AFTER 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!”
Original Meaning
JOHN’S ARREST. THE work of the forerunner is completed when he is arrested, and the ministry of Jesus must now begin. John’s arrest hardly makes this an auspicious beginning and forebodes that Jesus, as John’s successor, will also not fare well with the powers of this world. The NIV translation, “after John was put in prison,” may cause readers to miss the subtle connection to Jesus’ own fate. It reads literally, “after John was handed over” (paradidomi). Jesus also will be “handed over” (3:19 [“the one who betrayed him” lit. reads, “the one who handed him over”], 9:31; 10:33; 14:10, 11, 21, 41, 42, 44; 15:1, 15). If one already knows the story or when one reads the Gospel again, the connection between the two becomes clearer. One recognizes that John is more than a town crier who precedes Jesus. He is Jesus’ forerunner in his ministry to Israel, in his fateful conflict with earthly authorities, and in his brutal death (6:7–13; 9:13).
The ambiguity of the verb “handed over” without the phrase “to prison” also prods the reader to ask, “Whose hand is really behind this?” Is this being handed over the result of wicked human schemes or is it part of some divine plan?1 A second reading allows one to see that, unbeknownst to the earthly powers, who are blind to anything that is happening on the spiritual plane, John’s arrest sets the stage for the proclamation of the gospel. Herod Antipas may have thought he was getting his prophetic nemesis out of the way; but, in reality, it is all part of preparing the way for the coming of the kingdom of God.
Jesus’ message. Jesus returns triumphantly from the combat in the desert to Galilee and joyously announces the good news of God. John was described as simply “preaching” (1:7), but Jesus is said to preach “the good news of God.”2 This is not routine revival preaching. Marcus comments that the word of the gospel is not the proclamation of “timeless spiritual realities.” “Rather, it is a word that announces an event, the coming of God’s new world, which is even now breaking into the present.”3 The coming of the kingdom of God is central theme in the Gospel (4:11, 26, 30; 9:1, 47; 10:14–15, 23–24; 12:34; 14:25; 15:43).
Jesus makes his appearance when the time (kairos) is fulfilled (see Gal. 4:4). Luke fixes that time chronologically in “the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar—when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee … [and] during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas” (Luke 3:1–2). Mark is not interested in telling us when precisely this occurred on the human calendar. The only thing that counts for him is “the time seen from the divine side.”4 Jesus announces that the time of waiting for God’s intervention is over, which means that all that God had said and done in history is reaching its denouement. If Jesus is indeed the Christ, the Son of God, then the kingdom of God is at hand. But when God steps onto the stage of human history, it always comes as a surprise and as a scandal to those whose field of vision is limited only to finite human possibilities and whose time is measured only by the tenure of transient human kings. In the midst of the present moment, one can easily forget that God bestrides time and history and works by a different clock.
When Jesus proclaims the kingdom of God, he announces that the decisive display of God’s ruling power over the world is about to be unfurled. The reign of God is not a spatial category but a dynamic event in which God intervenes powerfully in human affairs to achieve his unfading purposes.5 Jesus’ listeners would have been familiar with the idea of God’s reign, and his announcement would have awakened in their minds all sorts of images, motifs, and hopes. Many would have understood the arrival of the kingdom of God to mean that God was visiting the people to bring grace and judgment, to put things right in the world, to vanquish evil and the malevolent powers, to oust the rulers of this world, to establish the kingdom of Israel, to conquer sin and eradicate sickness, and to vindicate the righteous.6 That Jesus will spend so much time telling people what the kingdom is like suggests that his view is different from the familiar one, and he must correct their understanding. Now, however, he only heralds its arrival.7
The dominion of God has come near—so near that Mark believes you can touch it in Jesus. The future created by God is no longer a flickering hope light years away; it has become available in the present. No minister of an earthly sovereign would ever announce, “So and so has become king! If it pleases you, accept him as your king!” Such a blasé, noncommittal declaration certainly did not characterize the news of a Roman emperor’s ascension to the throne. The very announcement that so and so is king contains an implicit demand for submission. Jesus’ announcement that God is king contains the same absolute demand. The divine rule blazed abroad by Jesus, therefore, requires immediate human decision and commitment: repentance, submission to God’s reign, and trust that the incredible is taking place.
