Preached at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Taylor, Epiphany II 2024. A reflection on the moment when Jesus’s ministry broke forth in earth.

Trust in him at all times, you people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge. – Psalm 62:8 

The fullness of time had come. The prophets had proclaimed, published, repeated and confirmed the coming of David’s greater son who would heal the nations and restore God’s people to their purpose. He would suffer to deliver his people, and his reign would last for ever. Last week we heard how John the Baptist had prepared the way for the coming of the Lord, repeating in the wilderness what had been proclaimed in Jerusalem about the coming King. Repent now God’s people; he cried. Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand. Last week how Jesus came to him, how he was baptized and anointed for his ministry, how heaven proclaimed him God’s Son in whom he was well pleased, and how he endured temptation in the wilderness beyond the wild.

Today we encounter him proclaiming again exactly what John the Baptist had been proclaiming before. This is so we may see the connection between promise and fulfillment that is happening here. Repent for the kingdom of heaven is breaking forth, turn to the way of the Lord. The King has come. Jesus’s ministry begins with John’s promise.

There is a difference between Kairos time and Chronos time in Greek. The time that is being fulfilled here is historic not chronic. History is being filled, like a cup is being filled, more than you would fill a cup really, because time here is being filled to overflowing. God who is outside of time has come to dwell in time. All that had gone before was anticipation. All that comes after is transforming remembrance. This is the crux and end, as in purpose, of history, when he who wrote it inserts himself into the story. 

How many generations had the family of Zebedee spent fishing in Galilee? Through hard times and times of plenty they may have endured. What were they giving up to turn and follow Jesus? They gave it up in a moment. They left their father who had prepared a future for them behind. This was no ordinary invitation. They were being invited out of the ordinary human schedule and plan and into the breaking forth of what God was doing. They literally got up, turned, and followed. To repent means literally to turn. They turned and followed Jesus at the coming of his kingdom.

NT wright says that the repentance they were being called into was a turning not just from sin but also from hope. They had to turn, to learn to turn, from their expectations of the Messiah to the reality of he who had come. They had to turn from their hope in political ideologies and towards a true and radical hope in the sovereign living God who they could not contain, but who had gathered them.

Follow Jesus and it may cost you. It may cost you friends and family, home and work, stability and expectations, pleasures and vanities, ambitions and dreams. You will in truth lose your life in him. And in that loss you will gain an everlasting life. You will receive all things new, as they ought to be, as you ought to be to them.

The choice of the fishermen is no different from your choice. You get no other gods, you get no other non-negotiables, its ours to turn and trust and follow him. He will lead us to places and situations we could not have imagined. He will lead us through many trials and much pain. He will, if we can follow, lead us all the way to the grave on his terms and not ours. That’s ok though, he knows the way out. He prepares the way and the place for those he empowers to endure.

So come, you who hear the shepherd’s voice, come without delay. So come you who find in scripture words that will endure unto eternal life, there is nowhere else for you to go but him. So come and leave your agendas and sins and empty hopes behind. He sent James and John, Simon and Andrew out to fish for people, to gather them out of the deep dark waters of this world. Lay hold of the net and be gathered up. Come into the light of the world and see. Breath the air of God’s Holy Spirit the breath of the new life. For there is a hope worth having, hope in a king worth following, let us follow him. 

Trust in him at all times, you people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge. – Psalm 62:8