St. Mark 1:21-28

God’s best-kept secret is out!  The most profound mystery in the entire universe is revealed!  Epiphanied!  Uncovered!  Unwrapped!  If you want to know what’s on God’s mind, you didn’t have to go to Wiki-leaks to find out!  Or take a rocket ship up into space!    What’s leaking out all over the place? 

Well, you better hold on to your hats!  Buckle your seat belts!  Because the most decisive period in the universe has come!  The most important moment in the history of the world foretold by all the Old Testament prophets is now fulfilled!  And the Great Epiphany is this:  God Himself reigns on the earth!  God has come down from heaven and has established His kingdom in the here and now!  His administration of peace!  His dominion of forgiveness! His giving of salvation!

How does all this happen?

A preacher shows up! 

“Whoa!  Whoa!  Whoa!  You’ve got to be kidding Reverend!  A preacher?  We’ve had it up to here with preachers!  They’re about as reliable as …  no offense Reverend Kuhlman!  And now you’re telling us that we have to put up with another preacher?”

Yes.  That’s right!  Another preacher!  You’d better listen to Him! 

Who is he?  Well, He’s Jesus!  The Virgin’s Son!  God’s own Son!  Only begotten Son!  God of God!  Light of light!  Very God of very God!  God in the flesh Jesus!  Word made flesh Jesus!  Very Word of God that dwells in our midst!  Preacher Jesus!

When you see Jesus you see God! When you hear Jesus you hear God!  Everything He teaches and preaches is God’s very own Word! 

And so Jesus isn’t like most preachers you hear!  Most preachers say:  “I’d like to share some thoughts with you today.  Give you something to think about.”  Or they drone on and on giving one illustration or tearjerker story after another. 

Jesus, however, declares categorically:  “Listen to me!  Truly, truly I say unto you!  This is the Word of the Lord!  The time has come!  It is fulfilled!  Repent and believe the good news!” 

Jesus preaches with “authority!”  And what authority He has!  The very authority of God Himself!  Because He is God -- reigning and moving on the earth!  God in the flesh! 

So He preaches authoritatively:  Time to die to your sin folks!  This is it!  I warn you!  Don’t hold any of your sin outside My forgiveness!  You can’t deal with it!  You can’t handle it!  You think you can!  But that’s all a lie!  Don’t insist on dealing with your sin apart from Me – the Preacher! 

So confess it!  Tell the truth!  Get it off your chest!  Let me have it!  All of it!  That’s what I’m here for!  I’m here to forgive you!  I’m here to wrap you up in My bloody wounds!  I’m here to do the salvation job!  The Good Friday task!  For you!” 

“Your salvation is at stake here folks!  Heaven depends on Me taking all your sin, in fact, becoming sin, on the cross!  Because in the end either your sin will be on Me or on you!  If you insist on carrying them, then you will.  And you’ll die and be damned in them!  But I’m here to tell you – truly, truly I say unto you --  I’m here for you.  I’m here to give you My innocence in exchange for all your sin!”      

That’s when the synagogue / church service gets pretty dicey!  All hell breaks loose in the middle of the sermon! Satan raises his ugly head when that kind of categorical preaching goes on!  “Just then a man in the synagogue who was possessed by an evil spirit cried out:  ‘What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth?  Have you come to destroy us?  I know who you are – the Holy One of God!’”   

Whoa!  The evil spirit gives a shout out!  Leaks out the truth about this Preacher named Jesus!  He is the Holy One of God!  And therefore the demon’s adversary!  Capable of unleashing the almighty power of God against himself and his red dragon master Satan! 

“Shut up!  Be muzzled you evil demon! You’re not allowed to preach here!  You’re not in charge!  I am!  So get out!”

And Preacher Jesus’ word does what it says:  an exorcism!  “The evil spirit shook the poor possessed church member violently and came out of him with a shriek.”   

What a church service!  Divine service!  The Lord’s service! Preaching, teaching, and an exorcism!  God’s roaming the earth! All heaven breaks loose!  His Word proclaimed, demons defeated, and people redeemed and restored!  Through the Preacher!  The Holy One of God -- Jesus Himself!  Absolutely stunning!  Amazing!

He’s done it for you too!  You too are forgiven!  All your sin is His!  All His perfection is yours!  At your Baptism He put His most holy Name on you!  At your Baptism He told Satan to shut up – to be muzzled – and to come out of you!  You now belong to Jesus!  He claimed you as His own! 

How can all this be?  Is it really true?  Yes, it is!  Because Jesus has been given all authority in heaven and on earth!  Divine authority!  The only authority that holds!  That lasts!  The authority of His dying for you!  His rising for you!  And His authoritative words for you today:  “given and shed for you for the forgiveness of your sins.” 

Now that’s a Preacher!  Thank God for this Preacher!  His words give what they say!  His crucified, risen and ascended Body and Blood!  For you!  And with Jesus’ words Satan is forevermore muzzled!  The red dragon is not allowed to speak!  Jesus does!  With His words a miracle!  A miracle of all miracles by the Lord Himself.  Forgiveness!  Life!  Salvation!  Through His authoritative and categorical promise: “Given and shed for you for the forgiveness of your sins.” 

