Repent and Believe in the Gospel

Sermon Epiphany 3

January 22, 2012

“Repent and Believe in the Gospel”

Mark 1:14‐20

Typically, in our lectionary, the Old Testament reading and the Gospel reading are correlated in some way. They usually have a similar theme. They reinforce each other. While the epistle reading simply marches us through the letter in consecutive readings each week. This week however the themes of all the readings match up. They all convey a sense of urgency, of immediacy.

In our Old Testament reading we hear the prophet Jonah call out in the God defying city of Nineveh, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” In our epistle reading we hear the Apostle Paul’s warnings, “brothers: the appointed time has grown very short” and “the present form of this world is passing away.”

In our Gospel reading we hear the Savior proclaim, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” All three of these acclamations call for and even cause an immediate change. They are a wake up call and they do just that they wake you up.

Most of us like to run at an even keel. That nautical idiom which means calm and not likely to change suddenly, in a steady and well‐balanced situation (the keel is the bottom of a boat or ship and when the boat is on an even keel it is balanced). It does not sway to much to the left or port side or to the right the starboard side. This is usually the case on a sail boat when you are sailing with the wind. The wind pushes you forward and you glide along.

However, for you to turn around and go in the opposite direction, that is to sail into the wind requires much more effort. One must tack back and forth at 45 degree angles to the wind. As you tack the boat rocks to port or to starboard depending on your direction sometimes the angle of the boat is such that the edge of the deck almost touches the water. We have seen dramatic pictures in the news of the cruise liner Costa Concordia in Italy off her keel. Suffice to say to sail against the wind requires more effort than sailing with the wind. One could be motionless and rudderless and still sail with the wind.

Our baptismal liturgy, in particular, Luther’s baptismal prayer following the analogy of St. Peter, identifies the church with a boat, with Noah’s Ark and so even today nautical terms are still used to describe church architecture. As you look up from the Nave, where you are seated one can imagine the center beam to be like the keel at the bottom of a ship.

To go along with wind requires very little effort or no effort it is the default direction. In fact everyone on the boat could be lifeless and the wind will carry it along. In reality we are not on a boat and unless there is an earthquake our church here does not rock or move. However spiritually there are forces at work. For us it is not the winds that blow us in one direction or the other but it is influence of culture and the world, a culture and world that is spiritually dead and in decay, a culture and world that goes the opposite of its Creator’s intention. When God’s law says that we are subordinate to one another (Ephesians 5:21), the culture and our sinful flesh says that you are number one and are accountable to no one.

Where our Lord has established vocations in order to serve one another, the culture tells us to use them to serve ourselves. Where God establishes natural orders that respect the distinctions between men and women the culture blurs those distinctions promoting egalitarianism and ambiguity. Where God institutes marriage between a man and a woman, the culture creates chaos and uses self centered passions and lusts to promote same sex marriage. What is called love is really justified self‐centeredness.

The spiritually dead church recognizes no head is without the rudder of the scriptures. Everyone does what they feel is right in their own eyes. The morals and practices of the church are indistinguishable from that of the world. So with little effort it goes lifelessly the path of the world.

The message of Jesus still rings true for the church today, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”

“The time is fulfilled, the Kingdom of God is at hand,” there is a sense of urgency in this proclamation. The promised Christ has entered the world and He is changing the direction of those He has created. Jesus’ call to repent turns His church from a lifeless path to one of life.

This is not the path of least resistance. Rather it is a path that goes against the wind, that flies in the face of the wisdom of our time. Jonah’s proclamation caused the proud citizenry of Nineveh to put on sackcloth and humble themselves before the Lord. They were turned from their naturally sinful ways to the way of the Lord. They did not wait to start repenting. It happened immediately.

So much more does our Lord’s call to repent and believe the Gospel cause the new man, the new spirit given to you and in your baptism to come to life. Jesus’ call to you is like the call to Lazarus dead in the tomb to come out, to change the direction from into the tomb to out of the tomb. The pious and religious old Adam within us urges caution. It says don’t change or turn to fast. Don’t rock the boat. Stay on an even keel. But Jonah, Paul and Jesus’ call, requires an immediate change in direction. The stakes are too high your very life eternal is at stake. “Repent and believe in the Gospel!”

Jesus calls His apostles then and the office of the ministry now to join Him in this proclamation. The apostle’s response is immediate they leave their fishing boats to become fishers of men. The proclaimed message of the Gospel serves as a net to pull those spiritually dead to life in the boat of the church, where they are nourished by God’s Word and Sacraments. The old Adam believes it can wait to turn, it procrastinates. God’s Word is clear: “If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left” (Heb. 10:26).

To believe in the Gospel is to hear His Word that He, Jesus has been sacrificed for your sins, for your disobedience. His one sacrifice has turned your verdict from guilty to innocent. This frees us to follow Him to follow His word, all of it, to walk in the newness of life, immediately against the winds of the culture.

This is message we cannot hear just once but continually because daily and continually we sin. We need the discipline of regularly hearing of God’s Word which causes us to turn to Him and cry out in prayer. It turns us from our own selfish interests to those of our Lord who wishes for all to hear the Gospel and to be gathered in around His table to receive His Sacrament and hear His words “given and shed for you.” Now is the time to repent and believe in the Gospel.