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I speak to you in the name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit - Amen
What do you base your understanding of faith on?
Is it a feeling?
Is it something that you could articulate, something that you could communicate to others?
I suspect, if you were to explain your faith, you would undoubted use words
There are not too many of us that are gifted in the arts that we would paint a picture that would tell the story of our faith or act out a story that would communicate faith without the use of words
For most it is words that we would use
Today, I have titled my sermon “the language of faith” because our passage from the Gospel of Mark carries with it some powerful words and terms that have the weight of faith in them
It is a short reading – only 7 verses long – but many of the key concepts of the language of faith are there:
· proclaiming
· the good news of God,
· The time is fulfilled
· the kingdom of God
· the kingdom of God has come near
· repent,
· believe in the good news
· Follow ME
And with the Gospel of Mark, differing from the other gospels there is the term – Immediately
The word "immediately" is used 17 times in Mark.
Mark's immediacy attempts to sets the stage for us to understand just how dramatic and challenging Jesus was to the people of the ancient middle-east
Mark begins without a nativity story and we are "immediately" into the ministry of Jesus with the baptism of Jesus and the voice from heaven
Then the engagement with Satan in the wilderness and the establishment of the cosmic battle, which is present throughout the Gospel of Mark …and all still within the first 13 vs of the 1st ch
Perhaps it is a day like any other day in the life of those who fish these sometimes treacherous waters.
Wind storms come up quickly as a Northwester blows in from the Mediterranean Sea and over the hill country that surrounds the northwestern shore of the lake.
Simon and Andrew, perhaps weary from a night of fishing, are still plying their nets when a stranger approaches them on the shore in the person of Jesus.
The dialogue is brief.
In fact it might have appeared to them that this stranger was not that familiar with their trade.
Jesus' words must have sounded strange as he doesn't talk about the usual fishing for lake trout but fishing for people?
Now to rugged men of the sea this would have no correlation with their experience.
The text gives us no clue to what is going on inside their heads at such a strange proposal.
There was no preparation.
The only note we get from the text is the second occurrence of "immediately" in the Gospel of Mark, as Simon and Andrew "immediately leave their nets and follow him"
All we can say about the call is that "the kingdom of God" has broken into their lives in the immediacy of Jesus' call.
There are also two other fishermen on the shore mending their nets, James and John, sons of their father Zebedee.
The call of Jesus to them is the same and their response is the same.
They leave their livelihood and their father and "immediately" follow this stranger
These are epiphany moments early in the Gospel and the reason we have them at this time of the year
As readers and hearers, we too have no preparation this early in the Gospel for such a story.
Like the first four followers, we too have been caught off guard.
But then isn't this why we identify with this story?
God in Jesus Christ comes to us in our most unexpected moments.
God's kingdom, God's kingly reign and rule in our lives breaks in even "immediately" as pure gift.[1]
The next term in our brief visit on the language of faith is: proclaiming
For us today in our over communicated world – with media of all varieties assaulting us wherever we go – we might be completely at home with the notion of proclamation
It is said that we are communicated to by over 3,000 unique messages everyday
I wonder if we, today, could even hear the message of a man coming out of the desert to set the world to rights
It is no wonder that over 70% of churches are losing the competition for attention in our world with all the distractions available
And yet, proclaim Jesus does
Nearly 2000 years ago… and the world is still listening to what He declared
Jesus’ proclaimation is not as we hear our advertisers
It is a time altering moment – it is the coming nearer of God
It is teaching of a world beyond its ‘present form and understanding’
It is ‘aligned and in continuity’ with God’s work through the prophets
It is the fulfillment of all God’s promises – it is nothing less than the hope of the: past, present and future
This is… */‘the good news of God’/* – our next phrase in our language of faith lesson from Mark
God, in the form and flesh of Jesus son of Joseph & Mary and son of God
Entering into the world to claim it personally
No longer can God be seen in any way what-so-ever as distant – Jesus the Christ was… and is… amongst us
The good news of God – is Jesus… come … proclaiming, teaching, healing, experiencing life as we know it – God in the flesh
The time is fulfilled… here we are called to hear this statement in scripture like the ripples in still water when a rock assaults the normal peaceful state
The announcement that "the time is fulfilled" also has a ring of tradition.
Luke similarly begins his account of Jesus' Galilean ministry with Jesus preaching in his hometown synagogue in Nazareth about the "year of the Lord's favor"
That Isaiah had prophesied, seen in Isaiah 61:2
Jesus then said, that /time had been fulfilled/ in the people's hearing that very day (Luke 4:19, 21)
And the ripples continue with Jesus on the Cross declaring that /“It is finished.”
With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.(John
19:30)/
The time is fulfilled begins with Jesus and concludes with his saving act of grace and mercy for all
And yet again the ripple assaults us finally and completely with apocalyptic vision of John in the final book of the bible and in the second last chapter where Jesus proclaims to John:/ /
/“*It is done*.
I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End.
To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life.
7 Those who are victorious will inherit all this, and I will be their God and they will be my children.
(Rev 21:6-7)/
And just what is it that is fulfilled and finished and completed that we get our beginning glimpse in this the first chapter of Mark… it is: ….the kingdom of God
The kingdom of God has come near
This is another way of stating what we have already heard declared – the Good news – The Gospel
The incarnation that we celebrate at Christmas and the revelation to ‘the world beyond the Hebrews’, which we celebrate now in this time after Epiphany
The kingdom of God is an announcement of God’s reign
It is the breaking into the world as we know it and the revelation of a world beyond – a world of hopes – a world of ambition-beyond the present – to the ideals of God
The Kingdom of God is the focus of the best desires imaginable and unimaginable
Desires aligned with … and of… God
Announcing that God's reign is near has the consequence of an urgent call for repentance, that is, aligning one's values and way of life with God's ways.
In today's epistle reading of 1 Corinthians, Paul similarly calls for an examination of our priorities in light of the Good News.
This leads us into our sixth and seventh terms in the language of faith: Repent & Believe in the Good News
Jesus' call of ‘engagement in God's rule’ is present in two imperatives.
The first is a call "to repent" expresses immediacy at a point in time; it is time to turn around in response to the call of discipleship.
This call is followed up with a second imperative "to believe," which expresses a continuing response to the obedience of following.
The object of believing is "the good news" of God's reign present in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth
Repentance towards God, and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ are two sides of the same coin
Matthew Henry in his famous commentary on the whole bible circa 1708 explains it this way
[John the Baptist and all the prophets that went before him are testaments to the fact that] they had not made use of the prescribed preservatives,
And therefore must have recourse to the prescribed restoratives.
By repentance we must lament and forsake our sins, and by faith we must receive the forgiveness of them.
By repentance we must give glory to our Creator whom we have offended;
By faith we must give glory to our Redeemer who came to save us from our sins.
Both these must go together;
We must not think either that reforming our lives will save us without trusting in the righteousness and grace of Christ,
Or that trusting in Christ will save us without the reformation of our hearts and lives.
Christ has joined these two together, and let no man think to put them asunder.
Thus the preaching of the gospel began, and thus it continues;
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