Bridging Contexts
ISRAEL CONFESSED THAT God alone is king. Yet this belief led to the painful question: If God is king, why are his people in such a pitiable condition? Today, after two thousand years of praying “Thy kingdom come,” Christians might ask, “If the kingdom of God has come near, why is it that God’s purposes still seem to be eclipsed? Why does our world still groan under satanic tyranny (Rom. 8:22; Rev. 6:10), and why is the power of the wicked to oppress the righteous unabated?” These are pressing questions to Christians who are persecuted. Many others, however, have become too comfortable and settled in this world and have lost any sense of the immediacy of God’s reign.
Apocalyptic writings during the Second Temple period tried to answer similar kinds of questions by providing a new interpretation of history that made sense of what was happening in a world where God’s enemies desecrated his temple and where many Jews buckled under the domination and the lure of foreign culture and committed apostasy. These writings and the perspective they represented sought to encourage and comfort the faithful in what seemed to be a hopeless situation (2 Macc. 6:4). They provided answers to such questions as: Why does evil hold sway over the world? Why are God’s faithful persecuted? The solution was to view things from the broader perspective of history, past and future, in order to see things from the vantage point of the unseen realm of the divine. The apocalyptic outlook affirmed that while the nations and even some of God’s people might not acknowledge God’s reign, their failure to pay homage to him did not diminish his power.
(1) They affirmed that God was not an indifferent spectator of human affairs but was over all things, directing them to a specific end that would soon be realized. Zechariah proclaimed, “The LORD will be king over the whole earth. On that day there will be one LORD, and his name the only name” (Zech. 14:9). God had a plan, hidden from humans, that was working itself out in spite of the seeming triumph of evil powers. God was in heaven, and, while all was not right with the world, it soon would be. God had already determined the destiny of the world.
(2) Different elements of the divine plan are worked out in distinct periods of history. Accordingly, history can be arranged into different categories in which God’s plan manifests itself. It is assuring to know that time has been measured out and is under God’s control. Only God truly knows what time it is, and those who are close to God have been let in on this wisdom.
(3) The world is beset by a kind of spiritual entropy. Human empires rise and seem unshakably established, only to fall and give rise to another human empire. Nothing human has any permanence. Everything is dependent on God, and when all human resources have failed and the faithful look as if they are on the verge of extinction, God will step into the breach to bring salvation. The new age does not come from human activity of any kind, positive or negative, nor does it evolve from this present age. It comes through the direct intervention of God. Human actions determine a person’s own particular fate, but they do not affect the fate of the world. That destiny is entirely in the hands of God. H. H. Rowley has noted the difference between the prophets and the apocalyptists: “The prophets foretold the future that should arise out of the present, while the apocalyptists foretold the future that should break into the present.”8
The Gospels show that Jesus shared some of this apocalyptic perspective when he announced the good news of God, that the kingdom of God is near. The Gospel of Mark affirms that secular and sacred time intersect with the advent of Jesus, but the power of God’s reign that has broken into history remains hidden and is not easily perceived. The announcement that the kingdom of God is near, coming hard on the heels of the announcement that John, God’s messenger, has been handed over, makes it plain that we must still live with ambiguity. John is a victim of state violence, yet Jesus announces good news. Jesus will also be handed over, yet this brings the defeat of the powers of evil and the forgiveness of sins and unleashes a new power in the lives of his followers, who may suffer the same fate (13:9, 11, 12). People will have to reevaluate their expectations of God’s reign and how it becomes manifest because Mark presents its coming veiled in mystery. The symbol of God’s sovereignty is not a scepter or a mace that God uses to break the bones of his opponents, but the cross, on which the blood of the Son of God is shed. Victory is hidden in the cross. Power is to be found in powerlessness. One will live only by giving one’s life. Many will be unable to change their accustomed ways of thinking and accept these paradoxes. Consequently, they will be unable to recognize who Jesus is or submit to God’s reign. When it is fully revealed in its glory, however, it will be too late.
