There's no time like the present to follow Jesus

August 20, 2001

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September 2 Lesson

There's no time like the present to follow Jesus
___Mark 1:1-15
___¹The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
___²It is written in Isaiah the prophet: "I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way ³a voice of one calling in the desert, 'Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.'"
___⁴And so John came, baptizing in the desert region and preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. ⁵The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River. ⁶John wore clothing made of camel's hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. ⁷And this was his message: "After me will come one more powerful than I, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. ⁸I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit."
___⁹At that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. ¹⁰As Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. ¹¹And a voice came from heaven: "You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased."
___¹²At once the Spirit sent him out into the desert, ¹³and he was in the desert forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him.
___¹⁴After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. ¹⁵"The time has come," he said. "The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!"

___By Karen and Tim Gilbert
___Have you ever felt that something happened to you at the "right time"? Have you ever heard someone say, "I was in the right place at the right time"? For us this sounds like pure luck or chance. With Jesus' ministry, luck is not involved.
___Here at the beginning of Mark's Gospel, Jesus proclaims that the right time has come. Time for what? Now is the right time for hearing the good news and entering the kingdom of God. Jesus proclaimed and embodied the kingdom of God. With his coming, that kingdom was at hand.
___The ministry of Jesus is presented in four Gospels. Each pictures the ministry of Jesus for a specific group of people; four Gospels for four different peoples. As you go through this series on the ministry of Jesus, note how each gospel has distinctives which direct it toward a particular audience.
___This is a model for the way we present the gospel in a multi-cultural world. We must learn to tell the story of Jesus in ways that various cultures understand.
___This Gospel was probably written by John Mark, the young companion of Paul and Barnabas on their first missionary journey. He later joined Peter in Rome as Peter's secretary and recorded the preaching of Peter.
___This Gospel is believed to be the record of that preaching. The audience of Mark probably is Roman, people unfamiliar with the Old Testament and the traditions of Judaism. Mark's story of Jesus is a straightforward presentation of what Jesus did, not his words and teachings. A Roman audience would like a man of action, not one giving theological discussions. Jesus is pictured as a man of action and authority. His authority is seen in his teaching, his power over demons and his forgiving of people's sins. The authority of Jesus is viewed as a great victory over the kingdom of evil, like a Roman general who conquers his enemies.
___Evidence that his audience is Roman is shown through various Palestinian words and phrases being explained. For example, in Mark 5:41, Jesus speaks the Aramaic phrase, "Talitha cum"--"Little girl, I tell you to get up." People familiar with the phrase would not need the interpretation. Another example is found in Mark 15:34, where Jesus cries out from the cross, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani" which Mark tells his audience means "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me." If this Aramaic phrase were known to the people, he would not have had to translate.
___The first verse of the focal passage states: "This is the good news about Jesus Christ, the Son of God." Mark's Gospel gets immediately to the point. He begins not with Jesus' birth and childhood but with his appearance on the scene proclaiming the right time has come for people to turn from their sins and believe the good news.
___Mark's beginning presents a brief picture of the whole of Jesus' ministry. Jesus is the Son of Man who comes to give his life to set people free from sin. Jesus calls people to turn from their sins and enter into a new relationship with God, a relationship which was intended by God from the beginning.
___Although he talks about the kingdom of God, Jesus gives new meaning to the rule of God by viewing the relationship not as king to subject but as parent to child, emphasizing God's love for his creation. It is not a set of laws that God wants kept but a relationship God wants developed. He demonstrates that God created human beings for relationship with God and that in some way God desires our companionship.
___Jesus comes to John the Baptist to be baptized. Mark presents John as the messenger who would precede the coming of the Messiah foretold by the prophet Isaiah: "I will send my messenger ahead of you to open the way for you" (Isaiah 40:3). John's appearance on the scene is one of the signs that the right time has come.
