Jesus Said...

A Discussion of the Sayings of Jesus as Recorded in the Gospel of Mark

The Rev. Philip R. Taylor

• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781098082789
• eBook ISBN: 9781098082796
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Commentary

The words that Jesus said, as recorded in Mark's Gospel, are occasionally assigned second place to what he did. The author has chosen to discuss the words rather than the actions of Jesus.

Since Mark's Gospel is so brief, Vicar Phil believes that Mark has chosen the most crucial words of Jesus for his Gospel and that they are directed squarely at each of us and the twenty-first-century church.

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Chapter 1

The sands of time are shifting,

The sands of time are blown.

They wait for neither you nor me.

If you wait, you wait alone.

—Phil Taylor, 1963

After John had been arrested, Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God: “This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.”1

The time is ripe. The time is upon us, and the time is now. What we have been waiting for has arrived. No need to wait any longer; no need to tarry. There are no more excuses for delaying your life until tomorrow. How much more direct could Jesus be? Perhaps he is talking to us, those of us who want to talk the gospel to death and those of us who rationalize that we must wait for the right moment or perhaps the end days to get our act together.

Before Jesus begins the shortest sermon on record, “Repent and believe,” He tells us the jig is up, the cat’s out of the bag, and God’s already in charge. God’s people of the first century, like us, were waiting. They were waiting for God’s rescue, waiting for God to intervene in the affairs of the Empire. They wanted God to do all the work. Now along comes Jesus; and He says that God’s kingdom is all around us, that we aren’t paying attention, and we only need to change our way of thinking and believe that the kingdom is already here.

The kingdom of God for Jesus is not a mystery or a secret, and it is not something we will only have in the sweet by and by. It is real, it is available, it is close, and it is now. Jesus is more than urgent in this first pronouncement. He is in our face, pleading, almost frantic.

All of us, who have heard fire-and-brimstone sermons, have heard this verse more than once and especially the word repent. I have attended numerous evangelical churches, both in my youth and as an adult, where I felt pummeled by these words of Jesus. I was encouraged by the preacher to view the words of Jesus as a warning rather than as a pleading, as an indictment rather than as an announcement by Jesus that God was alive and already acting in the affairs of the world.

It seems clear that this announcement by Jesus that the kingdom of God is present and close is immediately and intentionally followed by His words that tell us how we might experience that kingdom: “repent and believe.”

The imperial government may think they are in charge. Poverty, war, disease, and pestilence may seem to have overtaken us. But the things that we have grown to accept as inevitable is just an illusion.

God is in charge. God is, at this very moment, acting to save us. All we have to do, in order to experience this new kingdom of God, is to change and believe that a radical change in our lives will allow God’s kingdom to supplant the kingdom of Caesar and the kingdom of evil that surrounds us.

The Greek word metanoia has been most often translated as “repent.” The deeper meaning is to “change the way you think.” In this context, to change the way one thinks is radical, total, and a prerequisite for all that follows. To take a 180-degree turn with our thoughts will inevitably result in a 180-degree turn in our actions. If God’s kingdom is here and now, then our old thinking will not be enough for life in that new kingdom, not to mention our actions.

Jesus is telling His first century audience and us that while the arrival of God’s kingdom is good news, we have some changing to do in order to experience and live fully in that kingdom. To keep thinking in our old way locks us into living in the old kingdom. Old thinking will result in old action and that will, as the Book of Common Prayer says, “corrupt and destroy the creatures of God.”

My final comment on this passage is about the sequence of the words. In this first sermon of Jesus, Mark reports that Jesus calls for our change and then our belief. For me, it seems that this sequence is both intentional and important. To believe something or to believe in something can be meaningless—without true change in our lives. The sequence here of “repent and believe” gives us a clue to the priority that Jesus assigns to these actions and His understanding about the centrality of change.

Much of the modern church holds to the proposition that we believe in a denominational doctrine and formula as a prerequisite to our salvation.

From the most conservative to the most liberal branches of the church, we find ourselves engaged in endless discussions about what we must believe. Jesus, however, assigns belief to second place, behind change.

Even in second place, Jesus is not requiring a doctrinal belief or formula but rather a belief that God’s kingdom has already arrived and we can enter into that kingdom via a radical change in how we think and act. The keys to entering that kingdom, Jesus tells us that we must do a 180-degree turn. Later in Mark’s Gospel, Jesus will give us some examples of changed thinking.

*****

Jesus said to them, “Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Then they abandoned their nets and followed him.2

Going with Jesus will effect serious change. The things we do all day long, every day, and the things that are most familiar to us will change radically if we go with Jesus. Jesus tells these long-ago fishermen that, while what they have been doing and how they have been doing it is important, He will teach them a new way to fish and people will be the catch, not the fish of Lake Galilee.

This new “fishing career” will not be dependent on their skill and effort but on what Jesus teaches them. He will supply the new nets and fishing tactics, and the resulting fishing trip will yield a radical new catch: people, not fish. Going with Jesus precedes the new career. If we do not go, He cannot teach us a new way of fishing.

Where He will go, we do not know. We are asked to drop our old nets and our old way of thinking and just go, go with Jesus. When we drop the old nets and go, new things are possible. He will teach us a new way of thinking, and He will help us believe in a new possibility, a new way of life, and a new kingdom.

In the new kingdom, people will become more important than creatures or things. The future catch will be a net full of all humankind, hauled aboard a new ship, a ship captained by the Creator of the Universe.

Wow! What are we waiting for? Let’s go! That seems to be the attitude of the early disciples. Can we be as brave and as anxious to get on with it as those long-ago fishermen? Regardless, that is the call. Drop the old nets, change the way you fish and think, follow Jesus, and expect the unexpected.

*****

And he cried out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.” But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent, and come out of him!”3

Even among the faithful, evil lurks. The faithful may not always recognize the evil, but the evil always recognizes the faithful. Here we have the first instance when evil spirits tell us that they know Jesus to be someone very special, “the Holy One of God.” The evil spirits also know that Jesus is a threat to them. The response of Jesus is only for the evil spirits to be quiet and to leave God’s precious children alone. There is no violence here, only words. Evil is defeated by holy words from the lips of Jesus, not by a sword and not even by the...

Table of contents

• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Chapter 4
• Chapter 5
• Chapter 6
• Chapter 7
• Chapter 8
• Chapter 9
• Chapter 10
• Chapter 11
• Chapter 12
• Chapter 13
• Chapter 14
• Chapter 15
• Chapter 16