In the Name of Jesus.

St. Mark 1:14-20

The Lord Jesus, God the Father’s beloved Son, anointed with the Holy Spirit Jesus the Christ, steps up into the Galilean pulpit. 

He comes to preach.  Preachers preach.  That’s precisely what you expect.  But this Preacher is God’s own Word in the flesh!  “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”  When Jesus preaches this is God Himself preaching.  Jesus’ voice is God’s voice!  Jesus has a Word from God in His mouth.  On His lips!  His Word is God’s Word!

Better pay attention to His sermon!  Time to wake up!  Pay attention!  If you ever said, “If I ever have a opportunity to hear Jesus preach …” HERE IS YOUR CHANCE!   He’s in the Galilean pulpit today.

First sermons are usually forgettable!  I can’t remember my first sermon.  I can’t even remember last week’s!  And most of my sermons are pretty pathetic – quite forgettable really --even after 20 years.  You probably wonder if I’ll ever learn how to preach!

But that’s NOT how it is with the Lord!  Even with His first sermon!  He needs no learning curve.  He’s on the top of His game from the very beginning.  Comes right of the Jordan River baptismal water as the master preacher!  Preaching is His cup of tea. 

He preached the entire universe into existence.  He preached to condemned Ninevah through runaway Jonah  “Forty more days and Ninevah will be destroyed!”   And lo and behold -- “Drats and double drats!” To the chagrin of Jonah “the Ninevites believed God!” 

The preached Word of Jesus through Jonah repented and faithed the most hated enemies of Israel! Jonah’s sermon did just the opposite of what Jonah wanted!  The sermon brought these bitter foes of Israel to repentance and faith!  That’s huge!  Jonah wasn’t in control.  Jesus was.  Through His preached Word! 

And now in Galilee Jesus preaches His church into existence!  He gathers a new Israel around Himself as He preaches!  At first, a small group of believers that He calls to faith!  And their lives are never the same again!         

Lord God Preacher Jesus doesn’t waste any time.  Not only is it His first sermon but one of the shortest of all time.  No need to check your watch to see how long it drags on!  He gets right to the point.  To the very heart of the matter!  The matter between Him and you – or you and Him!  What it means to be His disciple!  His follower!  A Christian!         

And it goes this way:  “Discipleship is about being disciplined in two things!  Repentance and faith!  Repent and believe the good news!”    Now that’s quite a sermon isn’t it?  “Repent and believe!”   That last thing you’d ever expect!  You thought that you’d moved beyond all that! 

Not if you want to follow the Lord Jesus!  But that’s what He wants!  That’s His will!  For you!  For your life as a disciple of the Lord Jesus!  

“Repent.”  He calls and wills you to repent.  To turn you from your sin!  To battle against your sin!  That your old Adam or old Eve be put to death!  He would discipline you in repentance!  Every day and all your life!  So that you do not die eternally in your sin!  So that God’s wrath against you for your sin does not rest on you!      

And “Believe!” Believe what? “Believe the good news.”   The good news that “the time [of salvation] has come!  The reign of divine forgiveness is here and now!”  In the very man who stands in Galilee’s pulpit!  In, with, and under Preacher Jesus, God reigns on the earth in the midst of sinners!  Not to condemn them!  But to forgive them!  Of every and all sin!  His reign of forgiveness extends to all and to you!     

So, “repent and believe the good news.”  This is what it means to be a disciple of Jesus! 

Jesus wants disciples.  For that He calls men into the office of the holy ministry.  He starts out with two pairs of brothers.  All four are fishermen. Simon Peter and Andrew.  James and John.   To be “fishers of men.”  In other words, to preach Jesus as the crucified and risen Savior in order catch sinners in the nets of His forgiveness!

Through the preaching of His Word you have been caught!  And through Baptism too!  “Make disciples … by baptizing in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 28:19).  You’ve been fished and caught in the net of Jesus’ reign on the earth!  His gracious reign of forgiveness.    

What sin do you have?  You have Adam and Eve’s original sin!  And from that flows all kinds of naughty stuff – especially the worship of yourself.  Idolatry!  So curved in on yourself that you have no use for Jesus!  Don’t need Him for anything!  Follow Him?  Really?  So curved in on yourself that you have no desire to help and live for others!  Little divinities in your own little divinity worlds!

And so it’s time to be disciplined again with the disciple of Jesus Himself.  From His first sermon!

“Repent!”  Turn from your sin!  And then use Jesus properly!  Use Him in faith against your sin!  “Believe the good news,” that He is indeed the only Savior who bore all your sin!  Who says to you today:  “I forgive you!”  And with a sermon like that you’re caught in His net.  You’re His disciples, His little fishies!  Swimming with Him, Big Fish Jesus, in the water of Holy Baptism where He walked by and called you to be His disciple!  Where he gathered you into His church!

Happy being His disciples.  Always following Jesus who died for you in repentance and faith!  It is the life of discipleship!  An your lives are never the same again!

In the Name of Jesus.