___Unlike the other Gospels, Mark has no discussion of John's reluctance to baptize Jesus. True to form, Mark records the action of Jesus' baptism and the events surrounding it. As Jesus comes up from the water, God puts his stamp of approval on this action in two ways. First, heaven opens and the Spirit of God descends upon Jesus like a dove. In the Old Testament, the descent of the Spirit of God was a sign of God's blessing upon that person and her or his words and actions. Second, there is a voice from heaven saying, "You are my own dear Son; I'm pleased with you."
___This statement from God reflects the very nature of Jesus' ministry as Messiah. The first part of the phrase, "You are my own dear Son," comes from Psalm 2:7. This messianic psalm was used when a king was anointed in Israel. On that day the anointed king became the true Son of God. The traditional views of the Jews concerning who the messiah would be are reflected in this statement. They believed the messiah would be the true king in David's line who would rule over Israel forever.
___The second part of the phrase, "I'm pleased with you," comes from Isaiah 42:1, "Here is my servant whom I strengthen, the one I have chosen, with whom I am pleased. I have filled him with my spirit and he will bring justice to every nation."
___Jesus is tied to Isaiah's view of the messiah as a suffering servant, a reflection of the true role the messiah will have in this world. Jesus, a king who will rule victorious over sin and death by his own suffering sacrifice on the cross.
___ In this opening passage, Mark captures the true nature of the ministry of Jesus. He is the one who has come to give his life to set people free from sin.
___Why was Jesus baptized if John's baptism was for the repentance of sin? Here are several possibilities. In being baptized, Jesus ties his message to John's, the message to turn away from your sins and be baptized. John's message is also Jesus' message. Another possibility is that Jesus is identifying himself in his baptism with the sinful human beings he has come to save. The only title Jesus gives of himself is "Son of Man," a phrase that identifies him with humanity. Last, Jesus in the other Gospels says it is the right thing to do, what God requires. And Jesus always did God's will.
___Immediately after his baptism, Jesus went to Galilee and began preaching the good news from God. "The right time has come and the kingdom of God is near. Turn away from your sins and believe the good news."
___In Greek there are two words for time, "chronos" and "kairos." "Chronos" refers to clock time. It is the basis for the word chronology. "Kairos" refers to a quality of time. The word used here in Mark is "kairos."
___In God's great rule of the universe, this was the right moment for Jesus to appear.
___The kingdom of God is a phrase with broad meaning. In a larger context, the kingdom is everywhere that is under the reign of God. The Bible tells us from Genesis forward that the world was created to be under the lordship of God. Humanity's fall created a rebellious false kingdom that rejected the rule of God, bringing about sin and death. Jesus' ministry of proclaiming the kingdom of God is at hand was intended to restore humanity to its God-given role as people under the reign of God.
___So what is God's word for us today from this passage? It is the same now as it was then--the right time to hear God's word and find salvation always is the present.
___God's kingdom came in power with Jesus Christ making us always able to hear the good news and find God's salvation.
___Tim Gilbert is a professor of philosophy and religion at Tarrant County College, Northeast Campus, and a deacon at Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas, where Karen Gilbert is minister of missions

For thought and discussion
___ How is it that four gospels to four audiences help us understand how the good news can be presented to a world of many cultures? Why is it important for people to hear the gospel in their own cultural setting? How does this impact global missions?
___ What other evidences are there that the Gospel of Mark was written for a Roman/ Gentile audience? If you were translating the Bible for a Pacific culture on a South Sea island that had no sheep, how would you translate the phrase 'Lamb of God'?
___ Why do you think Jesus came to John the Baptist to be baptized? How is it that your baptism relates to this baptism? Why is baptism important for the Christian? What does the ordinance of baptism mean for Baptists?
___ How do Jesus' words that this is the right time to hear God's message and respond relate to you? How do you understand God's timing in your own life? Think of specific examples for your life when you thought something that happened was done in God's own timing?
___ What do you understand as the meaning of the phrase "kingdom of God"? How does the kingdom of God relate to the church? Are kingdom of God and the church the same?

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