Mark 1:9–15
Mark gets to the point. We don’t have a lot of elaborate stories filled with symbolism. In this text, Jesus is baptized, tempted, and starts to preach. The first sermon he gives: The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news. The word for repentance here, metanoia, is often translated as conversion elsewhere in the gospels.
On this first Sunday in Lent, we must lift up the centrality of repentance to faith. Repentance is an act of faith. Repentance and conversion are centrally about admitting that the path I am on right now is not the right path. I need to change directions.
Who is the audience of Jesus’s first sermon? The people of Galilee, in one, but that is not very precise. Mark does give a specific location. Galilee is enormous. It is not a very important place. It was a region with a mix of Jewish and Pagan cultures. It would not seem to be the starting place of the kingdom of heaven on earth, but this is where Jesus begins. The kingdom of heaven is near. Repent, and believe in the Gospel.
We must also read this sermon as speaking to our society today. Society is made up of people and the decisions we make as a people. We need to repent as a society of the kingdom of sin we have built with the carceral state. Like those folks in Galilee, we must admit that the path we are on as a society is leading us to destruction. We need to turn around. We need to repent. As a church, we need to repent of our support of destructive institutions. We must repent of false ideas of justice that negate the humanity of others. It takes faith. As a church, we can show the world what we believe, but we actually have to believe that it is true. We have to believe that the kingdom of heaven is near. We have to believe that new life is possible.
Rev. Wilson Pruitt is a Methodist pastor and translator in Spicewood, TX.