The kingdom of God is come near...

This is the text of Sunday's sermon.

Sermon in a sentence: Lent is a time when we open ourselves to the activity of God so that our faith, and the faith of others, can be deepened.

Word order is important. (mirror signal manoeuvre )

Listen to what Jesus says, and the order in which he says them: The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news.

Jesus first words in Mark’s gospel describe a process-experience God, reorientate your life, accept the truth as being a something worth sharing.

The kingdom of God is near

Obviously when Jesus said this there was God stood in the room with people, and signs of his kingdom became more and more evident wherever he went-people who had been excluded from society became included, people who were sick or afflicted were set free from their burdens, people without hope were given a future.

How have you experienced God in the past? What have you seen of his kingdom? How did it affect you?

What might it look like if the kingdom of God came near in this area? How would people know who aren’t church-goers?

Repent

Not saying sorry, Greek work means literally to be ‘other minded’-it evokes an image of heading in a different direction-repenting is turning, it’s the pivot point. One of the most significant moments in anyone’s life is when they first turn towards Christ, even if they have yet to take a step in His direction or to make any sort of decision. Because by turning towards him they can see more of him.

• repentance is an ongoing process. Ancient Greek has slightly different tenses to English. It has something called a present continuous. We are transformed and we go on being transformed. Repentance is something that is best understood as a present continuous-we turn to Christ and we go on turning to Christ. Lent offers us the opportunity to focus on which way we are facing in aspects of our lives that we may not have really thought about before. So although on Ash Wednesday we are marked with ashes, a symbol of sorrow and mourning, as I said during the service, our focus as we begin Lent is not so much on all we have to be sorry for but on how amazing God is in his acceptance of us, and from a place of gratitude we identify what more we can do to bring our lives further into line with His will for us. On Ash Wednesday I made it explicit that today is the day, here and now, that we are offered the opportunity to step into the forgiveness already won for us by the cross of Christ. It’s not a new batch of forgiveness that we are asking for by saying an extra sorry-we are simply opening ourselves up to accept what has already been given. That’s why I offered people the opportunity to perhaps open up something to God that they have never done before, some old wound or sorrow, something they may have said or done that they would actually rather bury. Repentance is turning away from a way of living, of thinking, of being in stages, but we don’t just bury our pasts or pretend they didn’t exist. We offer them to God to receive his blessing and his pardon. And it is an amazing thing to do. It liberates us. It literally sets us free. Lent is a great time to step into that, but actually it can happen any day of the week, month or year.

• evangelism might seem less scary if we saw it in terms of helping people to turn towards Christ rather than in terms of telling them about him or trying to win disciples.

Believe the good news

Believe the good news. During Lent we ask ourselves ‘do I believe it?’ and ‘do I believe that it really is good news’? Because if we do we won’t be able to stop ourselves from sharing it.

This years lent course is about being mission-shaped. Traditionally Lent courses are introspective affairs, helping us to delve deeper into our inner beings as we seek those places of repentance to offer to God. Which is all good. But just as important is the fact that our experience of God and our reorientation of our lives leads us to a deeper understanding of the gospel, the “good news”. And as we reflect on the fact that our faith is built upon something that we know to be good news, so our realisation grows that it isn’t just good news for us. Our faith is not just about our personal salvation, but about good news for the whole world.

During the course on Thursday we reflected a bit on the fact that there is often a tension in churches between worship (the ‘me and God’ bit) and mission (the ‘change the world’ bit). Such a tension is not necessary because if the kingdom of God is come near and we have reorientated our lives then the ‘me and God’ and the ‘change the world’ become so intertwined that we they can’t actually be separated. As we repent, changing how we think and how we interact with others, we will see more and more of God’s activity in the community around us as it is transformed, giving us more to be thankful for and deepening our sense of wonder and awe.

Ali and I are so excited to be here with you at SAaAS because, though you may be feeling tired and burdened in some aspects of life, and though you may be lacking in confidence in other aspects of life, (and what congregation isn’t?) what is abundantly clear here is that you are people who know that the gospel of Christ, of God become man who took our sins to the cross and rose again and reigns in heaven, is good news, good news to be celebrated and to be shared.

So as we journey together through Lent, let us take the opportunity to reflect on what the kingdom of God coming near might look like in our lives and in this community, let us continue to orientate ourselves to Christ, repenting of what was in order to become who God wants us to be, and let us build each other up in our belief of the good news, the good news that we are set free and so is this community in which we are set and called to serve through bringing God’s transformative love.

And let us keep a holy Lent.

Amen.