As Mark 1:14–20 records the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry, Mark is focusing on the heart of Jesus’ work and pointing you to the appropriate way to respond.
The kingdom of God has come to you. The time is fulfilled and the kingdom is at hand. The time is fulfilled. The time is God’s appointed moment. The public preaching of Jesus announces the fulfillment, the last time. The term has overtones of judgment, parallel to “the day of the Lord” in the Old Testament. God himself prepared the time. He sent his Son in the fullness of time, Galatians 4:4. The redemptive work of the Son happens in time, Ephesians 1:10. The expression looks back over the entire Old Testament: the promise in Eden, the covenant with Abraham, the Exodus from Egypt and other deliverances, the intercessory work of the priests (including the whole sacrificial system), the prophets, proclaiming the day of the Lord, the kings—David and others, implementing the kingdom—though frequently very imperfectly. Now the time is fulfilled. It has come. The kingdom is a reality.
The kingdom is at hand. “At hand” or “near” means close, very close, but still future. Christ can speak of it as coming, Mark 9:1, and yet also as something that has been fulfilled, that has arrived, Luke 4. The kingdom is God’s kingdom. The idea includes both his rule, and those over whom he rules. You cannot think of the kingdom apart from the King. The King is present, and yet this is just the beginning of his public ministry. Who he is and what he has come to do is just starting to unfold. The prologue has set the stage. It has given you a glimpse behind the curtain (parallel to the first two chapters of Job), identifying Christ and speaking both of the approbation by the Father and the conflict with Satan. Now, with Mark 1:14, we are in the bustle of daily life. The location is Galilee. Jesus is no longer out in the wilderness, but is where the people are. The presence and growing power of the kingdom will be seen in the preaching of Jesus (verse 27), in the calling of the disciples, in the conflicts with demons (verse 23), and in the miracles of healing. The power and effects of sin are rolled back. Your life in the kingdom of God continues to have that already/not yet tension. The King has come. He has redeemed you. But you have not been snatched immediately into heaven (nor have the new heavens and earth arrived). You live and serve your King in a world that is still under the curse of sin, where the conflict between Christ and the prince of darkness continues to have ripple effects in the lives even of God’s people.
“The kingdom of God, which was foretold and expected by the prophets, in which God would be king and his will the delight of everyone, which in origin and character is a heavenly kingdom and already present in heaven now (Matt. 6:10) — that kingdom is now coming on earth and is near (Mark 1:15). But tying in with those expectations, Jesus immediately introduced a big change. From the Jewish tradition he went back to Scripture and interpreted that kingdom, not first of all as a political but as a religious-ethical dominion. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Mark 12:26), the God of Israel (Matt. 15:31) whom Jesus recognizes and confesses as his God is also and before all else king (Matt. 5:35; 18:23; 22:2), the Lord of heaven and earth. At the same time, he is the Father in heaven, who in his kingdom wants to rule as a Father over his children.”
Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, Vol. 3, p. 246
Repent and believe! Turn from sin. Because the kingdom is God’s kingdom, it is characterized by his righteousness and justice. Note the focus on that in Isaiah 32, as well as in Isaiah 6:1–3; 63:1–3. Paul reminds you that the kingdom is not food and drink, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit, Romans 14:17. God is perfectly righteous. We are sinners—and the wages of sin is death. The news of the kingdom is a summons to repent, to turn away from sin. Repentance is more than feeling sorry for sin. It involves hating it, rejecting it, and seeking by God’s grace to turn from it. An important part of your daily life, also an important part of preparing to come to the Lord’s Table, is repentance. Both the term and the concept have fallen into disuse, even in Christian circles. But Jesus commands you to repent. And that is something he calls you to do each day. Repent specifically. Stop making excuses for your sins, and turn from them.
Trust the Redeemer. Faith (or believing) is the opposite side of the coin of repentance. Repentance is turning away from sin. Believing is turning to God in Christ Jesus. Believe the good news. The good news is not just that God has made salvation possible. Rather, it is the news that Christ has come as the substitute for sinners. Mark’s Gospel introduced you to Jesus as he came to John, who was baptizing sinners, to receive baptism from him. That identification with sinners continues through the Gospel. He not only eats and drinks with them, shattering the hypocritical standards of the leaders of Israel, but he identifies with sinners by bearing the guilt and punishment of their sin, suffering and dying in their place on the cross. The command to believe the good news is an instruction to trust, not in yourself, not in anything you are or do, but only in the work of Jesus Christ in your place. The news is good because of what Christ has done in your place. The news is good because the great King who establishes his kingdom is also your Savior and your Lord. Live each moment of this week as one who recognizes that the good news of the kingdom has swept over your life.
“[Mark’s] interest in the history of Christ indeed is not that of the modern biographer or historian. It is rather that of one who has set as his goal the aim to present the glad tidings concerning Jesus Christ, the Son of God…. It had to do with the joyful significance of the appearance and action of the Son of God in Galilee and Jerusalem.”
Ned B. Stonehouse, The Witness of Matthew and Mark to Christ, p. 37
Follow the King!. Fishing includes a warning of judgment as well as good news. Jesus has just announced that the time has been fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand. You might expect some dramatic, earthshaking event to take place. But Jesus takes an ordinary walk beside the ordinary Sea of Galilee, past some ordinary looking fishermen who are doing what fishermen ordinarily do. And it is these, and people like them, that Jesus gathers to be his followers. The message of the good news included a call to repent. And there is a hint of that in Jesus summoning his disciples to be fishers of men. You picture a freckle-faced, barefoot by with a homemade fishing pole—a Norman Rockwellian image. But in the Old Testament, it is God who fishes for men, and he does so in judgment, Ezekiel 29:4,5; 38:4; Amos 4:2, Jeremiah 16:16. Think, instead, of “The Deadliest Catch.” That Old Testament background is there as a warming for those who reject the King—but the focus of Jesus’ work is on the good news. The preaching of Jesus begins the work of fishing. The authority of the King defeats the powers of darkness. He confronts demons, heals, and preaches with authority. Those activities anticipate the crucial battle–the death and resurrection of Christ. But Christ is not only judging the kingdom of darkness, he is also atoning for his people and making the good news a reality for them. The good news is that Jesus Christ is the King who has come to bear their sins, to pay the penalty for them, and to make those who trust him part of his victorious kingdom. He is fishing for men as he summons Simon, Andrew, James, and John to follow him. They, in turn, particularly after Jesus’ resurrection, will summon others to follow Jesus, and in so doing, this fishing will prove to be good news to those who hear and respond.
King Jesus calls you to commitment. Jesus expects you to be committed to him. His abrupt summons recalls Elijah’s call of Elisha. Jesus has the authority—and he uses it. Fishing involves hard work, as these men knew. You are called to union with your Savior, to following him in all that you do. That may be service as a missionary or in the ministry. Do pray that God will raise up from this congregation those who will go throughout this land and to foreign nations with the good news! But Jesus summons to follow him is just as much a call to be faithful in using the abilities the Lord has given you in every area of your life. It may mean being a more productive employee—or a more compassionate employer. It may involve change in the way you treat family members. It may involve a basic re-direction of your life.
Listen to the good news that Jesus himself proclaims. He calls you to turn from sin and to place your trust in him, not only something that happened at the beginning of your Christian walk, but also something that happens week by week and day by day. And as you do, he invites and commands you to follow him.