Weekly Sermon

When I was a young boy, I didn’t like the nighttime. After I went to bed, I was afraid of the darkness. I was afraid that something in the darkness might pounce on me. I imagined that poisonous snakes might be under my bed or else a monster might be hiding in the closet. I hated the darkness because I thought that bad things almost always happened at night.

In the Scriptures, darkness is often associated with evil, sin, and all things bad. But 700 years before the arrival of Jesus, the prophet Isaiah spoke of a great light coming into the deep darkness of sin–infested Galilee. Regarding the Galilean regions of Zebulon and Naphtali, Isaiah says, “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. Those who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, upon them a light has shined.”1

What is this light? Ah, it’s not a what but a who. His name is Jesus. And it’s more than interesting that his hometown of Nazareth just happened to be in tribal region of Zebulon of Galilee. And Capernaum, the city from which he carried out his great Galilean ministry just happened to be in the tribal region of Naphtali.2 Just coincidence? I think not.

In our text, we see Jesus as he begins his Galilean ministry. St. Mark narrates the events with these words: “Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the Gospel of God, and saying…‘the kingdom of God is at hand.’”3

Please notice that Jesus, the “Light of the World,”4 begins his first messianic work at Capernaum of Naphtali (one of the lands dwelling in the shadow of death). So, what the prophet Isaiah predicts, Jesus fulfills.

The bright light of Christ burned first in Galilee. Lowly Galilee is honored first. That’s how our Lord works—from bottom to top. He begins with the least and the lowliest. He begins in Galilee—not in Jerusalem. He doesn’t start with the high and the mighty, the proud and the powerful, the educated and the elite. Instead he calls four ordinary fishermen to be his first disciples. And they were Galileans—every one of them! That would be like Jesus calling disciples today from the Rosedale district of our city.

What does Jesus do in Galilee? St. Mark tells us that Jesus preached the “Gospel of God,” to sinners. That is, he preached God’s good news that the long–awaited Messiah had come in the flesh. He preaches that he is the light of salvation. He preaches that he has come to cast out the deathly darkness of those who are sinking in the quicksand of their sins.

What is the content of the Gospel of God that Jesus preaches? Our Lord tells us. To the Galileans he says, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the Gospel.” Let’s examine what he says.

Jesus begins by making a statement. He says, “The time is fulfilled.” Let’s focus on the word time. As you know, the New Testament was originally written in Greek. There are two Greek words for time. The first is chronos from which get chronology. Greeks would use chronos when they were talking about the passage of time. If you, for example, make 2:30 p.m. appointment to see your dentist, you are thinking in chronos time. The question, “What time shall we get together for lunch?” is, therefore, a chronos question.

But when Jesus speaks of the time being fulfilled, he does not use chronos. He uses the other word, kairos. Kairos is a different kind of time. Kairos is a time that is pregnant with meaning or anticipation. It’s a special time, an opportune time, a significant time. It may even be a decisive or a life–changing time.5

If we say, “I’m waiting for my ship to come in,” we mean that we are waiting for the time of good fortune to strike. If our ship comes in, we dare not miss it—because there might never be another one. That’s kairόs time. To miscalculate chronos may be inconvenient, but to miscalculate kairόs can be tragic.

So, when Jesus says, “The time [kairόs] is fulfilled,” he means to say that he is the long promised Messiah. Yes, he is the Messiah and he himself is salvation in the flesh. You dare not miss him or his message. You had better not tell him to leave a message on your voice mail. If you do, you may never get around to hearing what he has to say. His message may continue to be proclaimed, but you dare not miss the opportunity to hear it. Why? Because it’s a life or death message.

After Jesus preached, “The time is fulfilled,” he went on to say, “The kingdom of God is at hand.” The arrival of Jesus in Galilee meant that this was God’s appointed time, kairόs, for them to hear the Gospel. The Savior had come, born of a woman, born under the Law to redeem us who cannot keep the Law.

The kingdom of God is wherever Jesus is and wherever his Gospel is preached. Every kingdom has a king. And Jesus is the King of our salvation. There is no other!

So do not put off hearing about his kingdom, for tomorrow may be too late. Nothing should ever get between us and Jesus. Quite the opposite, Jesus must get between us and everything.

Now that the King of Glory has come, we are—to use football terms—in the last 2 minutes of the most important game of our lives. It’s time for the 2–minute drill—where every play is critical and decisive. The crucial moment is now, so don’t let the game clock run out without hearing, repenting, and believing the Gospel.

Since we are in the last two minutes when the game clock may run out at any second, Jesus says to us, “Repent and believe in the Gospel.” Repentance and faith are not one–time things. They are every time things. Repenting and the believing are to be continuous and lifelong.