Contemporary Significance
PREACHING THE GOSPEL today is not simply giving testimony to timeless truths, providing tips on successful living from pop psychology, or regaling congregations with entertaining stories designed to make them feel good about themselves and the preacher. Walter Brueggemann argues that preaching the gospel is a drama in three acts. It consists of (1) the proclamation of God’s decisive victory in the struggle with the forces of chaos and death, (2) the announcement of victory by a witness to the combat, and (3) the appropriate response by those who hear.9
(1) The proclamation of victory. Jesus’ clash with Satan in the desert clearly did not end in a tie because the preaching of the good news of God that immediately follows is the proclamation of victory. God has entered the fray; the world is under a new governance.10 And Jesus came to Galilee, where Herod Antipas reigned and menaced God’s messengers, to proclaim the new reality that the transcendent God, who speaks from heaven, is on the loose, giving his Spirit, the authority to forgive sins, and the power both to destroy the bondage of demons and to heal every malady. The victory peals throughout Jesus’ ministry in many ways in commands and announcements. “Be quiet!” “Come out of him!” “Be clean!” “Your sins are forgiven!” “Your faith has made you well!” “Be opened!” “He has risen! He is not here.” Christians are not to be defeatist but confident in their proclamation that the victory has already been won.
(2) The announcement of victory. Jesus is confident that God has prepared the end of the age of this world. The kingdom of God has come near and is about to foreclose on the bankrupt kingdoms of this world. Christians need to give evidence of the victories that are being won. Peter Wagner, for example, writes in correspondence with Walter Wink that the small city of Almolonga, Guatemala, was transformed by the gospel from a “center of human misery: disease, poverty, strife, alcoholism, marital infidelity and violence” into a “community of prosperity, health, harmony and peace with over 90% of the inhabitants born again Christians and with churches instead of bar rooms on every street.”11
(3) Response by those who hear. Many an offertory prayer has dedicated the gifts for the building of the kingdom. The truth is that we do not build the kingdom with our paltry offerings, nor can we advance it with our programs. We are not the ones who have crowned Jesus as Christ and Lord; God did, and God’s reign on earth does not depend on the feeble obedience of God’s people. Human beings do not bring in God’s reign; God does. Human actions do not create the actions of God; rather, God’s actions create and transform human actions—or at least those persons who look to the actions of God with wholehearted expectancy.12 All we can do is decide to take our stand for or against God, for or against Satan, and to repent or not to repent in response to God’s initiative toward us. The community lives by repentance and faith since, as the story reveals, it consists of people who are far from perfect. The church needs to continue Jesus’ appeal for repentance both inside and outside the church.
The preaching of repentance, however, encounters at least four obstacles today. (a) People tend to wince when they hear talk of repentance because that cry has so often been used to harangue others. Grim defenders of a godly lifestyle—one that happens to conform to their own—have tended to pronounce others guilty and to heap reproaches on them. This negative attack tends more often than not to repel people from the gospel rather than draw them to it. The situation is much like what would have happened had the elder brother in Jesus’ parable, who slaved faithfully but bitterly in the fields, met his prodigal brother first as he was coming down the road. The prodigal would have hit such a buzz saw of scolding from this supposedly upright brother that he probably would have made a quick U-turn to go back to the far country and his pigsty rather than proceed any further into the waiting arms of his father. In contrast, Jesus’ call to repent is not a caustic reprimand but an invitation to switch allegiances. He offers a summons, welcoming people to respond to God’s initiative. God is unleashing a new power that makes repentance possible.13
(b) Another problem in preaching repentance to our generation is created by the human penchant to become infuriated at anyone who would dare to tell us we need to change. This is compounded by a stubborn refusal to take our sinful state seriously. We would like to pin the blame on someone or something else, and everybody today seems to qualify as a member of some victim group.
