-20
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OBSERVE:
Mark has a breathless, rapid-fire delivery as he tells the story of Jesus’ ministry, at least until he reaches the descriptions of the Passion and Resurrection much later in chapters 14 to 16. He delivers the story almost like an excited child — “first this happened, then that happened, and then…”
In verses 9-11, he relates the account of Jesus’ baptism with economy of language; and then in just two verses, 12-13, he tells how Jesus was sent out into the wilderness where he was tempted by the devil for forty days.
In our passage he begins his ministry at the very moment that John the Baptist’s ministry appears to be ending. John has been arrested by Herod for denouncing Herod’s unlawful marriage to his brother’s ex-wife.
It seems as though this is an intentional transition. As John the Baptist says of Jesus in the Gospel of John 3:30:
He must increase, but I must decrease.
Initially, Jesus’ message sounds similar to that of his cousin. Like John, he also calls people to repentance. However, there are two key differences. John declared that one was coming who would baptize the people with the Holy Spirit. Jesus declares:
The time is fulfilled.
He elaborates further and declares:
God’s Kingdom is at hand! Repent, and believe in the Good News.
In just those few words, his message is distinct from John’s. The kingdom is not in the future, it is now! And furthermore, the bad news, that people need to repent of sin, is followed with good news that they are to believe. The law has been fulfilled through grace.
Then Jesus begins to gather his team as he walks by the shores of the Sea of Galilee, luring fishermen from their vocation of catching fish and calling them instead to fish for people.
What is startling, as Mark tells it, is that these two pairs of brothers, Simon Peter and Andrew, and James and John the sons of Zebedee, leave their nets immediately.
Mark gives the impression that these four men drop everything, their careers, their families, their lives, to follow Jesus.
With Mark, everything is immediate.
APPLY:
The message of Jesus is both bad news and good news. The bad news is that we are sinners who desperately need to repent and turn away from our sin. The good news is that in Jesus Christ, the kingdom of God has come near us, and when we believe in him we experience his presence and his kingdom.
This is a kind of “realized eschatology,” that the moment we turn to Jesus the kingdom of God has entered our lives, and we live according to that reality, not in the unreality of sin and death. That’s why it is good news!
As we repent and believe, then we hear the call of Jesus to become fishers of people. For Andrew and Peter, James and John, this meant leaving their jobs and leaving their families and father. For some Christians who are called to full-time ministry, the call may mean the same thing.
But we are to remember that all Christians are called to be witnesses — even if they remain in their jobs and with their families. In fact, it may be that that is where they are to be fishers of people — where they work, where they live, and with the people closest to them.
Don’t think that because you haven’t quit your job or left your family to enter full-time ministry that you are any less in ministry. Make your job and your family an expression of your ministry, and witness for the Good News of Jesus where you are.
It’s up to you to figure out how that witness will be expressed.
RESPOND:
I heard this simple message many years ago:
The time is fulfilled, and God’s Kingdom is at hand! Repent, and believe in the Good News.
I understood that for me it meant giving up my own personal dreams of writing the great American novel or becoming a journalist, and entering instead into full-time Christian ministry. I have been trying to be a fisher of people for the past forty years. But the call to be a fisher of people has many different expressions — it may include preaching, teaching, witnessing, counseling — but witness may come through other means as well. Like writing a blog, for instance!
I hope to discern where I hear Jesus asking me to take up the nets and fish for people at every stage of my life.
Our Lord, your kingdom has come near in Jesus. And when I sense your presence I must repent. But your grace and pardon become for me a source of good news that I must share with others. I can do no other. Amen.
PHOTOS:
“Repent and believe” by Cathy Stanley-Erickson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic license.
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