Matthew 4. 12-17 with Mark 1. 15. New Year's Day

The time has come (Mark 1. 15).  "Time" here is the Greek word "Kairos" which means the right time; the moment of opportunity.  It is time for Jesus to launch into his ministry. A bit like today, New year's Day, is a moment of opportunity.  Jesus makes a new start, a new beginning in his work a new stage in Jesus' journey... but what does he bring to this new start? What's in his suitcase?

In the suitcase
He has a historical context.
When John (the baptiser - Jesus' cousin) was put in prison, Jesus began his work.  (Matt 4. 12; cf. Mark 1. 14)   We all have historical context.  We have a world we live in. And try as we may, we cannot go into 2012 without the rest of the world, without the rest of society. We cannot journey in to 2012 without some understanding the effect on us of our life in the world. We cannot journey in to 2012 without some understanding of what our history, our culture; our society is doing, what language it is speaking and what are the pathways of receptivity to the Good News of Jesus.  When John was put in prison, Jesus said "Now's the moment. Now's the time of opportunity.  It didn't look very much like a time of opportunity when Jesus began his mission.  It looked like a bad time to be a challenging preacher announcing the Kingdom of God. So today!  Len Sweet, an American Methodist with a significant ministry in discerning the trends in our society, recently wrote a book called "The Dawn mistaken for Dusk." We need to realise that there's a whole new world out there waiting to hear the Good News.

He has a home town, a family background.

Family gathering for a graduation

 When he stood up to speak in the synagogue in Nazareth (Luke 4. 16),  people must have thought, "He's back..."  But he wasn't back. Not really.   Matt 4. 13 (GNB) Says "he didn't stay in Nazareth. NIV, King James, etc have "leaving Nazareth." The word "leave" can mean, "Sail past"....   He wasn't for going back to his family, and settling down again to the way things had always been. Things could never be the same again.  He had started his work. But the things he had learned, the blessings and challenges of the place, the family, the friends where he had grown up, had helped shape him.  We have a home town, a family background.  That is in your suitcase: it has helped to shape you into what you are today.  So keep that picture in your suitcase. But that doesn't mean the whole family are in the suitcase. It doesn't mean we are going to go back to the good old days with Mum and Dad. It doesn't mean nostalgia. It doesn't mean we can't be healed from the pain, grow on from the wrong things we've learned, and become more like Jesus.

He has a spiritual experience.
Where was Jesus when he heard about John being put in prison?    He was out in the desert. Luke makes the point very clear by telling us about what happened to John earlier so he can take Jesus straight from the desert to Galilee.  Now out in the desert a number of things had happened to Jesus: his "Spiritual experience".
* He had been baptised by John in the Jordan.   (Bottle of water)
* He had heard God's voice and known the Holy Spirit touch his life.  (feather)
* He had spent a lot of time just being alone and thinking and praying.  (notebook/headphones)
* He had been tempted by the Devil (stone)
* He had been helped by angels. (Make and angel kit)
That's quite a rich spiritual experience.  That's why we have a story sack. It's not enough to be a Bible-reading, Bible-believing Christian. We need to be bible-experiencing, Bible-doing Christians. The older I get, the more embarrassed I get about being a Bible-believing Christian. Not because I don't believe the Bible: I do. Not because I'm ashamed of the gospel: I'm not. I love the Bible.  But I am embarrassed about the gap between Bible-believing and Bible-doing.

So what spiritual experience have you in your story sack?
You can't make certain things happen. You can't make angels come and help you. You can't make the Holy Spirit touch you. But you can push him away!
You can't stop certain things from happening. You can't prevent temptation from coming along. But you can learn to resist.
But there are carting things you can do?
* Have you obeyed Jesus' call to follow Jesus being baptised as a believer?
* Do you take time to be alone with God every day? And do you try to have a wee bit longer alone with God from time to time.
It's as we do our bit, by obedience and waiting, that we make it more likely that the angels will turn up, and that the enemy will be defeated in our lives.

Destination: Transformation
To the margins

Detail: Portsoy Old Harbour,
NE Scotland

And so Jesus begins his journey.  He is going to the seaside. He is going to the Northernmost city of Galilee, right on the edge of the river Jordan. Next stop, the foreign, pagan lands. This was Galilee of the gentiles.  It is at the seaside that he is going to collect his first followers: Peter and Andrew, James and John.  Men who speak the Doric. Now when I went to London to study in 1977 I became a celebrity overnight. I had a Scottish accent.  But now I'm back in Scotland I marvel at the serious, hardcore Scottish accent of the guys from the far North-east. The fishermen from Banff and Gardenstown. I heard one of them preach when I was up there on holiday, and it was amazing.  These guys sound more Scottish than the rest of us! One sentence the pastor of the Church said. Londoners would say, "What have I done now?" Fifers might say "Whit huv I done noo, eh?" In Banff they say, "Fit hae a daen noo?"  God calls us to make the journey to the edges, because he cares about the people on the edges. And he calls us to the edges, because it is from the edges that he wants to renew and build his church.

Challenge
From day one Jesus preaches a message that has two parts: a challenge and a promise: The challenge is to "repent".  That means a turn around, a change of mind. It's about you and me being transformed.  At the beginning of 2012 I call us to commitment to being disciples. To being personally, radically transformed by the Kingdom of god, as we turn away, quite deliberately, from our old ways of thinking and yield to God.

Promise
And the Promise is that the kingdom of God is at hand.  For us, that is about transformation in Rosyth.  Jesus never planned for the Church to do evangelism so as to keep the church going. He planned for the Church to engage in God's mission, to proclaim and to demonstrate the Good News, so the Kingdom of God can bring people to new birth, new life, new hope; and so that the fabric of our society can be transformed.

So as we enter into 2012 we do so committed to "Learning to show the father's love." And that means committed to personal transformation; and it means believing God to see our town transformed by the Kingdom.

© Gilmour Lilly January 2012