Day 6: Did Jesus Really Say That?! (Mark 1:14-15)
Today’s Passage: Mark 1:14-15
Inot sure about you, but I am often amazed at the things that Jesus “got away” with saying.
Consider what he said to the woman at the well in John chapter 4, “…you’ve had 5 husbands, and the man you are living with now isn’t your husband.” You and I would get slapped in the face for saying that to someone!
Jesus challenged people. Some react to him positively, others walk away, and some even become his opponents.
Consider Jesus’ words today, “…the time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God is at hand, repent and believe in the gospel.”
He makes this pronouncement in Galilee. Understand, Galilee is not a back-water town. It is not the center of Jewish religion, but it was a bustling place.
Two Statements: Time-Kingdom // Two Actions: Repent-Believe In.
Each of these four words deserve their own reflection. Taken together we notice that beyond understanding a concept, Jesus is calling us to action.
His use of the idea of “time” is less minutes and hours, and more a moment. Consider your own life, we each have moments. Moments we ask someone to marry us, or moments we say yes to marriage. Moments we say yes to a job offer or leave a job. The list goes on. They are moments that define our path.
Jesus is saying, “Realize, perhaps for the first time, that God’s rule of the world is here. Notice this, decide if you will believe in God, believe in me (Jesus), and turn towards God and follow.”
Jesus is not asking for your intellectual ascent. He is asking, calling for, action.
Today, in Christianity, some people can tell you the day (date and time) when they turned to follow Jesus. That is a cool thing. There are other people, who have spent their entire lives raised in a Christian home. They’ve always known the love of God. They’ve always known Jesus. For them, the process where they“believe in” Jesus (vice following their parent’s belief) was more gradual.
However, if we think Jesus’ words today are inviting us to reflect on the past, then we miss the point.
The point is as we read these words today, that He is asking me and you, He is calling me and you—to believe in him, to turn from the things of this world, because we understand that today God’s Kingdom rule is here in our lives.
I started by saying that Jesus says some pretty challenging things to people. He is challenging you and me.