We are too much like Aaron, who tried to duck taking any responsibility for the incident with the golden calf. When Moses asked him why he did such a thing, he did not confess, “I have sinned and brought great sin upon the people! Let God blot my name out of the book of life, but do not hold this sin against the people.” Instead, he tried to wriggle out of any personal guilt with a lame excuse: “They brought me their gold, and all I did was toss it into the fire and, would you believe, out came that calf” (cf. Ex. 32:21–24). In other words, the furnace must be to blame. Aaron passed over in silence his agency in collecting the gold, fashioning it with a graving tool, watching over it in the furnace, setting it up on the pedestal, and declaring a feast day for all the people to worship (32:1–6). Perhaps our innate human pride causes us to try to elude our guilt and pass the buck.
This pride first reared its ugly head with Adam. Adam tried to blame both Eve and God for his sin: “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it” (Gen. 3:12). And Eve tried to shift blame to the serpent: “The serpent deceived me, and I ate” (3:13). The problem is that when we lose any sense of sin and responsibility, we also lose any burning desire for pardon. If we do not admit that we have a problem, then we do not get down on our knees and come to God for the solution.
(c) Our contemporary culture has a shallow view of sin. Many have no sense that they have rebelled against God. Some even argue that there is no such thing as sin, and they are perplexed and dismayed by how so many Christians in history have been tormented by their sin. This superficial attitude is satirized in a rewriting of the “Prayer of General Confession” from the Old Book of Common Prayer:
Benevolent and easy-going Father: we have occasionally been guilty of errors of judgment. We have lived under the deprivations of heredity and the disadvantages of environment. We have sometimes failed to act in accordance with common sense. We have done the best we could in the circumstances; and have been careful not to ignore the common standards of decency; and we are glad to think that we are fairly normal. Do thou, O Lord, deal lightly with our infrequent lapses. Be thy own sweet Self with those who admit they are not perfect; According to the unlimited tolerances which we have a right to expect from thee. And grant us as indulgent Parent that we may hereafter continue to live a harmless and happy life and keep our self-respect.14
(d) Finally, our contemporary culture has a shallow view of repentance. The call to repent has been heard so many times before that many have had enough inoculations of repentance to keep from getting the real thing. Many have washed, deodorized, and perfumed their spiritual lives through a variety of religious rituals and believe that they have done their duty before God while countless unconfessed sins lurk within. They are like King Claudius in Hamlet who asks, “May one be pardon’d and retain the offense?” (the murderous ambition, the crown, the queen; Act 3, Scene 3); or like King Herod in Auden’s For the Time Being, who boasts: “I like committing crimes; God likes forgiving them. Really, the world is admirably arranged.” Or we may have become a little cynical about it all. We have seen people get teary-eyed and walk the aisle, but it doesn’t seem to take—like Huck Finn’s alcoholic pappy:
The old drunk cried and cried when Judge Thatcher talked to him about temperance and such things. Said he’d been a fool and was agoing to turn over a new leaf. And everyone hugged him and cried and said it was the holiest time on record. And that night he got drunker than he had ever been before.
Schweizer comments that repentance does not refer to changing the characteristics or the actions of the person but the total direction of life.15 One needs to turn around, which requires more than a catharsis of tears and a little firecracker pop in one’s life. Something internal needs to happen that can be infinitely costly to self-esteem. It means being willing to get down low and become as a slave (Mark 9:35–36; 10:42–44) or as a little child (10:15–16), and being willing to give up trusting in oneself to allow God to take control. For some, it only requires that they open a “clenched fist a little and turn it, empty, toward God.”16 For all, it requires a change of outlook, expectations, and commitments.
The call also “to believe in the gospel” indicates that repentance is not an end in itself but the first step of faith. Where faith is absent in the characters in the story, it must be because repentance is absent. Only those who have turned their lives toward God will be able to see and believe what is not self-evident to others, because the evidence is not compelling but veiled and paradoxical. Marshall notes the difference between rational belief and trust:
Rational belief is essentially involuntary; a person cannot arbitrarily choose to believe on the spot; it is something that happens to him or her in light of the evidence. Trust, however, is voluntary, an act of the will. Or, again, belief can exist without it immediately affecting one’s conduct, whereas trust requires certain consequent actions in order to exist.17
Rational belief is sterile and powerless if it does not lead to trust that affects the way one lives. We see this trusting belief in the next episode—the call of the disciples.