Let’s look at the word repentance. Repentance isn’t a pleasant, happy thing. There will be sorrow over sin, terror of God’s wrath, grief over our death and the loss of our sin. We aren’t going to feel good about ourselves when Jesus’ word “repent” works repentance in us. The old Adam in us hates to die. He will get mad at the preacher and tune him out. He will get mad at God and deny him.

If you want a picture of what repentance looks like, look at the prophet Jonah. God calls him to go the city of Nineveh and tell its citizens to repent. But Jonah wants nothing to do with it! After all, Nineveh was the capital of Assyria; and Assyria and Israel were enemies. So in his rebellion, Jonah decides to run away from the LORD. He boards a ship headed for Tarshish (probably in Spain).6

Suddenly, the ship is caught in a terrible storm. His shipmates throw Jonah overboard. Soon he is swallowed by a great fish. We may chide Jonah, saying,

Poor Jonah, his rebellion has cost him his life. At least that’s what he thinks.

In the belly of the fish, Jonah is moved to repentance. (I think that would motivate me too!). He prays for mercy, but he’s sure he’s toast (or better yet sushi). We are a lot like Jonah. Like him, we rebel and do exactly what God tells us not to do.

Like him, we find ourselves in the belly of death. We may not see this cavernous death–belly, but it’s there nevertheless. The jaws of unrepentance are soon going to make us toast, but since we don’t see the jaws of God’s wrath, we assume they are not there! Bad assumption! So, I implore you, like Jonah, repent and pray for mercy.

Jonah had repented, hadn’t he? He believed that God was gracious. But had he sinned past the point of no return? Will he receive grace or judgment? Behold the hand of the LORD! As surely as Jonah planned his great escape from God by way of a ship, just as surely does God now use the great creature to safely deposit him on dry land. Grace wins and Jonah lives!

So it is with us. When we repent and believe that God will be gracious to us in Christ, he will abundantly forgive us. Like Jonah, the LORD gives us a clean heart and a new start. He clears his memory bank of all our sins and gives us a new beginning. We start over again, brand new, with the promise of eternal life as our inheritance.

After Jonah was expelled from the jaws of death, he found himself on dry land. And now the repentant prophet does what the LORD wants him to do. He goes to Nineveh and cries out to them, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!”7 And, against all odds, the Ninevites do, in fact, repent!

Jonah preached repentance but once, and the people repented! How many times does God have to call you and me to repentance before we do it? Three times? Ten? Twenty or more? So Jesus says to us once again, “Repent and believe in the Gospel.” And when the Law moves us to repentance, the Gospel shows us Christ crucified.

Six hours is all it took. Christ’s lifeless body hung from cross. After his body was removed, it was placed in a rock–hewn tomb. Behold the dead body of Jesus! But see the miracle: When God looks at Christ’s dead body, he sees not his Son’s body, but your dead body and mine—as though we ourselves had suffered and died for our sins! And in God’s eyes, we truly have!8 This is the Gospel!

Through faith in Christ’s vicarious death, the kingdom of God has come to us. The Spirit has worked saving faith in our hearts.

When we pray, “Thy kingdom come” in the Lord’s Prayer, we are praying that his kingdom will not only come to us, but that it will also remain with us forever.

1 See Isaiah 9:2, NKJV.

2 For an online map of these regions, see http://preceptaustin.org/map%20of%20tribes%20of%20israel.gif.

3 See Mark 1:14-15, ESV.

4 In John 8:12, St. John writes, “Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life’” (ESV).

5 In the New Testament, there are times when chronos and kairόs are used interchangeably. But the distinction made here is generally true. For example, Jesus used kairόs when he referred to the time of the annual harvest, to the time of the Passover, to the time of his death, to the time of the destruction of Jerusalem, to the time when false prophets would arise, and to the time of his second and final coming.

6 In Jonah 1:3 we are told that he was going to Tarshish. Although scholars differ, Tarshish was most likely a reference to the old Phoenician seaport of Tartessus in southern Spain. From Barnes’ Notes on Jonah 1:3, we read, “Tarshish - named after one of the sons of Javan, Genesis 10:4. was an ancient merchant city of Spain, once proverbial for its wealth (Psalm 72:10. Strabo iii. 2. 14), which supplied Judaea with silver Jeremiah 10:9, Tyre with “all manner of riches,” with iron also, tin, lead. Ezekiel 27:12, Ezekiel 27:25. It was known to the Greeks and Romans, as (with a harder pronunciation) Tartessus; but in our first century, it had either ceased to be, or was known under some other name. Ships destined for a voyage, at that time, so long, and built for carrying merchandise, were naturally among the largest then constructed.” Nineveh was to the east; Tarshish was to the west. Jonah was going in the opposite direction from that which God had commanded.

7 See Jonah 3:4, ESV.

8 2 Corinthians 5:14, says, “One died for all, therefore, all died.” 2 Corinthians 5:21 says, “For He [God] made Him [Jesus] who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”