Having been baptised by his cousin, John, and having spent a significant period of challenging time in the wilderness, Jesus launches his earthly ministry.
As Douglas Hare (Mark) comments – “The Messiah has been commissioned and empowered at the Jordan, tested in the wilderness, and is now ready to fulfil his role.”
As has been the case with everything so far, Mark describes this next step in the story very succinctly. We are given a time. It is after John was arrested. We are given a place. It is in Galilee. And we are given the essence of the message, which is identified as good news. Under that general heading of ‘good news’, four points are named which summarise the message.
In the first place, Jesus tells his listeners that it’s time, time for something special, time for something new. The second element in the message is the proximity of the kingdom of God. The third point, which is a clear echo of John’s message, concerns repentance, and the fourth thing is a call to faith – believe in the good news.
In a sense the implication is that this message is so good that a response is inevitable, and the only appropriate response is that of repentance – and John has done well in proclaiming the right preparatory message. It is certainly true, as Hare says, that “for Mark, Jesus’ entire ministry, including his death and resurrection, signifies that the time has come and that God’s rule is at hand. His ministry in itself constitutes a call for repentance and faith.”
Mark thus quickly launches Jesus into ministry and, right from the beginning, the defining element of his ministry is that he talks a great deal about the kingdom of God. Jesus, as we will discover, will do all sorts of things and meet all sorts of people, but the really important thing is that he is here to announce the kingdom of God. It is a ‘kairos’ moment, kairos being the appointed time within the purpose of God.
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