“Now after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, and saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel.” Mark 1:14-15 (KJV)

This is one of the major transitions in the Gospel of Mark. In typical Mark fashion he lets us know that John is no longer the main focal point of the time. In fact he deals with this issue so simply that it seems as though Mark expected the reader to anticipate John’s imprisonment from the beginning. In this account we do not get any of the details of why John was imprisoned, we just get the simple statement that he was.

Mark now turns our attention back to Jesus. It is quite likely that Jesus’ actual message was much longer than what we have recorded, but Mark certainly captures the essence of what Jesus was preaching.

Jesus begins his message by setting the stage so to speak, recognizing that “the time is fulfilled.” If we aren’t careful we can gloss right over these four words and miss a great deal of their meaning. We must remember that at this point Jesus is speaking to the Jews, God’s chosen people, who until the time of John the Baptist had not “heard” from God in several hundred years. When Jesus begins speaking about the time being fulfilled, those that heard his message would have understood it in the context that it was given. All of the preparation that the Old Testament speaks of regarding the Messiah has occurred, and in fact was unfolding before their very eyes, whether or not they recognized that fact. This wasn’t your standard introduction, and we shouldn’t picture the Pastor standing up and saying “Ok, let’s get started”. These four words would have grabbed the Jewish listeners attention, and they would have understood that something significant was occurring.

Now that Jesus has their attention, His next statement would really grab them! “And the Kingdom of God is at hand!” Again, we have to try to put ourselves in the mindset of the Jews at this time in order to truly grasp the significance of this statement. Not only had God again spoken to His chosen people through John, now here comes Jesus saying that the Kingdom was at Hand! I do not think that we can really fully understand the excitement, and dare I say skepticism, that the audience would have felt when hearing this statement. We are simply too far removed from the event to really be able to understand it. But we can certainly see some of the significance, not only to the Jews that heard this statement, but to our own lives today.

What is this Kingdom that Jesus spoke of so often? There has been a great deal of theological debate over this topic for several hundred years, and I won’t suggest that I have the answer completely figured out. The Bible seems very clear to me that at some point God is going to work mightily and establish a new reign, and I’m sure that is part of the Kingdom that Jesus spoke of. But if we look at the terminology that Jesus used, it seems pretty clear that Jesus was not speaking only of something in the far off future, but of something immanent and immediate. Richard Deibert has this to say in The Interpretation Bible Studies series “Mark”: Jesus does not choose the common Greek word for linear, chronological time as the clock sees it (chronos). Jesus chooses the special Greek word for seasons, appointed-though-unpredictable time, as the Clockmaster sees it, perhaps best translated “time-within-time” (kairos). To make matters muddier, Jesus chooses to speak with a wonderfully rich tense in Greek, the perfect tense, which is used to indicate that the effects of a past action are still continuing in the present.”

Clear as mud, right? I think the key phrase that Deibert provides is that these effects continue in the present. The Kingdom of God is here and available to us today! How do we enjoy this Kingdom here and now? Jesus is about to tell us!

The key words in this next passage are a common theme in Jesus’ messages: repent and believe. Those two simple words sum up the entire Gospel message! We like to make things much more difficult than they are, but here we have Jesus himself giving us two very direct steps that we must take. We must first repent. That is the key that unlocks the Kingdom. Until we reach the point that we are able and willing to admit that we have been wrong, that we have not lived our lives the way that God intended, and to turn away from our sins, we are unable to enter the Kingdom. Truth be told, until we reach that point we aren’t even thinking about the Kingdom at all, so this just makes sense. Repentance is much more than just saying I’m sorry. It has to move beyond lip service, into a truly repentant heart. (Note: see http://heleadstheway.hesavedus.com/2009/12/25/true-repentance/ for related information). A truly repentant heart longs not only for forgiveness but for a sincere and life altering change in direction.

Once we have repented, the next step is to believe! Jesus doesn’t give us some endless list of rules that we have to obey, or things that we have to do, in order to “qualify” for citizenship in the Kingdom of God. All He requires of us is that we believe the Gospel! For many of us today this seems to be one of those “if it sounds too good to be true” moments. We are used to working for everything we have, and live in a society that reinforces the belief that we only get what we earn. But here Jesus is telling us that “all” we need to do is believe! The simplicity eludes us sometimes. But if we think about it, it has to be this simple. Why? Because we can not save ourselves! If we could, then there would have been absolutely no reason for Jesus to come to Earth and die as the ultimate sacrifice. Since we couldn’t save ourselves, Jesus paid that price for us, and all He asks in return is that we believe in Him!

On paper it seems so simple, but as any experienced Christian will tell you, it certainly doesn’t stop at that moment of repentance and belief. In fact, that’s just the beginning of the journey. Once we believe the Gospel, I mean truly believe it and let it become the focal point of our lives, we begin to change. Not because God says we must, but because we want to, because we desire to live a life that is more pleasing to God. Jesus knew this already! He knew that if we would turn from our sinful ways and believe the Gospel that extraordinary changes would occur in our lives. I truly believe that is why He kept the plan so simple.